I don't know how the food vendors particularly work at Pride. Some are obviously local restaurants that have set up a booth. Others are non-descript and only have labels for the type of food they're selling. For the non-descript ones, they may or may not be volunteers (I would assume the local restaurant vendors are paying the people who are working their booths). I went to one that was selling hot dogs, bratwurst, and a couple other types of sausages on a bun, along with pretzels, soda and a couple other things. I wanted 2 bratwurst. Turns out they were out of every sausage-type thing except for the regular small hot dogs. Sure whatever. It was about 3 in the afternoon so it's reasonable that they'd be out of things. Disappointing, but not unreasonable. I got 2 hot dogs and 2 pretzels for my girlfriend and me.
Later is when things got much more annoying. At a different vendor (one of the ones that had no restaurant name, just the types of food) I decided to try a fried Twinkie (read: diabetic coma on a stick). I got in line and waited. And waited and waited and waited some more. Thankfully all I wanted was a Twinkie because they were out of several things as well. It was the waiting that was the annoying part. I understand Pride Fest is a large event. There's a lot of people to serve. But I waited in line for 45 minutes (for a damned fried Twinkie that was good but ended up not being worth the wait) and only two or three people were served during that timeframe. I would've switched lines, but by the time I got frustrated enough to do so, I was the "next in line."
I really think this particular vendor (one of the largest in the food area) was staffed by volunteers because if the woman serving my line was an employee for a professional restaurant or caterer, I can't imagine how she would keep her job. She forgot people's orders and had to repeatedly ask them for their orders. She forgot some of the order for the guys in front of me and almost accused them of paying for less than what they did. Over the space of a minute, she forgot whether or not I had paid and what I ordered. It was obvious when I got up there why her line was moving so slow.
Compound all this with the fact that there was no shade in this area. This left me in the blistering sun for 45 minutes with no respite except for when a light breeze occasionally blew through and a couple random moments when clouds covered the sun. Thankfully I had plenty of sunblock because I burn easily.
So yeah, it wasn't the worst service ever, especially if the booth was manned by volunteers, but it was certainly annoying. Just wanted to vent about it.