If there's one thing that helped formalize and reinforce the food truck fad, it's Off the Grid, a network — or perhaps better to say wagon train — of food entrepreneurs whose trucks and tents gather again tonight to kick off the seventh season of Friday nights at Fort Mason Center.

Off the Grid can take some credit for helping to launch Bay Area food entrepreneurs from Senor Sisig to Curry Up Now to the Chairman (née Chairman Bao), catapulting those last two into popular brick-and-mortar destinations. The Fort Mason gathering, inspired by night markets popular from Asia to Northern Africa, remains Off the Grid's largest and most recognizable event, even if its food truck roundups are now more daily occurrence than novelty.

From 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Friday until October, Off the Grid has 13 food truck vendors returning — including Sisig, the Chairman, Lobsta Truck, and Johnny Doughnuts — plus 17 new vendors joining them. That cohort includes some you might recognize, like El Porteño's empanadas and Revenge Pie's, yes, pies.

“We choose a mix of established restaurants like A16, along with up-and-coming food entrepreneurs who we believe in and give them a venue to test their concept," Off the Grid founder Matt Cohen explains. That's also the case with Off the Grid's program Instrucktional, a two-year paid incubator program who will staff a rotating booth of their own. The first of those is Postrique, Elizabeth Miranda's sweet and savory churros operation.

Off the Grid's Friday night events have gotten more formalized themselves in past years, now that the events draws as many as 10,000 diners. Attendees can expect the usual, like string lights, a bar offering wines and craft cocktails, and dancing to live entertainment from rotating acts like Sacramento 9-piece ensemble Idea Team and returning regular DJ Sharp, the Warriors official DJ. But this year's set up has also been revisited, creating distinct areas with added seating and communal tables.

“Fort Mason Center has always been a great communal gathering, but this year we really wanted to focus on making the experience more comfortable, delicious and engaging,” says Cohen. “The best night markets in the world are integral to the nightlife of their communities. It was with that goal in mind that we were really inspired to update the format to better incorporate some of these aspects.”