For years now, food events purporting to have unlimited free beer tastings and tacos  have been luring in unwitting festivalgoers around the Bay Area, who apparently didn't do much Googling before wasting their money on the latest version in SF on Saturday.

An outfit called Blue Stream Entertainment hosted the West Coast Taco and Beer Festival at San Francisco's Midway on Saturday, and the event has occurred in multiple cities on the West Coast in the last several years. Each time one of these things occurs, attendees seem to take to Reddit and other online forums to call out the organizers for poorly organized experiences that are far less than what they purport to be.

The SF event promised some 30 vendors and "bottomless" beer tastings, but as the reviews come in, this sounds a whole lot like a similar taco and beer festival in San Jose that similarly disappointed most attendees in the summer of 2019. That was called the Bay Area Taco and Beer Festival, it also ran out of food quickly, drew a litany of complaints on Reddit, and a "7 on Your Side" investigation by ABC 7.

How has this roving "festival" been allowed to keep operating?

As one attendee on Saturday writes on Reddit, "I was expecting something similar to the Bay Area Brew Fest, which I've been to multiple times and is fairly high quality (short wait to get in, huge beer selection)." But, instead, he encountered a huge line at 2 pm Saturday, and when he ultimately got inside The Midway around 2:45 pm, "it's announced that the taco vendors were all out of food. Everything else inside was paid for, no 'bottomless' taco samples or 'unlimited' sample pours as advertised."

There were, however, cash bars inside, and about four tents slinging tacos, which had already run out.

As ABC 7 reports, not acknowledging the earlier investigation from 2019, many other attendees were disappointed as well and are seeking refunds.

"It was probably like almost an hour in line," said attendee Matt Jenkins, speaking to ABC 7. "They only had one person checking tickets at the front door, which was insane. I don't know, there were like probably over 1,000 people that were waiting in line."

The West Coast Taco and Beer Festival has this one shoddy website with no event information, a basic contact form, and just a few photos from a festival in an unidentified city. They also have this Instagram account, which is still advertising an August 31 iteration of the event in San Jose — with, purportedly "50+ food/drink vendors".

Blue Stream Entertainment gave a statement to ABC 7, saying they're "changing the format" for the San Jose event, where there will be no promises of free tacos. There are still "bottomless" beer samples, they say, included in the ticket price, but food will all be for sale.

"We're saddened to hear about the reaction we've had coming to San Francisco," the company says in a statement. "When we built this company, our mission was to bring a community together to celebrate local chefs and breweries. We are as transparent as we possibly can be and we understand the community's frustration with the long lines and the limited tastings. We are currently working with our vendors to improve future events to make sure that we hold our mission statement true and improve the guest experience."

One commenter on Reddit who says they attended Saturday's event says they asked for a refund through their credit card company and received it, calling it a "fraudulent event."

Previously: All-You-Can-Eat Taco Fest In San Jose Runs Out Of Tacos, Chaos Ensues