By now, Outside Lands attendees have come to expect a powerhouse lineup of Bay Area restaurants at the festival. In years past, organizers have recruited hot pop-ups to sling black-pepper beef tostadas and persuaded trendy restaurants to dish out more than 1,000 "trash pies” during the three-day event in Golden Gate Park. 

This year, however, the most exciting food newcomers share a different quality: nostalgia. 

For the first time, food-loving fans of Charli XCX and the Strokes will be able to grab a bowl of spicy rigatoni, a tower of crispy zucchini fries, or a crispy chicken Caesar salad wrap from Original Joe’s, the 96-year-old North Beach restaurant with spinoffs in Westlake and Walnut Creek. The family-owned and -operated restaurant group is a veritable powerhouse in the local dining scene, with six outposts that all require serious perseverance to land a reservation. 

Original Joe’s is not the only San Francisco classic to make its debut at this year’s Outside Lands. Balboa Cafe, the 113-year-old Cow Hollow restaurant, will be keeping attendees caffeinated with its  popular cold-foam-topped espresso martinis. For efficiency’s sake, they’ll be served on tap, alongside a food menu that includes chicken paillard sandwiches, chicken tenders, Caesar salad wraps, and chimichurri fries.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Outside Lands without a few hot, new restaurants in the mix. This year, Taste of the Bay Area — the restaurants accessible to anyone wearing a general admission wristband — will feature injera-accompanied Ethiopian platters from Meski, the scene-y Lower Nob Hill restaurant owned by the Warriors’ Draymond Green, and the viral vanilla-and-passion-fruit croissant cubes from Parachute, the 8-month-old bakery known for technically exquisite pastries and long lines. As a testament to the Bay Area’s newly resurgent bakery scene, Tano, a former pop-up, will bring its famous Japanese salt bread to the event, along with sourdough focaccia crazy bread and sesame-toffee-chocolate-chip cookies. 

This year will also see the return of only-at-Outside-Lands restaurant collaborations. Wise Sons, the SF-born Jewish deli mini-chain, and Outta Sight, the Tenderloin-born slice shop, will join forces on a menu of pizza bagels, cacio e pepe french fries, and hot pastrami dip sandwiches. Meanwhile, those who splurge on VIP passes can look forward to seeing one of 2025’s best newcomers, the fine-dining Filipino gem Restaurant Naides, which will serve barbecue pork and garlic rice bowls, beef tongue skewers, and lobster lumpia. 

For restaurants, getting the opportunity to cook at San Francisco’s premier music festival is no small feat. First, they have to win over food curator Tanya Kollar, whose full-time job includes recruiting, vetting, and coordinating the 100 vendors. Then they have to show up ready to feed some 225,000 hungry attendees.