The City of St. Augustine, in collaboration with Flagler College and St. Augustine Sister Cities Association, hosted the first-ever St. Augustine Community Table on Wednesday, March 27.
This event was inspired by the El Bollo festival in St. Augustine’s sister city, Avilés, Spain. During the El Bollo festival, the people of Avilés line the streets of the city with tables and all the businesses in the city shut down. The people come together as a community to sit down and share a meal.
St. Augustine City Commissioner Cynthia Garris traveled to Avilés, Spain, in 2025, and experienced the El Bollo Festival first-hand.
“The streets were lined with tables as far as you could see and people were just sitting at the tables, sharing a meal, talking and laughing. It was so inspiring to see their community come together like that,” Garris said.
The community lunch took place on Sevilla Street between Valencia and King streets in the heart of downtown St. Augustine and the Flagler College campus. Flagler College Catering provided 300 lunches for this community event.
Because of space constraints, the cutoff for the event was 300 people, but with another 400 people on the wait list St. Augustine has already started thinking about the logistics of next year’s community table.
St. Augustine Sister Cities Association volunteers served as event ambassadors and table hosts. They spoke with guests and shared stories about their own experiences at El Bollo.
It is the hope of Garris and other St. Augustine elected officials that the community lunch enabled friends and community members to share a meal, have meaningful dialogue and walk away with a better understanding of the people around them.
Garris is also looking forward to this event becoming a beloved annual tradition and something for the community to look forward to.
