After much consideration over the past few years, Francisco Munoz and his family decided to start a food booth at the Seymour Oktoberfest to help raise money for their Blu Crew Baseball team.

The family is from Puerto Rico and was hesitant because they didn’t know how the festival’s attendees would respond to Caribbean food.

It turns out the idea was a pretty good one as the booth was named the “Best New Booth” for the 2018 Oktoberfest.

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“That was amazing, and we weren’t expecting that,” Munoz said Saturday afternoon. “This isn’t something we rushed into, but we were honestly scared, because we didn’t know how it would go over and how people would respond to it.”

All of that concern was wiped away during the second day of the festival, when hungry and intrigued customers quickly purchased all the booth’s deep fried tacos.

“We thought we would be good for four days, but they were gone in the first two days,” Munoz said. “We had to make more.”

Through Saturday afternoon, the stand had sold more than 700 beef and chicken deep fried tacos.

The stand also offered Puerto Rican rice, marinated chicken, shredded pork with sauce and tostones plantain.

Plantain is similar to a banana, but is flattened, fried and can be described as a salty pastry.

“They were popular too, and it’s something many haven’t had,” Munoz said.

The stand also sold traditional Puerto Rican sauces.

Munoz said he has attended the Seymour Oktoberfest each year since he moved to the United States in 2003 and always enjoys the variety of food.

“The inclusion of all these ethnic food booths is amazing,” he said.

Their booth was located on Second Street next to vendors that offered barbecue, Indian food and German food. “It’s so cool to see that the booths are all over the place and everything is good,” Munoz said.

They used about 20 volunteers from the Blu Crew organization to help serve the food.

The team was started a few years ago and focuses on development and travel team baseball for players ages seven through 14.

The group is finalizing a project to open an indoor baseball facility with turf for pitching and hitting on North O’Brien Street in Seymour.

“It’s going to be a great facility,” Munoz said.

The weekend was a fun one and successful, he added. It also gave the community an insight into Puerto Rican food.

“We’ve shared our food with friends before, but have never taken this initiative,” he said. “We like exposing this food to everyone and it’s been fantastic.”