News

Fast Casual Executive Summit kicks off with Chicago food tour

September 7, 2010

FastCasual.com, the executive producer of the Fast Casual Executive Summit has lined up several locations for its 2010 food tour as part of the Summit. The Fast Casual Executive Summit will be held Oct. 10-12 at Chicago’s Sofitel Water Tower hotel.

On day one, six groups of attendees will each make four stops at some of the nation’s most important and up-and-coming concepts in the industry.

The tour’s 15-plus stops include concepts that exemplify the industry’s hot categories and trends, including “better burger,” fresh and Cal-mex, bakery-café, froyo, and even Italian, which comprises less than 2 percent of the segment. Some examples include Five Guy Burgers and Fries, Qdoba Mexican Grill, industry veteran and superstar Au Bon Pain, Cosi, Yogen Fruz and Go Roma. Also on the tour is the newly opened Tom & Eddie’s, the burger concept launched in August by industry veterans Tom Dentice and Ed Rensi. Rensi also will be giving the keynote breakfast on day three of the Fast Casual Executive Summit.

“The great thing about the food tour is that it gets operators in restaurants that might not exist in other markets,” said Valerie Killifer, executive editor of FastCasual.com. “The tour is about opening up the dialogue among attendees and getting the Summit off to a great start, and there’s no better way to bond than over food and drink.”

Past years’ attendees remember the food tour as a highlight of the weekend-long event. It exemplifies the Summit’s premise of experiential learning, dialogue and collaboration, according to past attendees.

“(The 2009 food tour) took summit attendees through new concepts that are emerging as the front runners for our industry, and old concepts which were the foundation of it,” said Nik Bhakta, CEO of Genghis Grill Franchise Concepts, a Dallas-based fast casual stir fry chain. “I can't wait to see what Chicago has in store this year! It has some great restaurants and chefs which should make an interesting appetizer for the Fast Casual Summit.”

Just as important as the destinations are the attendees that will be introduced to new ideas and leads through the dynamic group of participants. For example, Kevin Minor, who joined Sky’s Gourmet Tacos 18 years before the current taco trend, especially looks forward to the peers he was able to meet on last year’s tour.

“What I enjoyed most on the tour was getting to know a random handful of the other executives in a small-group setting,” Minor said. “The first-hand discussion centered around food tour encounters was a great source of conversational fuel, which I look forward to, again.”

This year’s food tour is sponsored by MonkeyMedia Software and will be held Oct. 10.

Click here to attend this year’s Fast Casual Executive Summit and to review the full agenda.