Taste of Chicago Cuts Number Of Restaurants, Jumps On The Pop-Up Restaurant Craze
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jan 27, 2012 8:40PM
The City is working to keep Taste of Chicago as a destination event, even though they cut the length of the festival in half and pushed it back to mid-July. How they'll be able to do this by cutting the number of participating restaurants by a third, we have no idea.
The number of restaurants will decrease to 40 from last year's 59, but the City is still requiring those who want to be part of Taste to pay the same $3,000 fee, and give the City 18 percent of gross sales. That's two percent more than last year.
Robinson's Ribs owner Charles Robinson tells the Tribune he'll still participate in this year's event. Robinson's is a Taste staple and Robinson says the exposure makes up for the expected loss of revenue.
The Department of Special Events and Cultural Events, probably recognizing there's even more lack of sizzle to this year's Taste, also announced that some restaurants will participate as one-off "pop-up" restaurants. In order to qualify, restaurants will have to be new to the Taste lineup.
We still aren't feeling the sizzle.