Chicago: The Restaurant Capital of the World

BEST DATE NEWS

May 25, 2023: Best Date News Volume #26

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Best Date News! Today we dive into Chicago’s new fox family, Memorial Day Weekend festivals, National Italian Beef Day, a behind-the-scenes look at the National Restaurant Association Show, Lizzo food reviews and how you can go to a Wrigley Rooftop for free tonight!

May 25: National Holidays

• National Wine Day

• National Brown-Bag-It Day

• National Tap Dance Day

• National Towel Day

• National Geek Pride Day

Top 5: Chicago News to Know

• What Does the Fox Say: A family of foxes has taken over Millennium Park and social media in the past week. If you haven’t seen the adorable pictures of the fox kits yet, take a look! The fox family has been living in a den in the park, and has been able to safely navigate all the people in the area. See the story.

• Memorial Day Weekend: It’s almost the start of a long weekend, and we couldn’t be more excited! When you combine the beautiful weather we are expected to have and so much happening in Chicago, what’s not to like? Need ideas on what to do? Here are seven.

• National Italian Beef Day: It’s one of Chicago’s most iconic foods and its national holiday is coming up this weekend on Saturday, May 27. To celebrate the occasion both Al’s Beef and Buona Beef will be giving away free Italian Beef sandwiches.

• Eataly Summer Party: The Italian party of the summer is taking place at Eataly next month! On June 23, Eataly is closing to the public for one night of all-inclusive eating, drinking and dancing! There will be 25+ Italian bites, 10+ spritz, 5+ wine bars, live music, chef demonstrations, local and Italian partner pop-ups and more! Full details.

• New Mag Mile Restaurant: The owners of Wildberry Cafe are joining forces with the owners of Forno Rosso to create a new restaurant called Evie that they believe will be better than some tourist traps that share the famous street that they will call home. The new restaurant is set to open sometime in June on the Mag Mile. Learn more.

Story of the Week

National Restaurant Association Show: Check out the behind the scenes video of our visit to the 2023 National Restaurant Association Show! The massive four-day trade show highlights the best of the foodservice and hospitality industry.

The convention takes place in Chicago each May, and it’s absolutely massive as the show welcomes over 2,000 exhibitors all under one roof, and it takes up over 11 football field of space. The biggest brands, coolest innovations and best of the restaurant industry are on display and simply put, it’s really cool. We showed off a bunch of it on our Instagram Story yesterday.

Picture Costco having free samples, except the food is 100 times better and there is free food basically everywhere you look. One of the coolest parts about the show is all the new innovative products that company’s show off! There were a lot of great ones, here were some of our favorites:

Kraft Heinz: The sauce machine of the future is coming your way! Kraft Heinz is testing a sauce machine that combines different sauces for you with the mix-ins of your choice! Take bases like ketchup or ranch and mix them with jalapeño, buffalo and more!

White Claw: White Claw is making moves with its new seltzers and flavored vodkas. Their Vodka + Sodas are made with real vodka and real juice. The vodka tastes surprisingly good too, which is probably why you can now buy it on its own. These are going to be big!

Mike’s Hot Honey: There is a good chance you have tried Mike’s Hot Honey on pizza in Chicago before. If you like it, get excited because what you likely haven’t tried is their new limited-time offering of Mike’s Hot Honey potato chips.

Kodiak Cakes: The new masters of breakfast were on full display cooking up insanely cool pancakes. You could give them a picture of pretty much anything and they would turn it into a custom pancake design. We had them create the Best Date Food logo and they crushed it!

Cheez-It: The iconic snack of many 90s kids’ childhoods, that is still going strong today, elevated their game for the show. They created their own version of a walking taco with meat, cheese, pico, sour cream and more. It worked surprisingly well! It looks like Fritos may have some unexpected competition!

Quick Hitters

• Nothing Bundt Cakes: The dessert chain is opening only its second Chicago location soon! See where it’s going.

• Spinosaurus is Coming: Move over Sue, a new dinosaur is coming to the Field Museum, and it’s even longer! On June 3, the Field Museum is welcoming a new 46-foot dinosaur. Details.

• Best Doughnut Awards: National Doughnut Day is coming up next week and a contest was held to find the country’s best doughnuts. One Chicago spot was awarded best fruit-filled doughnut in America. Learn more.

Deal of the Week

Free Cubs Rooftop Tonight: We are going to preface that this isn’t an ad, because it seems like it is and also too good to be true. But if you have you ever wanted to do a Wrigley Rooftop for a Cubs game, this just might be your chance.

It looks like a company called Kasasa is giving 100 people a free rooftop experience for today’s Cubs game including food, drinks and more! You must be 21+ to attend and only the first 100 people to arrive will be granted access. The doors open at 5:40pm. We think it’s worth a shot as rooftop tickets aren’t cheap! Learn more.

Video of the Week

LizzoBeEating: It looks like we have more competition in the Chicago food review space, and I’m not sure we are going to be able to compete. During Lizzo’s recent visit to Chicago, she graced us with a food review of Dimo’s vegan pizzas. Watch it.

Poll of the Week

Last Week's Poll Results

Poll Results: Last week we asked you if you had to live in a state that wasn’t Illinois, which of these options (Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin) would you choose? First place by a wide margin was Michigan, second was Wisconsin, third was Indiana and Iowa came in last without a single vote…

Today's Sunset in Chicago

The sun will set in Chicago this evening at 8:13pm. Which means the sun sets today seven minutes later than it did compared to last week.