Category: Fast/casual restaurants

Farmer’s Fridge Fortunes Flourished At FamilyFarmed’s Good Food EXPO

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed’s Annual Giving Campaign is under way, and to highlight the work we do to build a better food system, we are running a series of profiles of great businesses that have participated in our programs. Today we look at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food EXPO and Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference through the eyes of Luke Saunders of Farmer’s Fridge, the Chicago company whose fresh salad vending machines are changing the way eaters view self-service food options.

Good Food Festival & Conference

Pleasant House Can Make Your Day With Pies During Good Food Festival

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago’s Pleasant House pubs is best known for its flaky, savory Royal Pies. Owners Art and Chelsea Jackson are Fellows in the current cohort of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator and will participate in our Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference. Their restaurant, located just a mile away, will be open during the three-day Good Food Festival & Conference.

Great Food, Values Earn Honey Butter Fried Chicken Our 2017 Good Food Chef Award

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Christine Cikowski and Josh Kulp of Chicago’s Honey Butter Fried Chicken will jointly receive FamilyFarmed’s 2017 Good Food Chef of the Year Award on March 18 at the Good Food Festival — not only for their delicious food, but because of their sustainable and local sourcing and their social conscience.

Chicago Chef Abra Berens’ Magic Is Making Food Waste Disappear

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

“Minimizing food waste is the next round of work that we have to do, both in the farm to table movement and in our food culture generally,” says Abra Berens, chef of Stock Cafe at the innovative Local Foods market in Chicago. Read about her devotion to locally and sustainably sourced food, and to not letting any of it go to waste, in the latest installment of our “Farm to Table: Keeping It Real” series.

Paul Fehribach cooking demo

Good Food Chef of the Year Paul Fehribach: Southern Tradition and Strong Values

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

Paul Fehribach of Big Jones restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood will receive FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year award during the Good Food Festival, Saturday, March 21 at Chicago’s UIC Forum. He earned the award because of his culinary skills — steeped in the traditions of Southern cooking — and also because of the strong values that prompt him to seek out locally and sustainably produced ingredients, including many rare or heirloom varieties.

Farmer Gene Mealhow of Tiny But Mighty.

First Person: How FamilyFarmed and the Good Food Festival Helped Tiny But Mighty Pop

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

FamilyFarmed’s 11th annual Good Food Festival & Conference is coming up in Chicago March 19-21. The organization’s efforts to build the Good Food movement have helped farm and food entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars. Iowa’s Tiny But Mighty Popcorn is one of them.

Honey Butter Fried Chicken in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood

Honey Butter Fried Chicken: A Fine-Feathered First Year in Chicago

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

When you write about the launch of a start-up business, it is often worthwhile checking back in to see how things are working out. It is especially rewarding to do when the enterprise has flourished — which is the case for Chicago’s Honey Butter Fried Chicken, which on Sept. 14 rounded out a smashing first year in business.

McDonald's restaurant on Clark Street in Chicago, across the street from Wrigley Field

McDonald’s Can Make History — and Rescue its Brand — With Sustainable Food

Posted on by FamilyFarmed.org

McDonald’s Golden Arches are tarnished these days. To restore the shine, it’s time for the fast-food behemoth to chart a new course: one that acknowledges the growing consumer demand for Good Food, grown as close to home as possible, by sustainable, humane, and fair producers.