Feeling Full after The National Restaurant Show

I love Chicago even more after spending 5 days exhibiting at the National Restaurant Show (NRA) by day and eating well at night. The Amex card may singed but we got what we paid for! The NRA Show was a culinary experience and a huge show with over 70,000 people and 2000+ exhibitors. Four solid days of talking GrillGrate with people from all over the world. The show also provided us with valuable contacts for cleaning products, commercial grill manufacturers, even ball caps.

The NRA show formally marks GrillGrates extension beyond the back yard. Chefs and caterers have been using GrillGrates for some time now and we felt it was time to further test and develop the commercial / professional waters. The response was down right humbling! We thought we'd have to do some serious convincing so we put out an aggressive show special to encourage chefs to measure their chargrillers and flat-tops to test GrillGrates in their environment. We even called in an order from our booth for a caterer and shipped it that day so he could use them this weekend for a 150 person event at a Chicago Whitesox baseball game! As Werner Wolf says, “film at 11:00!”

The NRA show hopefully becomes an annual fixture on our schedule even if it coincides with two of my favorite events; Memphis in May and the annual World Championship SteakCookoff at the Magnolia Blossom Festival in Magnolia, AR. Talk about a culinary trifecta!

This past saturday Grillmaster Joe Stump from Boyd, Texas repeated as world champion! Yes he grilled on GrillGrates! Over in Memphis, The SHED Barbecue and Blues Joint won Grand Champion of Memphis in May. All around a winning weekend!

We're already talking about how next year we need to split up over the weekend and converge on Chicago on Sunday. Talk about a grate problem!