Food, beverage, and foodservice brands exhibit to be tasted. We build Chicago food and beverage stands with sampling bars, demo kitchens, refrigeration, and warm hospitality.
Food and beverage exhibitors succeed on the Chicago floor when they get product into a buyer's hand, so unlike most industries the exhibit is fundamentally a hospitality and service environment built around tasting. We design food and beverage trade show stands for that purpose, and the National Restaurant Association Show at McCormick Place, the foodservice industry's flagship event, is where it matters most. The heart of the stand is the serving experience: a generous sampling bar with comfortable approach frontage, a demo kitchen with cooktops, prep counters, and warming or refrigeration equipment, and a clear service flow that keeps lines moving during the intense peak hours when the aisle fills with hungry buyers. We engineer the practical infrastructure that makes service possible, including the electrical for cooking and refrigeration and any plumbing allowances the show permits, coordinated with McCormick Place jurisdiction and validated in a pre-show staging review so nothing fails when the rush hits. Warmth and appetite appeal drive the visual design: rich materials, appetizing backlit imagery of the product, branded serving vessels, and lighting tuned to make food look its best, all produced in-house with silicone edge fabric and dye-sublimation so color stays mouth-watering under hall lighting and in photos. We balance the open serving zones against seating and conversation space where your sales team can talk distribution, pricing, and contracts with buyers and brokers once the sample has done its job. For IFT FIRST, the Sweets and Snacks Expo, and PACK EXPO as well as the National Restaurant Association Show, we tune the mix of sampling stations, demo kitchen, refrigeration, and hospitality to your category, whether you are pouring beverages, plating prepared foods, or showcasing ingredients. Sizing is flexible: a debut brand can sample effectively from a 10x20 with a single serving bar, while established food companies anchor 20x20 through 30x40 islands with multiple sampling stations, a full demo kitchen, and a hospitality lounge, all inside the published price bands. Because the program is a rental built on modular and custom-fabricated systems, you keep a major asset off the books, avoid storing specialized food-service millwork, and can refresh the look each year while we refurbish and store the hardware. We deliver it full-service, including the food-service infrastructure planning that this category uniquely requires, from a free 48-hour 3D rendering through install and dismantle. Request your rendering and we will design a stand built to get your product tasted.
Yes. Food and beverage stands we build for the National Restaurant Association Show and IFT FIRST routinely include sampling bars, demo kitchens with cooktops and prep counters, refrigeration, sinks where permitted, and ample serving frontage, all engineered for the power and plumbing the show allows.
We plan refrigeration, cooking, and warming equipment against the show's electrical and any plumbing allowances, coordinate with the McCormick Place general contractor, and validate the setup in a pre-show staging review so service runs smoothly during peak hours.
It varies. A debut brand can sample effectively from a 10x20 with a serving bar, while established food companies anchor 20x20 to 30x40 islands with multiple sampling stations, demo kitchens, and hospitality, all inside the published bands.
Call Chicago Exhibits at (872) 369-0187 for a free 48-hour 3D rendering. Serving Chicago and McCormick Place since 2014.