20th Annual Championship BBQ & Cookout

The Annual Championship BBQ & Cookout is celebrating its 20th and we want to make it bigger and better than ever. The BBQ will take place on Sunday, May 21, 2017 during the NRA show in Chicago. This year it will be housed in the Chicago Illuminating Company, one of the city’s premier event spaces.

Barbara Mathias, former Food Arts publisher, founded the event two decades ago and is continuing to produce it along with her colleague Beverly Stephen, former executive editor of Food Arts.

Great news! We’re excited to announce a partnership with Food News Media, publisher of FSR and QSR magazines, which will serve as co-host and send out invitations and spread the word. They will also follow up with stories both in print and online to provide much deserved coverage for our amazing chefs.

The Championship BBQ & Cookout is known to food industry insiders as a “must attend” high-powered networking event. You can tell those who ask that each year, the best chefs in Chicago face off over flames to feed up to 1,000 of the industry’s leading chefs and operators. It also attracts many high-quality sponsors integral to the event’s success.

As last year, we’re proud to announce that a portion of the proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen, an international organization led by chef José Andrés, which uses its network of world-renowned chefs to find sustainable solutions to end world hunger. The BBQ will also benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank which distributes the equivalent of 160,000 meals daily.

Talented people feeding people—what we all do best.