New Ryan Field Introduces “The Great Chicago Food Festival” Including Chicago’s Culinary Legends in Residence at Every Game and Concert
*Rick Bayless, Stephanie Izard, Gibsons Restaurant Group, Publican Quality and the team behind Dimmi Dimmi each create a brand-new concept found nowhere else, The Great Big Ten Grillout and Evanston & North Shore Favorites complete the lineup.
Festival day one is October 2 — Northwestern vs. Penn State on FOX, one hundred years to the day after the original Ryan Field opened.
EVANSTON, Ill. – New Ryan Field today introduced The Great Chicago Food Festival, a new Chicago food event led by the city’s culinary legends in residence. The Festival opens before every event and runs through it, with access included in every ticket; fans pay only for what they eat and drink. It is a food festival that would be a destination event on its own — except it happens at every game and every concert.
The Festival’s headliners are the names that made Chicago one of the great food cities of the world, each in residence with a brand-new concept created exclusively for New Ryan Field:
- Frontera Tacos y Tortas by Rick Bayless;
- Goatdown by Stephanie Izard;
- Gibsons Tavern and Luxbar Grill from Gibsons Restaurant Group;
- The Medallion, a rotating pavilion featuring James Beard Award winners, opening with Publican Quality;
- Dimmi Baby, the Rising Star pavilion from the team behind Dimmi Dimmi.
Six concepts in six custom-built pavilions that make up the Village at Ryan Field, the 50,000 square anchor of the festival grounds at New Ryan Field. The Village, host to these six legends in residence, is the cornerstone of the Festival’s three major elements:
The Great Big Ten Grillout — featuring the “greatest hits” of tailgate traditions from Chicago and across the Big Ten
Around the Village, the festival grounds open with The Great Big Ten Grillout, New Ryan Field’s on-site tailgate and the Festival’s tribute to the richest tailgating culture in American sports — Chicago’s and the Big Ten’s. Barrel grills turn out fire-grilled burgers and BBQ chicken. Corn roasters straight from farm country roast sweet corn in the husk by the hundreds. And alongside the essentials, the Grillout serves a rotating lineup of the signature dishes of the conference and Chicago’s most storied parking lots. It is open to home and visiting fans alike — the tailgate you always wished you were invited to, now every week. Its first edition falls on October 2nd.
Evanston & North Shore Favorites — the Festival’s hometown flavor
The Festival’s hyper-local wing brings rotating pop-ups from the most beloved restaurants of Evanston and the North Shore, serving their local favorites. The first participating restaurants will be announced ahead of the first game. A Northwestern game day should taste like Evanston.
Echoing an Emerging Trend in Sports and Entertainment
The Festival arrives at the leading edge of the most exciting shift in live sports and entertainment: America’s best events have discovered that the food is half the show. There are Grand Slam Tennis tournaments that have become culinary destinations in their own right, and the biggest music festivals food lineups have become part of the draw. The Great Chicago Food Festival takes the idea further on the measure that matters most: the lineup, a permanent home for some of Chicago’s most celebrated culinary names.
“Chicago is a city defined by its great events, and every so often a new one joins the list,” said Pat Ryan Jr., CEO of Ryan Sports Development. “The Great Chicago Food Festival is built to be one of them. What makes it different is the lineup and where it happens: the most celebrated names in the best food city in America have each created something new for us, and instead of doing it once a year downtown, we’re doing it at every game and every concert, and it’s included with every ticket.”
The Legends in Residence
The Village at Ryan Field, the heart of the Festival, gathers the residencies in six custom-built pavilions, each with its own full cooking kitchen, inside a 50,000-square-foot culinary hub with the field in view. The word “residency” is borrowed from music deliberately. Each is a creative commitment by a chef or restaurateur — not a concession contract — and each concept exists only here.
Frontera Tacos y Tortas by Rick Bayless. Inspired by the flavors that built Frontera Grill into a Chicago institution, Frontera Tortas y Tacos is a fast-casual Mexican concept by Michelin-starred chef, cookbook author and restaurateur Rick Bayless. For four decades, Bayless has been the chef who taught America to take regional Mexican cooking seriously — earning the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef award, Outstanding Restaurant honors twice (Frontera Grill in 2007 and Topolobampo in 2017), the Julia Child Award and the first-ever Top Chef Masters title. The menu highlights the dishes that built the Frontera name — bold, made-to-order tortas and tacos — bringing the flavor of the Frontera kitchen to Ryan Field.
Goatdown by Stephanie Izard. Stephanie Izard was the first woman to win Top Chef; she is the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: Great Lakes of 2013 and the winner of Iron Chef Gauntlet, and Girl & the Goat has been one of Chicago’s hardest reservations since 2010, followed by Little Goat, Cabra and Duck Duck Goat. Goatdown brings the Goat family’s bold, share-everything cooking to game day.
Gibsons Tavern and Luxbar Grill from Gibsons Restaurant Group. Since 1989, Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse on Rush Street has been where Chicago goes to celebrate — a fixture among the highest-grossing independent restaurants in the country, home of USDA-certified Gibsons Prime Angus beef and the flagship of a group that includes Hugo’s Frog Bar & Fish House, LUXBAR, Quartino and Gibsons Italia. The group takes two residencies: Gibsons Tavern, Gibsons’ new concept opening in Fulton Market late this year, and Luxbar Grill, a food-forward counter in the spirit of the group’s Gold Coast LUXBAR.
The Medallion, opening with Publican Quality. The Medallion is the Festival’s pavilion reserved for James Beard Award winners, with a new honoree taking residence in rotation. It opens with Publican Quality, One Off Hospitality’s Fulton Market beer hall from chef Paul Kahan, the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef of 2013, and restaurateur Donnie Madia, its Outstanding Restaurateur of 2015. Since 2008, Publican Quality has defined Chicago’s pork, oysters and beer school of cooking; at The Medallion.
Dimmi Baby, the Rising Star pavilion. Every great festival poster has a name in small type that everyone is talking about the following year. The Festival reserves a pavilion for Chicago’s rising star and opens it with Dimmi Baby, from the team behind Dimmi Dimmi — the Lincoln Park red-sauce Italian-American hit from the Zadikoff family’s Cornerstone Restaurant Group. Since opening in 2025, Dimmi Dimmi has quickly become one of Chicago’s hardest reservations; Dimmi Baby is its game-day answer.
Every game. Every concert. Every ticket.
The Festival opens two hours before kickoff or showtime and runs through the event, at every Northwestern home game and every concert at New Ryan Field. Admission is included with every ticket; the only thing a fan pays for is the food and drink. The invitation is simple: arrive early. The Festival begins when you get here; kickoff is the encore, and for concerts, it is the opening act.
“We designed this stadium around the experiences that fans love,” Ryan said. “While traditional tailgating will continue to be a cornerstone of our game day experience, many fans don’t pack a tailgate yet crave community experiences built around great food. Creating a one-of-a-kind food festival that reflects both the best of Chicago’s food culture and Big Ten traditions will create a culinary experience that could only exist at Northwestern.”
“At the best festivals and tournaments in the country, the food is the reason people arrive early. Here it comes with every ticket. Rick Bayless, Stephanie Izard, Gibsons, The Publican and the Dimmi Dimmi team all said yes to creating something that exists nowhere else. You don’t hold a ticket to a football game that has good food. You hold a ticket to one of Chicago’s great events — and it is paired with Big Ten football at the home of the Northwestern Wildcats.” said Andy Lansing, CEO of Levy.
New Ryan Field: Food Experiences for Every Type of Fan and Wallet
The Festival builds on a concessions story built around value — Chicago sports’ first $5 menu — and legendary Chicago casual eating bringing the Best of Chicago to the concourses: Al’s Italian Beef, Pat’s Tavern Style Pizza from Lincoln Park made fresh at Ryan Field, Vienna Beef Chicago-style dogs, USDA Prime Chicago Steakhouse Burgers and Garrett Popcorn. The Ryan Field Family Festival with Football Mini-Camp for kids and the Wildcat Wall Student Festival complete the grounds with worlds built for kids and for students.