Cooking at the booth

Context

In May 2026 we exhibited at the National Restaurant Association Show at McCormick Place in Chicago, the largest restaurant industry show in the US. Buyers, distributors and restaurant operators walk the floor for four days looking for new products.

We brought our Smoked Duck Breast, which had already won a 2026 FABI Award¹1 The FABI Awards are the National Restaurant Association’s awards for food and beverage products. in March.

The problem

We had a 10-by-10-foot booth in a difficult spot. The back was blocked by the booth behind us and both sides were half blocked by neighbors, so only the aisle side was open.

And there’s a basic problem with trade show booths: people don’t like walking into them. Stepping in feels like agreeing to hear a sales pitch. Most booths lose people right at that line.

What I did

Designing around the one open side

I helped design the booth and drew the floor plan and front view. We treated it as a working kitchen instead of a display. Three burners sat at the back, one for grilling mala skewers, one for fried rice and one for smoked duck stir-fry, with two chefs standing so they faced the aisle while they cooked.

Moving the line people won’t cross

The key decision was where the tasting counter went. We pushed it all the way forward to the edge of the aisle, not inside the booth. You could smell the meat, watch it being cooked, and pick up a sample without ever stepping in. No commitment, no pitch. The conversation started while people were eating.

Two zones for two kinds of buyer

The left side was for the mala line: skewers of beef, chicken and duck, plus packaging samples aimed at restaurant operators, such as rice bowl boxes, chopsticks and paper baskets. The right side was for smoked duck: skewers, cups of duck fried rice, and signs showing three dishes a buyer could build with it, duck pasta, duck steak and duck salad.

Being there

I spent the show in the booth, grilling, handing out samples and pitching buyers.

Using the award

We kept using the award after the show. It went onto the website and the sell sheets, and it became the opening line for our sales trip to California.

What I learned

Almost everything I had done before sat behind a screen: models, systems, spreadsheets. This was the first time I stood in an apron and sold something I had helped build. Analyzing a business and running one are different jobs, and the second one starts with noticing where people won’t walk.

Footnotes

1. The FABI Awards are the National Restaurant Association’s awards for food and beverage products. ↩