Taste of Chicago

Taste of Chicago Announces 2012’s (Shorter) Vendor Lineup

The money-losing ten day festival having become a tighter five-day festival, Taste of Chicago has also lost about a third of last year’s food vendors (and gained only one, Pazzo’s). But it maintains its usual goal of representing almost every major cuisine in town, from Polish to African to lots of Amer-Italian, though Indian/South Asian is absent and perhaps the most populous ethnic type— Mexican— remains pretty seriously underrepresented with just two restaurants and a churro stand. On the downside, other than Lao Sze Chuan we’d be hard-pressed to consider many of the places a contender for best of their type, but most are at least respectable, and in reality that’s a function less of the selection process than of which restaurants are willing to disrupt their lives to go fry things in a tent for a week. Anyway, the full list follows below; and of course, we posted the pop-up vendors list a few days ago here.

Abbey Pub
Bacino’s
Billy Goat Tavern & Grill
BJ’s Market & Bakery
Bobak Sausage Company
Carbon Live Fire Mexican Grill
Churro Factory
Connie’s Pizza
Cubby Bear
Dominick’s
Eli’s Cheesecake
Franco’s Ristorante
Gold Coast Dogs
Harold’s Chicken #71
Iyanze
Kasia’s Deli
Lao Sze Chuan
Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria
Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessen
Oak Street Beach Café
O’Brien’s
Original Rainbow Cone
Pazzo’s
Polo Café & Catering Bridgeport U.S.A.
Reggio’s Pizza Express III
Ricobene’s
Robinson’s No. 1 Ribs
Sabor Latino
Star of Siam
Texas de Brazil
The Fudge Pot
The Noodle Vietnamese Restaurant
The Smoke Daddy
Timothy O’Toole’s Pub
Tuscany
Tutto Italiano
Vee Vee’s African Restaurant

Taste of Chicago Announces 2012’s (Shorter) Vendor Lineup