Last week, “The Chronicles of Piercing Ken” attended the 2023 edition of the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York. This particular trade show is aimed at both education of foodservice professionals and helping them network with others in their industry. There are also plenty of vendors who are hoping to find their products being made available to the consumer. Down below you’ll find some of the vendors we stopped at to sample their wares and hope our readers look more into them if this is their own business model.

The Crunch Factory offers up my kind of snack. This is the kind of stuff that I usually like to nosh on if I am sitting in the bar with friends and while I don’t drink anymore, I do still eat at these gatherings.

The kind folks from Bandit offer up cheese made from plants. Yes my friends you read that correctly. Now I’m not Vegan despite loving my veggies so I was suspect because cheese right? Anyhow, this stuff tasted good and I think I’d enjoy it as the occasional alternative.

This is “Plato” from the United Robotics Group and its awesome. What a fun way to bring the customer their food. No offense to waiters everywhere but for places with the need for this I think it might be cool. I’m a tech person and love robots so why not rally behind one that’s going to bring me a cheeseburger deluxe or General Tso’s Chicken.

So this photo is actually something from the CoffeeFest that I will be adding some visuals from after the Restaurant Show ones. I also really enjoyed their chocolate milk version.

Our friends from Idaho Potatoes were there and they always have a fun booth. I love this truck and think they need to make smaller ones to give out. They do have a potato pin which is cute and a little stuffed potato man. If you are lucky, you can sample some authentic Idaho Potato Chips. I had some but they are not pictured in this rundown.

The folks from Mio Sparkling Sake were so friendly and wanted me to try their offering and while I was curious, I am on a 0% alchohol program these days. I can say that everyone who was sampling it had a smile on their face.

I’ve sampled these Terrell’s Chips in the past and they are very awesome if you like a good potato chip. They hail from Syracuse, and had sample trays of these three flavors. I felt that the center flavor was my own favorite on this run. Oddly enough, I’ve never been the biggest BBQ chip fan. I prefer spicier if anything.

These were only sample constructions and not food one could sample but its Arctic Gardens and everything sounds amazing from them. I told them if they were ever interested in my doing some cooking clips with these that I would be game. Let’s see what happens.

That’s it for the quick brief on the Restaurant Show. The cool thing about this event is that if you are attending one trade show you can also attend the CoffeeFest which is co-locating with them on the other side of the expo floor.

Much like the NY Restaurant Show, the CoffeeFest is industry-focused which is very different from the New York Coffee Festival that we also attend in the Fall. The attendees of this one fall to shop owners and investors and even the mighty baristas who make sure your cuppa is absolute perfection. It’s the place for them to network and learn as well and here are some of the sights that we liked the most.

Hope and Sesame offer up a sesame milk and I’m so amazed at how many variations on the stuff there are today. Theirs was tasty and I’d have it again. I mostly drink milk a couple of times a week with a pastry and of course in cereal. Maybe I will brave one of these options on my Frosted Flakes sometime in the future. Especially if it is better for you.

If you’ve never had Mike’s Hot Honey before you are missing out. It’s sweet and has a fiery kick that hits your palate shortly after you try it.

In addition to all sorts of coffee, there was a lot of tea to be enjoyed. The folks from Two Leaves and a Bud gave me a couple of sample packs to try at home. That was nice of them for sure.

Hollander was showcasing their Chocolate and Caramel Sauce. Not syrup, and believe me there was a difference. They even sent me home with a bottle of this and I will make short work of it since I love a good Chocolate Milk.

There was a lot of the business side to the coffee industry present and I didn’t focus too much on that since point of sale things and methods of tabulating orders are not compelling photographs. We did talk to the folks at Dripos though and they were nice to chat with.

That’s going to wrap this one up for me and I hope you enjoyed the presentation because we loved walking up and down the aisles learning about some of these products between the two expos. I didn’t do any videos this time around but maybe next year if I sign up with media interest that I will do them. I am always interested in putting clips up on our YouTube Channel since we have one now for this website. Links below will lead you to some of the talking points so if you are in the business or just curious please be sure to support these companies. Times are tough as we continue to move forward after the pandemic. Let’s help out when we can.

Official: https://www.internationalrestaurantny.com/
Official: https://www.coffeefest.com/