Eight days before the grand opening of Northwestern University’s new Ryan Field in Evanston, officials for the Big Ten football stadium are unveiling the culinary lineup available for fans, featuring some of the Chicago area’s biggest names in food.
Those include a James Beard award-winning chef, a Michelin star chef and the fare of rotating celebrated chefs from some of the city’s most popular foodie restaurants, starting at the first game Oct. 2.
“Chicago is a great eating city, everything from street food to some of the top chefs in the world,” said Pat Ryan Jr., CEO of Ryan Sports Development. His family in large part financed the stadium’s build.
“And so we thought celebrating that was a really important opportunity.”
While the stadium already planned to offer ticket holders affordable, $5 concession menu options like Al’s Italian Beef, Pat’s tavern-style pizza and Vienna Beef hot dogs, Ryan said the 200,000 square feet of festival grounds located in Ryan Field’s plaza area — what the stadium refers to as “the Village”— needed to be put to use.
“So we went and talked to a group of the most famous, well-respected…major restaurant groups in Chicago and basically invited them in to sign up for what is a three-year residency.”
“The Great Chicago Food Festival,” as Ryan pegs it, will spotlight six iconic Chicago food vendors, each with their own built-in pavilion with a full cooking kitchen inside.
The food festival will take place before every game or concert hosted at Ryan Field and run throughout it. Access is included with every ticket, but fans will pay for what they eat and drink, according to officials.
Featured restaurateurs include Michelin-starred chef Rick Bayless bringing a new take on his fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain Tortazo, called “Frontera Tacos y Tortas,” and “Goatdown,” a shareable gameday menu version of Evanston-born celebrity Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat restaurant in Chicago’s West Loop. Izard also won the coveted 2013 James Beard award for Best Chef — Great Lakes region.
Other names on the lineup are “Gibsons Tavern and Luxbar Grill,” from Gibsons Restaurant Group, a pavilion from the chefs behind Lincoln Park’s up-and-coming restaurant Dimmi Dimmi and a rotating pavilion featuring various James Beard Award winners, according to Ryan. The first rotating headliner will be Publican Quality Meats.
Michelin-starred chef Rick Bayless is bringing a new take on his fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain Tortazo, called “Frontera Tacos y Tortas,” to Northwestern’s Ryan Field ahead of its Oct. 2, 2026 grand opening. (Levy, Ryan Field)
Publican Quality Meats is the first featured vendor at the “Medallion,” a rotating food pavilion located inside Ryan Field’s festival grounds featuring James Beard Award-winning restaurants. (Levy, Ryan Field)
The north entrance at Northwestern University’s new Ryan Field is seen Sept. 14, 2026, in Evanston. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
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Michelin-starred chef Rick Bayless is bringing a new take on his fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain Tortazo, called “Frontera Tacos y Tortas,” to Northwestern’s Ryan Field ahead of its Oct. 2, 2026 grand opening. (Levy, Ryan Field)
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Ryan Field will also offer ticket holders on-site tailgate options with fire-grilled burgers, BBQ chicken and corn and rotating signature dishes of the Big Ten conference’s stadium menu items, he added.
Pop-up vendors from local restaurants in Evanston and across the North Shore will be announced prior to the opening game for the stadium, Ryan said, where Northwestern’s Wildcats will take on the Penn State Nittany Lions.
“Think of it like, …if you go to Coachella, it’s as much about food as music. So we’re doing that…but making it accessible.”
In reference to the culinary venture, Izard, chef and owner of Girl & the Goat and Lakeview’s Little Goat Diner, among other restaurants, said she is “excited to bring the flavors of our Goat restaurants to Northwestern.”
“Being born in Evanston, and having attended a fellow Big Ten school, it feels like a natural fit,” Izard said in a statement.
Evanstonians who are also Northwestern alumni, live or work in Evanston and work in public service professions will get a special deal of $25 for a ticket. The price includes fees and taxes and they can bring up to three guests at that same price.
Up to 500 seats will be set aside for the program at each of Northwestern’s five home games at Ryan Field this 2026-27 season.
As the clock continues to tick down ahead of the $875 million stadium’s debut, officials noted many finishing touches remain related to the venue’s interior but that the university will be ready by game day.
“It’s the things you can’t do until the electrical work’s done and you close up the walls,” Ryan said.
“There’s a million of those kinds of details that everybody’s working on, as well as some of the outdoor work…but I think everybody feels optimistic.”
One hundred years to the day of the original Ryan Field’s opening, the new-and-improved football arena is set to reopen in a nationally-televised football game Oct. 2, marking its place as the most expensive college football stadium in history.
Dining and Cooking