Chicago Meeting Professionals Guide • 2019 • Meet Green

Make your next Chicago meeting or event eco-conscious by choosing a sustainable venue or caterer.

VENUES

Greenhouse Loft, located within the LEED-certified Platinum Green Exchange building, is one of Chicago’s most sustainable meeting and event spaces. Once a manufacturing facility, the entire building has been restored and repurposed. The light-filled, 3,600-square-foot customizable venue features floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the city and an outdoor organic garden for mingling.

Catalyst Ranch is a colorful boutique conference center offering 15,000 square feet of eclectic meeting space accented with recycled retro furniture. For served meals, dinnerware is made up of Catalyst Ranch’s collection of vintage plates and glasses (never Styrofoam or plastic). Any unused food is donated to Chicago’s Pacific Garden Mission.

The Joinery is a former custom cabinet factory that has been stunningly stripped down to its minimalist brick and timber beauty. Obsolete woodworking machinery has been repurposed into furniture and decorative elements. Reclaimed timber is found in the farm tables, and a huge central skylight floods the open space with natural light.

Chicago’s renowned Studio Gang architecture firm offers Studio Gang Treehouse, an airy event space atop its Wicker Park headquarters. The rooftop venue features floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over a lush prairie garden that’s a living laboratory studying best practices for creating thriving green roofs in urban environments.

CATERERS

Blue Plate Catering is one of Chicago’s first green caterers, certified by the Green Restaurant Association. Environmentally friendly practices at Blue Plate include composting food scraps, which are recycled into fertilizer for city parks.

Limelight Catering’s founders were early pioneers in the conscious catering movement, installing the first green commercial dishwashing system in the city. In a unique eco-friendly approach to food preparation, chefs peddle a stationery bike in its kitchen to power a blender.

SAVOR…Chicago at McCormick Place is the convention center’s exclusive food and beverage provider. Its 2.5-acre rooftop garden, the Midwest’s largest, sits atop the LEED-certified West Building and produces seasonal harvests of vegetables and herbs that are used in SAVOR’s kitchens.

Catering by Michael’s was one of the founding members of the Illinois Food Scrap Coalition. The caterer offers clients the option of using returnable packaging, such as baskets and Pyrex, along with biodegradable products.

FIG (For Intimate Gatherings) is known for its creative menus that feature locally sourced foods from organic farmers. Crackers, breads, pastries and other products are produced inhouse to reduce packaging and shipping impacts (and are made with unbleached organic flour and sugar).

Big Delicious Planet has its own urban farm, with two busy beehives and more than 60 raised beds of organic vegetables and herbs growing just outside its kitchen door. Hold a unique farm-to-table luncheon or dinner right in the garden.

Food for Thought focuses on elegant dishes that are ethically sourced and sustainable. It uses environmentally friendly products and operates a responsible recycling program. Food for Thought is certified by Green Seal and is a member of the Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition.

Chicago Meeting Professionals Guide - 2019

Meet Green

VENUES

CATERERS

Issue List

2019

2017