2024 California Restaurant Show & Coffee Fest Recap

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The California Restaurant Show, formerly known as the Western Food Expo, took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from August 25 – 27, 2024. The California Restaurant Association sponsors the three-day show which features hundreds of vendors, educational sessions, industry awards, competitions, demonstrations, and networking opportunities.

The California Restaurant Show was co-located with Coffee Fest. This year’s show introduced the Pizza Tomorrow Summit Pavilion. The pizza pavilion was quite small and there wasn’t much to see.

As for the California Restaurant Show, this year’s show felt similar to 2022’s show. Robots/automation, POS systems, and other restaurant technology were present in large numbers. Several signs mentioned AI, including AI hosts. There were also many packaging companies, with a greater emphasis on eco-friendly packaging. Plant-based snacks and plant-based meat vendors were also present.

Sadly, we did not see any soft serve or frozen yogurt at the show. There was one ice cream vendor and two gelato vendors. Gelato Festival and Leo! Leo! Gelato from Paso Robles, CA, had gelato samples and Double Rainbow offered ice cream samples. There was also a build your own gelato cart vendor. Electro Freeze brought their soft serve machines. Bossen had various jellies and some interesting new sour popping boba.

Coffee Fest in four cities now: Los Angeles, New York, Portland, and Minneapolis. We noticed more matcha vendors at Coffee Fest this year and some interesting new products like fermented plant-based milk and monkfruit syrup.

Thank you, YoCup, for the complimentary show tote bag. Next year’s show will be in Anaheim on August 3 – 5.