At Eli’s, we take great pride in highlighting the tremendous talent of our Chicago Culinary Schools. The future of our industry and the restaurant business is dependent upon a talented group of young and not so young professionals who seek training from the best in culinary educators to advance their careers. For over 5 years, Eli’ Cheesecake has partnered with the Chicago Foodservice Marketing Club to host an evening benefit to highlight Chicago’s top culinary students and programs with a Friday Night Reception and Scholarship Award event emceed by NBC 5’s Wayne Johnson on the decorating floor at Eli’s Cheesecake World.

This year’s event is on Friday, March 5th at 6pm at Eli’s Cheesecake World, 6701 W. Forest Preserve Drive, Chicago and is only $50. Proceeds go to the CFMC Culinary Scholarshop Fund and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The vents feature hor d’oeurves prepared by the students, desserts from Eli’s Cheesecake and Illinois Wines.

Supporters of the event are platinum sponsor, Nielsen-Massey Vanilla and sponsors, McCormick Spices, Nestle and Food Industry News.

Participating culinary programs to date are the College of DuPage, the French Pastry School of Chicago, Kendall College, Joliet Junior College, Washburne Culinary Institute of the City Colleges of Chicago, the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, Lexington College and Robert Morris University.

All of us at The Eli’s Cheesecake Company are proud of the quality of education and talent at the French Pastry School of Chicago, a program affiliated with the City Colleges of Chicago. We congratulate Jacquy Pfeiffer and Franco Pacini for their commitment to bringing the best teachers and programs to Chicago. At the For the Love of Chocolate Benefit, Eli’s Marc Schulman congratulated Jacquy Pfeiffer for his success and Eli’s Maureen Schulman thanked famous chef, Rick Bayless, and author and pastry chef, Sarah Levy, for participating in the Benefit. We look forward to the French Pastry School participating in the “Taste of Chicago’s Culinary Schools” presented by the Chicago Foodservice Marketing Club at Eli’s Cheesecake World on Friday, March 5th, 2010.

The Chicago Sun Times Weekend (2.5.2010) profiles Chicago Top Food Tours in a cover story. Tours highlighted include Chicago Candy Tours, Chicago Chocolate Tours, Chicago Dine -Around, Chicago Ethnic Market Tours, Chicago Food Planet Tours, Goose Island Brewery Tour , Intelligentsia Coffee Roasting Tour, Two Brothers Brewing Company Tour, Your Love of Food Tour and Eli’s Cheesecake. Come visit us for our walk in tour on Monday through Friday at 1pm or or Tastings & Traditions on Saturday and Sunday also at 1pm.

Eli’s Cheesecake bakery tours

Food Network rated this tour No. 1 in its survey of tasty tours, and Eli’s Mary Gale says it’s no surprise.

“Everyone loves cheesecake,” she says.

Eli’s employee Margie Ware has been conducting the popular tours for the last couple of years and always starts with a historical overview of the company — how Eli Schulman came up with his signature dessert for his now-shuttered steakhouse. The tour is very hands-on, with factory workers politely fielding any questions as you trace what goes into a cheesecake and how they are made, decorated and packaged. Groups of less than nine can take a 40-minute tour of Eli’s Cheesecake World (6701 W. Forest Preserve Dr.) at 1 p.m. Monday through Friday without a reservation. The $3 fee includes a slice of cheesecake. Call (773) 736-3417 or visit www.elicheesecake.com.

At Eli’s Cheesecake, we take great pride in our our long term partnership with United Airlines, our hometown airline. Now with the debut of our Original Plain Cheesecake as part of the Choice Menu for passengers in Economy (that are over 3 hours departing between 10am and 8pm), Chicago’s hometown favorite dessert is available on Chicago’s hometown airline.

Thursday, January 14th was the preview of  the “Book of Eli” at the AMC 21  River East  Theatres.  Eli’s Cheesecake partnered in the opening  with a ticket give-away and complimentary Eli’s Cheesecake Dippers for guests in the Theater. Our thanks to Erin Rumsey of  Terry Hines Agency who worked with us to make this tie-in  such a success.

As part of the tie-in with “The Book of Eli” we offered complimentary Eli’s Cheesecake Slices in our Cafe to customers presenting the Sun Times Ad through the opening weekend. Enjoying the preview night was the Rivera Family of Eli’s–Antonio, Juanna, and Ricky.

As the action packed “The Book of Eli’s,” concluded, guests at the Preview each received an Eli’s Cheesecake Dipper

The tie-in was so “sweet that several reviewers noted the Eli’s give-away in their reviews.

JIM reviews  “The Book of Eli’:

Review by Hell Burns–Sister Helena Burns