Pilot Light’s Feed Your Mind Gala 2025
DATE: November 7th, 2025
LOCATION: Rockwell on the River (3057 N Rockwell St, Chicago, IL 60618)
TIME: 6:00 PM
ATTIRE: Formal dress. Coat check will be provided.
The 2025 Feed Your Mind Gala will take place on November 7th, 2025 at Rockwell on the River (3057 N. Rockwell Street). An exuberant canape and cocktail hour will begin at 6:00 PM, followed by a seated dinner prepared tableside by Chicago’s most celebrated chefs, thrilling live auction, and celebratory program from Pilot Light, a leading Chicago-founded Food Education nonprofit that brings the power of food to thousands of students nationwide.
Festivities will include an exciting, completely unique meal prepared tableside by leading Chicago chefs including Feed Your Mind Honoree Rick Bayless, restaurateur and TV personality Joe Flamm, Michelin-starred chefs Genie Kwon and Tim Flores of KASAMA, and many more! Peter Sagal, celebrated author, playwright, and host of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! will serve as Feed Your Mind’s emcee, bringing levity and entertainment to the evening.
The Feed Your Mind Gala has been noted by guests for its thrilling live auction, including one-on-one travel and culinary experiences with Pilot Light’s Founding Chefs Matthias Merges, Jason Hammel, Paul Kahan, and Justin Large. An additional silent auction featuring more luxury entertainment and culinary experiences will round out the exclusive festivities.
Don’t miss the opportunity to experience an evening of food and drink from the brightest stars of Chicago’s vibrant food community. No other event offers the same chance to share the room – and eat the food – of multiple James Beard award-winners, nominees, and other rising chef stars while also investing in the future of Food Education. We hope to see you for this one of a kind celebration of the power of food on November 7th!
ABOUT CHEF RICK BAYLESS, FEED YOUR MIND HONOREE:
Most people know Chef Rick Bayless from winning the inaugural season of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters. Others know him from the twelve seasons of his highly-rated Public Television series, Mexico–One Plate at a Time or his nine award-winning cookbooks. And for a few restaurant regulars, he is simply Chef Rick, the Chef and owner of Frontera Grill, Topolobampo, Xoco, and Bar Sótano on Clark Street in Chicago, where he has spread the joys of authentic Mexican cuisine since 1987. Frontera Grill received the James Beard Foundation’s highest award, Outstanding Restaurant, in 2007. The 4-star Toplobampo, which served its first meals in 1991, earned the Beard Foundation’s award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2017 — an unprecedented accomplishment for side-by-side restaurants. At Topolobampo, Rick has also achieved a different feat: earning and maintaining a Michelin star since the guide first came to Chicago. Rick has received a great number of James Beard Award nominations in many categories, and he has won seven: Midwest Chef of the Year, National Chef of the Year, Humanitarian of the Year, Who’s Who of American Food and Drink, Best Podcast, plus two for his cookbooks. The Government of Mexico has bestowed on Rick the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle–the highest decoration bestowed on foreigners whose work has benefitted Mexico and its people. And in 2016, he earned the Julia Child Foundation Award, a prestigious honor given to “an individual who has made a profound and significant impact on the way America cooks, eats and drinks.
ABOUT PETER SAGAL, FEED YOUR MIND EMCEE:
Peter Sagal is the host of the Peabody Award-winning NPR news quiz Wait Wait . . .
Don’t Tell Me! and the author of The Incomplete Book of Running and The Book of Vice:
Naughty Things and How To Do Them. He is a playwright, screenwriter, an amateur
athlete, and host to several podcasts and documentaries, including The Chernobyl
Podcast and The Plot Against America podcast for HBO and Constitution USA with
Peter Sagal on PBS. He also wrote the feature film Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights
without meaning to. Peter has traveled to many places and done many things but is now
happiest where he lives, north of Chicago, with his wife Mara, two sons, and two dogs.
