CHICAGO, April 17, 2026 — The Gold and Silver Plate gala has been recast from the stuffy event silver hairs say it was years ago, when attendees might have wondered if they’d wandered into some Rotary Club’s annual rubber-chicken awards banquet.
Today’s version is as much a lively sampling of Hospitality Circa 2026 as it is a celebration of the nine top operators in their respective food-away-from-home market segments.
2025 Gold Plate Winner Secret Ballot
The gala moves along quickly, building to the suspenseful moment when one of the nine is announced as the year’s winner of the Gold Plate, the equivalent of the food-away-from-home business’ Operator of the Year. Not even members of the jury that picked the winner in a secret ballot (including this writer) know whom it will be.
But a number of traditions will persist into the award program’s 72nd year.
2025 Gold & Silver Plate Winner Parade
Past winners parade to the dais in the order they were originally honored, starting with whomever received a Silver Plate longest ago and proceeding to the present.
The leader in recent years has been Ted Balestreri, who won Gold and Silver Plates 42 years ago for his operation of The Sardine Factory, still a fine-dining landmark in Monterrey, California.
2025 Induction Dinner
The day before the banquet, the current year’s winners are presented with a pin like the ones restaurant crewmembers often wear as identification and an indication of their rank, along with a Gold and Silver Plate apron. The belief is that the traditions address winners’ frequent insistence it’s their teams who are really the winners and they’re just part of the squad.
The exact origins of both traditions remain murky, but each is still followed decades later. Not so the trip to a Greek dining establishment the night before the banquet for a casual meal and some entertainment. Current-year honorees were plied with copious amounts of ouzo before being encouraged to join the belly-dancing demonstration.
The steps broken out in 1993 by Ron Magruder, then-president of Olive Garden, had everyone laughing. With strong encouragement to not forego a restaurant career for professional dance, he won both the Silver Plate in the Chains Full Service category and the Gold Plate the next night.
One tradition we’ve only heard about is the near certainty some attendees will try to make the announcement of the Gold Plate winner more climactic by inviting tablemates to bet on who it will be. We at IFMA The Food Away from Home Association almost dropped our catechisms upon hearing the rumors, but, alas they’re true. Sometimes amounts of up to $5 might change hands, though the going rate seems to be a mere dollar.
Never ones to hamper enjoyment of the banquet, we’ve put together this guide for wallflowers who might not know how to participate or instigate a betting pool at their table. Here, with help from AI, is what to do, though we encourage participants to remember the objective is to have fun, not to leave fellow diners without cab fare.
Here are the two set-ups recommended by one of our AI agents, Gemini 2.5 Flash:
"Pick the Winner" Pool
How it works: Each of the 10 persons sitting at a table writes down their chosen winner from the nine finalists. Everyone contributes a small, agreed-upon amount (e.g., $1 or $5) to a central pot.
Winner: The person who correctly picks the winner takes the entire pot. If multiple people pick the same winner, they split the pot.
10th Person: The 10th person at the table could either pick a "wildcard" (e.g., "any other finalist not chosen by the rest of the table" if there were fewer than nine unique picks) or simply act as the "banker," collecting the money and announcing the winner.
Numbered Finalist Draw
How it works: Assign each of the nine finalists a number (1-9). Write these numbers on slips of paper and put them in something from which the participants can blindly pull a number, like a hat. Each person at the table draws one number. The 10th person could either get a "second chance" draw if someone wants to trade, or again, be the banker.
Winner: The person holding the number corresponding to the winning finalist wins the pot. This adds an element of chance to the selection.
We’re joking here, but gambling can become a serious problem. If you’re worried, call 1-800-Gambler.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.