QSR magazine announced that its eighth Fast Casual Meet Up of 2019 will be held in Austin, Texas. The Meet Up, part of a 10-city series across the U.S., is on September 17 at 6 p.m. at Fareground, the city’s first food hall.
“We hosted a Fast Casual Meet Up in Austin back in 2017, and loved connecting with the fast-casual community there,” says Sam Oches, QSR’s editor. “Austin flies under the radar when it comes to important fast-casual innovation hubs, but clearly the creative energy there has led to the creation of several emerging concepts with exciting potential.”
As part of the Austin Fast Casual Meet Up, QSR is partnering with Future Restaurants 2019, a conference dedicated to revolutionizing the in-restaurant experience. The event, held September 16–17 at the Westin Austin Downtown, will bring together hundreds of restaurant executives to discuss innovations that will influence the future of the restaurant industry. The Fast Casual Meet Up will be held just after the conclusion of Future Restaurants 2019, and any operator who RSVPs to the Meet Up prior to September 13 will receive a code good for 25 percent off conference registration.
The Fast Casual Meet Up series launched in 2015 as a way to unite communities of fast-casual operators across the country. The free networking receptions feature food and drinks in a relaxed setting, giving founders, executives, managers, and other restaurant representatives a platform for meeting peers and learning more about what’s going on in their local communities.
To date, representatives from more than 650 brands in 13 cities have joined QSR at a Fast Casual Meet Up.
“We’ve had great feedback from operators about the Meet Ups, and countless partnerships and friendships have emerged from them,” Oches says. “Restaurant professionals are always working so hard and rarely get time to interact with their peers. We want to give them that opportunity so they can learn from each other—and we didn’t want to make them fly across the country to a conference to achieve that.”
To RSVP to the free Austin Fast Casual Meet Up, restaurant operators simply need to visit QSRmagazine.com/austin-meet-up and input their information. (Vendors/suppliers are not permitted to the Meet Ups.)
