Chicago Bears’ playoff run means big postseason business

When the Chicago Bears host the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday evening, it will be just the fifth time in the storied history of Soldier Field that the lakefront stadium will be the site of two NFL playoff games in one season.

For Chicago, the team and its long-suffering fans, the postseason run on frigid home turf is a boon to both civic pride and a wide range of businesses gearing up for game day, from bars and restaurants to Foam Party Hats, whose cheese grater hats are on backorder through March in the wake of last week’s 31-27 comeback playoff win over the Green Bay Packers.

But perhaps no business is more directly connected to the home playoff run than Chicago-based Levy, which is firing up its team of more than 1,200 mostly seasonal food service workers again this week to sate 60,000 boisterous Bears fans Sunday at Soldier Field.

“This is like bonus money to them,” said Ryan Craig, 35, now in his second season as executive chef for Levy at Soldier Field, which took over concessions for the stadium in 2024. “They’re coming in and they’re working additional weeks that otherwise weren’t on schedule. So I think the excitement around the employees is just as much as it is around the fans.”

One of the largest sports concessionaires in the country, Levy provides game day food and beverage service for 10 NFL stadiums. In addition to Soldier Field, Chicago-area sports venues served by Levy include Wrigley Field, United Center, Rate Field and Now Arena in Hoffman Estates, as well as the Chicago Fire’s new soccer stadium going up in the South Loop.

Each year, there are 10 Bears home games at Soldier Field, including the preseason and regular season. The postseason run not only expands the schedule for Levy, playoff games tend to generate more concessions revenue, with fans pouring into the stadium earlier than usual to be part of the excitement, Craig said.

For last week’s game with the Packers, Levy cooked up a number of promotions to rev up the oldest rivalry in football, including sending staff out with cheese graters to add some shredded cheddar — and a side of snark — to just about everything.

“We had some people wearing the cheese grater hats, and they had cheese graters and cheese and they’re walking around almost like a restaurant offering to grate cheese on stuff for people,” Craig said. “That’s what the fans were going for. So we jumped in on it all the way with the fans.”

The Levy team has been gearing up all week for Sunday’s game against the Rams, which has been somewhat more challenging in terms of food service themes. Not only is it a less heated rivalry, but the weather is going to be downright cold, with game-time temperatures expected to be in the teens by the 5:30 p.m. kickoff.

The arctic blast, however, could be good for food sales at Soldier Field. Craig said fans generally eat more when it’s cold, especially hot food.

“They don’t buy as much popcorn and pretzels, and they buy more hot dogs, burgers, Italian beef, things like that to stay warm,” Craig said. “But we do actually see a lift in food sales when it gets colder.”

Levy is introducing an “Iceman” cocktail this weekend in honor of the weather and Caleb Williams, who earned that moniker from his teammates for coolly guiding the Bears to seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season, including last week’s win over the Packers.

To combat the frigid temperatures, Craig also plans to have a reservoir of hot chocolate on tap to warm up the fans. A Chicago twist this season includes a concoction with a little more punch — Malört hot chocolate with salted caramel marshmallows.

“It was a good combo, and it keeps people warm,” Craig said.

Meanwhile, the foam cheese grater hats may be in short supply Sunday at Soldier Field. They not only have little relevance to the Rams, but also are nearly impossible to get at this point, with demand far outstripping supply.

The cheese grater hat itself was born of Packer resentment, according to Manuel Rojas, who started Houston-based Foam Party Hats in 2017 with his mother, Grace, after the family immigrated to Texas from Venezuela.

In 2023, they created the cheese grater hat in response to receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the Packers for the firm’s knockoff version of the team’s officially licensed cheesehead hat, long a signature accessory of its fanbase.

Foam Party Hats rolled out their cheese grater hat with the elan of a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” spite store, notching a few hundred sales in the first year. By the 2024 NFL season, it began to resonate with fans of NFC North rival teams, including the Bears, Minnesota Vikings and most notably, the Detroit Lions, who beat the Packers twice on the way to a division title.

“It was just like adding fuel to the fire, because people not only like the product … but also the back story of the Packers messing with a small business, and you have this David against Goliath situation,” Rojas said.

The company sold about 1,000 cheese grater hats in 2024, but sales have increased exponentially this season, due in large part to the Bears’ last-to-first success story, Rojas said. The hats sell for $39.99 with free shipping, but getting one before the Bears’ playoff run is over may be a challenge.

The cheese grater hats went viral in Chicago as the Bears took the NFC North and finally vanquished the Packers in what had been a one-sided rivalry for most of the new millennium.

Some of the 8,000 cheese grater hats sold this season have shipped as far away as Germany, United Kingdom and Asia, ostensibly to overseas Bears fans/Packer haters, but the bulk of orders have headed to Chicago.

“We could have sold way more than that, if we had the capacity,” Rojas said.

When Williams and his teammates donned cheese grater hats after the Bears home playoff win last week against the Packers, demand spiked, generating 2,000 paid orders and 5,000 more on a waitlist, Rojas said.

The factory hired more workers, adding overnight and weekend shifts to churn out cheese grater hats, but the company has pushed back the delivery date for new orders to March 2 -– nearly a month after Super Bowl LX is held Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Down the road, Foam Party Hats is trying to get the cheese grater hat and other products officially licensed by the NFL to build an even bigger retail pipeline. For now, Rojas is grateful just to be a part of the Bears’ playoff run this season.

“Aside from making money and growing the business, it’s been really special to feel all the love of an entire city and being part of something so crazy as the Bears’ season that they’re having,” Rojas said. “It’ll be completely amazing if they make it to the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl, because I think people in Chicago will see their cheese grater hat as an insignia for good luck.”

While both the Bears and Levy are taking it one game at a time, if the home team beats the Rams and the 49ers beat the Seahawks this weekend, the NFC championship game would take place at Soldier Field the following Sunday, making it the third home playoff game during a memorable season.