Return of the Mac

Let's get the complaints out of the way:Early entry in to the building was at 10am. We did not get inside till 10:15am. It took 5 guys to put up the enter / exit sign. Post and emails said the building was heated. It may have been heated but it wasn't very warm. Music should have been turned off and a mic used to give instructions to people waiting. One young lady about 5 ft tall was not adequate to project over the crowd of mostly adults that weren't taught how to form lines. One last complaint WHY WAS UNIQUE HOME SOLUTIONS THERE?!?!? Out of place and not fitting with the event. No T-shirtso over xl. It's a carb lovers event. Next year do some 2 - 4 xl shirts. The good:Event space was bigger. Lines went much faster with the 4 stop stations. Whomever thought of that GOOD JOB! The flow was actually flowing. Lots more seating and tall tables. Great selections even from as far as Kokomo. Nada and Joella were the two best and most cheesy macs. Excellent event! Can't wait till next year. It's a nice break for the winter blahs.

Nice event but a little chaotic until the crowds died down around 2:00. Signage would have been helpful as it was difficult to see which line led to each vendor.My favorites were the creations from NADA and Wildcat. I hadn't visited either of those restaurants yet so now both are on my list. Will visit soon!Some of the vendors ran out of food before I could get to their area, which was disappointing. Fat Dan's, Clustertruck, and Sangrita were three that I really wanted to try but were out by the time I made it to their areas. It was difficult to state which was the true favorite when we hadn't sampled them all.I would suggest a larger area for next year, with separation between the tables for a more orderly event. The lines were so long and wide that it was difficult to tell which vendor's line you were in until you progressed to the table.Separation between the tables, signs above the tables, and a larger area would make this a five star event.

I might be partially biased because I got to stay and work as a vendor for both events. Last year (2017) I was so excited to attend the first-ever ROTM. I felt a cold coming on, so my hippie self decided to pop a Zinc tablet. Shortly after, my stomach was trying any and every way to get that supplement out. In short, I wasn't able to attend. Luckily, this year, I got to attend both sessions and this didn't disappoint. As a vegetarian, I was fearful that there wouldn't be enough options to choose from; however, that was far from the case. I was able to try at least 75% of the cheesy goodness and that was a lot! One vendor even had jackfruit as the meat substitute. That's awesome! Vegans - I wouldn't say it would be worth it for you at all simply because none of them had no dairy products. The event ran very smoothly, the vendors were happy and kept the mood high even after the carbs and fat kicked in, and it was a gouda time.One suggestion: the random home-related business was a bit odd to have at an event like that. Might make more sense to ditch that idea all around and try to fit another restaurant in there, or at least something related to the event theme like a dairy farm, etc.

Great mac, awesome DJ, comfortable space. I take off one star because it was a total cluster trying to get to the front of each "line". I did not leave hungry, I'll say that much!

Elbow noodles, penne and gnocchi. Pulled pork, smoked brisket, blue crab and fried chicken. Jalapeños, onion strings and mushrooms. Doritos, pork rinds and bread crumbs. If it can be mac'd, it was mac'd!This was a great event. Everything was delicious and I left in a mac n cheese coma. Mission accomplished.Huge crowd as the event opened at 1:00. Took about 20 minutes to fill our first plate, but crowd really thinned about by 1:45. By 2:00, it was free rein at all the stations. Everyone was very friendly and patient. The crowd was not a problem at all.Two big thumbs up!

What a "Gouda" afternoon! This is the "big cheese" of food festivals in Indy! If you want a day filled with golden ooey gooey deliciousness with a crispy topping, this is your day!"Cheddar" later than never! - I think next time I'd like to try the first session as a couple booths had run out of samples by the second session, but the early session tickets sell out FAST! The later session wasn't very crowded though!"Bleu" through the event quickly - It was faster to make it to all of the samples available than I expected and got through all of them in 1 hour. I was able to get seconds on my favorite.Don't "Brie" greedy - a hint for those with smaller appetites: if you're not digging a sample, don't eat it all because there's plenty to make you too full! Then you'll have a better perspective to judge all samples fairly!A "dairy" good afternoon to "noodle" from booth to booth.

2nd year and still had fun! The bigger venue was great. Easy to navigate and it didn't feel as congested. There were long lines but they moved pretty quickly. So much mac n cheese and now I'm stuffed. This year, I took better notes and really pulled out my critiquing skills! Can't wait for next year! My rankings were difficult to do because I think there should be two categories: mac n cheese as a side or Mac n cheese as an entree. My top picks (in no particular order because I can't choose!):Livery, Joella's, Nada, Big Lug, and Silkelicious

We were in the early entry VIP session 1. The session started late but it also ended later to make up for the time missed. The actual space with the booths was pretty large and we appreciated the tables. A map next year would be really helpful to navigate the space.We did one loop around the entire setup and sampled 1 mac and cheese from each booth. After that, we went back to get seconds we'll really fifths of our favorites -- Nada and the Tulip. So.much.mac.and.cheese. We stayed for the first hour but left after that to take a nap. For us, buying the early entrance pass was worth it if we were going but I'm not convinced the total price + the service charge was worth it.

I think it was a great idea for Indianapolis to have this event. I sampled a lot of great food and even learned about a couple restaurants that I didn't know existed. I understand that this event grew exponentially and probably to a capacity that the restaurants or event coordinators weren't prepared for. However...I feel like there was no organization or direction as to how this was all supposed to work. Generally at events where there are small tastings of food (such as Penrod, Zoobilation), it's just on a first come-first serve basis and you grab and go. But at those places, booths are spread out. At this event all of the tables were connected and shaped in the form of a rectangle in the middle of the room. Well what this caused was a weird school cafeteria line to form and go around the rim. So then when my friends and I popped in to a couple of places and grabbed our sample, we heard some say "the line's back there..." What line? Who said anything about forming a line? If the intent was to create lines then I think each booth should have been partitioned off and have lines form for each vendor. Not just one line of 1000 people who are barely moving. Also, with this being a competition, I wish that the restaurant names/logos would have been displayed more visibly (perhaps from the ceiling or just a tall sign on the table). I had several favorites but couldn't tell you what restaurant made what because the signs were constantly covered up with herds of people. Or maybe the little sample cups could have a restaurant "number" and then guests can match the number to a restaurant name using a cheat sheet. $3 bottles of water and $6 Gatorades sent me over the edge. Some people (not I) spent a lot of money for these tickets so the very least that could have been provided is free tap water. Lastly, I wish that some more seating options could have been available. The general admission ticket allotted you just that: admission. No water, no coat check, no seat. People were sitting Indian style on the concrete floors in the middle of the room. I'm not saying that every single person should have had an assigned seat or anything like that, but I do think that Pan Am Plaza is an inappropriate place, aesthetically, to have people sitting on the cold floor.

Pretty awesome turnout for the first year. My boyfriend and I bought tickets to the second seating so we had the 5-7pm time. We arrived about 30 minutes earlier, which was perfect timing because soon after, the line was out the door. Once we got in we were able to hit the front tables pretty quickly & easily (about 7 of the vendors). When we got back up for the other side, it was a lot harder and more exhausting. The "lines" were so crazy and people were just cutting left and right. I mean there wasn't any pushing and shoving but just no organization to these lines. There were quite a few tables that was already out of Mac n cheese by the time we got there and it wasn't even 6 yet.. a little disappointing. My favorites were: 1. Fat dans 2 Cerulean 3. The district tap Some of the others were underwhelming (as in bland, dry, too milky, or too dense in consistency) but overall, I enjoyed the experience.