Chili Bar | The Everyday Hostess

One of my favorite ways to spend cold and rainy days like today is curling up on the couch with a big bowl of homemade chili. Since my house is the primary gathering spot for all our friends, my boyfriend and I set up this super cute Chili Bar for them to come and enjoy as well!

This setup is really easy to throw together last minute. The morning of our Chili Bar party, I whipped up a batch of my favorite chili recipe and let it cook all day on the crockpot then about an hour before our guests came, I made some quick and easy Jalapeno Cornbread Muffins, threw a few baked potatoes in the oven, and a skillet chocolate chip cookie for dessert! A quick and simple menu, but filling and SO delicious!

Since chili is a pretty casual dish, you don’t need a super elaborate set-up either. To put together this simple and casual-rustic styled bar, all I did was use some extra burlap as a semi-tablecloth to create texture, used my favorite wooden crates to hold the baked potatoes, beverages, and corn muffins and most importantly add some height to the tablescape, added a cute “Chili Bar” sign that I downloaded and printed at my house from Etsy and then just placed the chili stockpots on the table for easy serving!

But seriously, how cute is this sign? This took 5 minutes to purchase, download, and print off of Etsy, but it makes the whole bar look like I put WAYYY more effort into it than I really did. It really is all in the details, my friends!

Don’t forget to lay out some toppings for the Chili! I just picked out my four favorite condiments and put them in some mason jars for guests to serve out of. Mason jars fit perfectly with the casual-rustic feel I was going for, plus they are easy to clean up! All I had to do to put it away was screw the tops back on and put it in the refrigerator for next time I needed them!

As for beverages, I just picked up some cute Coca-Cola bottles from the grocery store and served them with paper straws. Once again, super easy and convenient, but looks like we put way more effort into the whole set up than we really did!