Mark This! Podcast, NFL Dish
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications
Guests: Chef Richard Grab, Director of Culinary Innovation for Sports+Entertainment; Chef James Hennessey, Executive Chef for Lincoln Financial Field
It's time to Mark This!, a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business.
I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's communications team, I see and hear amazing things that are happening across our company every day. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them, building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.
We are headed into playoff season in the NFL and thought that our listeners might be interested in how stadium foods, menus and treats are developed. With us today are Chef Richard Grab, director of culinary innovation for sports and entertainment. And Chef James Hennessey, executive chef for Lincoln Financial Field. Home of the Philadelphia Eagles. Go Birds.
Together, we are going to explore how our teams gear up for the season and then surprise and delight for playoffs. We are recording this in the week leading into Christmas so we can feel the football excitement across the nation.
Chef Rich, can you tell us a bit about yourself, please?
Hey, good morning. Yeah, I mean, I've been with Aramark for about 12 years in a few different capacities. I started at Wells Fargo Center right across the street from Chef James as a chef cuisine, and then eventually became the executive chef for a few seasons and before moving on to run part of the Mid-Atlantic, and then into my current role as director of culinary innovation. And my role is more responsible for concept development, culinary strategies for the LOB, ensuring best practices and trends are available for both our clients, guests, and obviously our culinary teams across the line of business. Prior to Aramark, I worked at a bunch of restaurants all over San Francisco, LA, New York before making Philly home, and then I went to a few schools, but primarily Culinary Institute of America for my culinary degree.
Great. Chef James, would you share your background with our audience please?
Chef James Hennessey (02:07):
Sure. I've been with Aramark now for 14 years. This is my 15th season working at Lincoln Financial Field. I'm the executive chef there. I oversee all the food aspect from all the areas, which include club level, suites, all our inclusive areas, concessions as well. And prior to Aramark, I was an executive chef over at Borgata for three restaurants, which was Specchio, Ombra, Risi Bisi, and worked at other restaurants before that. Graduated from the Atlantic Cape Community College. That's where I got my degree.
Chef Rich, I've heard you say that planning for the upcoming NFL season starts the day after the Super Bowl. Is that hyperbole? If not, what are those first steps in food and drink development for the next season?
We jokingly we say that, but I think in all honesty, it starts during the playoffs or whenever our regular seasons are over. So if our team is lucky enough to get in the big game, starts right when they get back after a well-deserved week or so off because the seasons can be quite long, but the teams overall, will sit down, review some of the menu item analysis for the previous year, get with our controllers, get financials to learn some opportunities, whether good, bad or indifferent at the menu structure. And then we sit down as a team and talk about successes, failures, and so on, and take some of those learnings just to formulate some sort of a strategy going into next season. But we always joke that the off-season's the best time of the year from a personal perspective, but that time is very short.
And as Chef James will tell you, I mean between the R&D process, menu testing, looking at goods, what's new for the upcoming season, by the time you cost it and do all that work, that off-season goes away very quickly. During the playoffs though, it's actually a fun time because we can kind of play around with some new dishes like in specials or whether it's packages to kind of gain some fan feedback on some of those items just to help us get some of that time back, if that makes sense. But it's a great platform to be able to showcase some culinary innovation.
So in the context of the rapidly changing culinary industry, what strategies do you employ to accurately predict the future preference of plans? You're talking a little bit about learnings and feedback. How do you rely on data?
So yeah, there's a lot of different ways we kind of project into the season. I would say the tricky part is our seasons cover, depending on where you are in the country, it can be very warm when the season starts, all the way to sub-zero weather conditions. So when we look at menu as a whole, we have to kind of factor that in and knowing that the winter is kind of tricky when you look at available seasonal produce and certain goods and so on. So our chefs are kind of very intuitive to their menus and their capabilities. But from the corporate level, we test different LTO concepts. I know Chef James had a few great ones that he's launched over the years with even a couple of different variations. We test some of the waters from that end to see what's on trend, what's going to sell, if we need to position our strategy a little differently.
Game day specials, like I mentioned before, and catering can kind of test the waters from a taste perspective. And we kind of sit back and like I mentioned during those development sessions with our teams and kind of talk about some of that research we've had from specials and so on, or visiting other buildings, whether it's going to restaurants, reading magazines and books and even to Instagram and TikTok to gain some of that data on a personal level. But then we have a full data science department and a marketing department that compiles more industry facts for us and spills that out periodically during the season and then after the season to help validate whatever we're working on from the culinary level or making sure we're positioning things the right way. There's a lot of different factors, a lot of hands in the pot to help drive our strategy.
That does make a lot of sense Rich, and I'm actually going to dig in a little bit more to the complexity here because there are many layers in the menu development from the concourse concession stands to the premium spaces like clubs and suites. Chef Rich, can you break down the paths for each, what is expected by our customers and clients, and how do we fulfill those expectations?
I think we're going to need a longer podcast session for this discussion because we could talk about this for a month. From a guest perspective, I mean, it kind of starts what I just mentioned, it starts with our research and our data and our vision for the upcoming season. But when we look at our, and each one of our spaces is very different from food service style to fan base, to even client expectations. From a concessions perspective like the core sells, there's not a lot of change to that. And we look at that menu as holistically like from a product perspective. Is there a way to evolve the product to keep that core item the same, whether it's from a burger to a chicken tender to a slice of pizza, those items are never going to go away. They're always going to be there.
So how we look at that is how we're presenting them from, like I just mentioned, like product, packaging, and the marketing end of it, but I mentioned similar to our LTO concepts, that's a way to kind of just keep a fan engagement on that level and create some fun and little whimsical offerings for them. We also have this concept called Launch Test Kitchen, where we introduced some of our local restaurant partners. It's a good avenue for our chefs to be able to test and play with the new concept, but there's no commitment because it's more of our ghost kitchen situation. So we're able to kind of play with things, gain feedback from both our clients and our guests to be able to position it one way or the other.
Suites is very similar and it's a lot of data driven. We look at menu item analysis very, very thoroughly in this space because there is so much real estate on our suite menu and we have to cover so many bases and so many different client types, demographics and flavor profiles. So if it's not selling, it gets removed and switched out. And that can go back to some of the menu items we were playing with during the playoffs or we've run for specials in the past. But really focusing on that, that financial menu item analysis helps drive the narrative for there. And we supplement similar to like in our concessions, whether it's like game day specials or packages or any kind of seasonal offerings from that end of things.
So in the vein of saying that each account is unique, it has its own needs, wants, Chef James, when Rich and his team present the results of their development, how do you deploy that at your stadium? How do you tweak it for your own fan bases?
Chef James Hennessey (08:45):
Well, we take that, basically everything that Rich and his team put together, the analytics, and we start looking internally about what we can do in our building. In Philadelphia, it's a little bit tougher. We have one of the toughest fan bases in the country and it keeps us on our toes 24/7. So when we look at all the stuff that we need to do when we are revamping or looking towards building on towards the next year, or even for this year, we really hone in onto what we can add that we don't have, what we haven't done, how we can tweak something, what sold well, why did it sell well? Was it the location? Was it a certain area? Was another area why something wasn't selling well? Was it because it was a dead zone?
And then we looked to tweak those things and the analytical information that we get is really critical. But then also with our fan bases, we try to follow up the trends of what's going on around the city, what other restaurants are doing. And then how we can try to utilize that information as well and spin it and somehow put it into the stadium and give them a quality product at all times.
Can you both share how much taste testing goes on as the menu develops? Whose taste buds are you relying on exactly, Rich, at the enterprise level, who is it?
Yeah, I would say from an enterprise level, I mean we love to go to tastings and we'll certainly be a resource, but we leave everything to the individual chefs to make sure that their guests and clients are taken care of and we're cooking for them solely. We don't lead from a culinary strategy outside of any core concepts or any kind of limited time offerings we're offering at that point. But it's solely up to the account level chefs.
So Chef James who's tasting it at the stadiums?
Chef James Hennessey (10:33):
Always got to have big Chef Al involved. It's our general manager. If Al Austin's not involved, I'm in trouble. Once Al's involved, he's one of the main components. Also, our premium directors. I like to get their insights as well. Plus the chefs. The chefs internally with myself, we're working tirelessly to get those flavors right.
So we've already tasted something multiple times. But then I also like to have people that are not as culinary inclined to taste something, to get their thoughts to actually say, hey, what do you think of this? And tell me what's wrong, what's right. And they might not have a refined palate as some other people just because for the most part, they might be the people that are coming in as our everyday fan. And if they're going to tell me, Hey, this is too spicy and I might think it's perfect, well, their palate might be on point for what, 25 to 50%, even 60% of the people that are walking in the building might say. So I have to really deep dive into their thoughts as well and be open-minded to everybody's perspective when we do stuff like that. So we kind of utilize a wide range of different people when we do tastings and such to get everybody's opinion, and we don't leave any stone unturned basically.
And that's during the regular season. Chef James, how early do you start thinking about what you can do at the stadium to capitalize on playoff fever?
Chef James Hennessey (11:58):
You try not thinking too early in the NFL. As you can see, it's a whirlwind of a season. Every week something changes. I think November is when you really start to really dive into where you're at. And even then it seems like it's still too early because as we're in December, it quickly changes and where you think you're going to be and where you might end up, it's always a coin flip. And that's what's challenging about NFL. It's such a fast-paced fast season that it's week by week and it starts in, pretty much in August with preseason. But once you get into September, September all the way to December goes so fast and you work so many weeks that you don't even realize that like how fluidly you've gone through the season.
But when you get to November, you start looking into, okay, where are we at in the standings? What do we need to do? Are we going to have a game? Do we think we're going to have a game? What is our next steps? And then what do we start looking at to kind of achieve those levels, to be ready and prepared for when those things start coming our way? So we're ready to make sure that we're firing still on all cylinders.
So this will be a question for both of you. We're not just at the Link. We have quite a few stadiums where we provide hospitality and food. What changes get made at the premium levels with regard to menu? I know it's not totally revamped, but do we change anything up? Rich, can you start us out on that?
I would say across the line of business, to kind of summarize from a suites perspective, I would say 25 to 35% of the menus are flipped. And again, that kind of goes back to what we've learned from the previous season, compiled with some of that forward-thinking menu innovation. For the rest of premium, whether in the club space or any of our club level concession stands, in some cases those are flipped fully. So the guts and the core structure of the menu may stay the same, but we've already run through a bunch of different rotations of that. So it's time for a overhaul, whether it's like a food service trend, integrating more action station cooking, or if it's just flavor profiles, that's really more of an overhaul in the off season, if that makes sense.
It does. And Chef James, what would you say have been your most popular suite changes, but also your most popular playoff offerings in the past couple years? The Eagles have been lucky enough to be playoff contenders in recent years.
Chef James Hennessey (14:29):
I think anytime we throw a chicken sandwich on there with some sort of spin, I think that seems to go over well, especially in that time of year when it gets to late January, that always takes off a lot better than most other sandwiches. If you look into what we dynamically do in the stadium, it's kind of consistently a lot of beef options, a lot of chicky fries is the number one seller in that stadium, hot dogs and so on, so forth. But when you add something to that environment that they're not used to, and we promote where it's at, and then anytime you do either a chili or a soup type of thing, if it's available, the guests gravitate towards that, especially with the Northeast weather that we get in that month as well always benefits.
And what trends are you keeping an eye on that may influence the playoff menu for this season Chef?
Chef James Hennessey (15:20):
Current trends that we're trying to pay attention to is, again, smaller type of easy to eat options, stuff on sticks. Anything where it's one to two biters. I know the ones that keep coming back around. I know a lot of retro stuff is coming back forward, but we're looking more towards easy to consume low price items where it's more affordable options for the guests.
All right. And a couple bonus questions here because when we spoke to our Major League Baseball team earlier this year, we wanted to know what your favorite stadium food was. So Chef Rich, what's been your favorite offering in recent years if you head in for an NFL game?
Putting me on the spot here. Honestly, I'm going to give Chef James a nod. I love his pork sandwich up in the market on the club level. That's always the go-to when I'm at the Link for sure.
And Chef James, how about you? What's your favorite creation?
Chef James Hennessey (16:21):
Something that we did on a whim, which was Aramark push the brunch menu in 2017 and it took off. And for us it was just something that we wanted to do. It was good food and just integrating two different things, lunch and brunch. But it's just things like that is when you can sit back and kind of do something and really deep dive into yourself and say, hey, this is something that I really want to do and I want to have fun with it.
And then when people are receptive to it and enjoy it, it really kind of makes it all worth it. When we get rewarded and we get recognized and stuff like that, it's a team effort. It's a total team effort that everybody does, and it's enjoyable and that's what makes the job well worth it. Working with Chef Rich and his genius that he works with and Chef Glenn and all those guys, it's awesome. It's a great experience and S&E, I think that's why we're one of the best in country in S&E. It's amazing. And doing things like that is definitely a benefit to kind of everything to what we do.
Would you like to know more about sports and entertainment's offerings? Visit our newsroom on Aramark.com to access more information. Chef Rich and Chef James, thank you so much for joining us today to give us this culinary tour. And thanks as always to those who are listening to Mark This!.
