2024 Excellence in Concessions

EXPANDED OFFERINGS

For the 2024 Excellence In Concessions package, VenuesNow recognizes the importance of the food and beverage industry, and the publication’s role in highlighting the work behind the scenes that drives business and enhances experiences, from providing heightened culinary offerings to being the battleground for the newest technology to get fans back in action and to their seats.
This year sees a few additional new award categories, one differentiating between new and renovated spaces, an additional sustainability category and a new retail item category. There’s also a spot to highlight a special annual event, such as this year’s occasion, the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

This year’s Excellence in Concessions package also includes additional editorial elements, hoping to give further insight to a vast and increasingly varied industry, a core business that also leads the way in sustainability efforts.

 

Best Refurbished Space 
Ella’s at The Brooklyn Paramount

Best New Technology
Cleveland Browns Express Beer

Best New Space In Food and Drink
Tower Marketplace at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena

Sustainability – Venue Category 
Orion Amphitheater Artist Garden

Best Special Event
Paris Olympics 2024 Athletes’ Village

Best New Menu Item
Mama Kelce’s Cookies

Best New Concept
Trisha’s Kitchen, Moody Center

Best Sustainability Initiative
Dave Matthews Band Zero-Waste Concert, Enmarket Arena

Best Retail Item
Kansas City Current Opening Day Scarf

Editor’s Choice
Magentarita, T-Mobile Center

 

 

Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s 7-Year Itch Doesn’t Scratch Fan-Friendly Pricing

By Don Muret

ATLANTA, Georgia — AMB Sports and Entertainment remains committed to its fan-friendly pricing at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, despite escalating costs over inflation and labor and equipment upgrades for one of North America’s busiest 70,000-seaters.

Seven years after the stadium opened in 2017, AMB Sports, which owns the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United and runs the stadium, is taking a hard look at its expenses tied to $2 hot dogs and sodas, among other items priced under $6, to ensure it retains a profit margin while not undercutting fan expectations. Pictured above is $20 worth of food at the stadium.

To keep costs in check, AMB Sports, in tandem with stadium concessionaire Levy, works with its service partners on ways to reduce costs, such as implementing technology to reduce beer waste and adjusting the product mix to match fan preferences to maintain margins and avoid selling unpopular items at a high cost. Some of those steps are more focused on core items, such as hot dogs, and the rest affects the overall affordability of food and drink at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, company officials said.

“We have to present to Arthur Blank (the teams’ owner) every year and we have to defend everything, even if it’s the lobster roll and a deluxe product that’s changing (in price),” said Tim Zulawski, president of AMB Sports and Entertainment. “But we do not touch fan friendly pricing.”

Another option to offset those higher expenses are converting multiple belly-up concessions to grab-and-go markets such as the ATL Market and the new Mich Ultra Grill, some of which are using facial notification to expedite the transaction process. Building more kitchens and warming pantries to accommodate hot food pickup, to keep those $2 hot dogs from getting cold, is part of the investment.

“To retrofit that structure, you’re approaching seven figures per stand and mathematically it doesn’t pay out,” Zulawski said. “It’s easier to put frictionless spaces where nothing is generating revenue. It’s a lot harder when you take something out and make it pretty again when you’re in an extremely low margin business.”

Overall, the affordable pricing model has done much better than envisioned when it was launched in 2017, Zulawski said.

Since 2021, concession per caps are up 8% and fans are purchasing more premium items with the average price per item increasing by 7%, although fans place greater value on the fan-friendly menu than in 2017, according to the NFL’s annual Voice of the Fan survey.

AMB Sports does not release numbers for per caps, but in the NFL, those numbers typically run from $28 to $40 a head, said consultant Chris Bigelow.

Most important, Mercedes-Benz Stadium has ranked No. 1 in overall food experience per Voice of the Fan since the building opened, a testament to fan-friendly pricing and the value perception placed on it by the fans, Zulawski said. AMB Sports has a wide selection of more expensive items more to meet fan demand, such as the $22 New England Lobster Roll and the $14 Closed on Sunday Chicken Sandwich, a playful takeoff on the Chick-fil-A stand in the building that’s closed on NFL Sundays.

At the splashy new Spirited self-service cocktail stands, a biometrics operation tied to facial recognition, which kicked off in mid-July at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Atlanta United FC, single pour rum and tequila drinks cost $10. Double shots are $16. Overall, hard liquor sales have increased 13% over the past two seasons as fan behavior continues to shift away from beer toward other alcoholic beverages, AMB Sports officials said.

Bottom line, affordable pricing for concessions in this era of $8 hot dogs and $15 beers is a loss leader in Atlanta, resulting in greater spending on ticket upgrades and merchandise and producing repeat customers in general by changing the value equation.

“When they leave the venue, hopefully they had a great time, and they may have something that they weren’t planning to buy, such as merchandise, and it’s all because we made food and beverage a part of the experience,” he said.

Asked if retail sales were up due to the fan-friendly pricing menu, Zulawski pointed to Atlanta United FC, whose brand accounts for 25% of Major League Soccer’s in-venue sales, he said. It’s impossible to make a direct correlation, but Atlanta United FC typically draws 40,000-plus per home match, tops in MLS, and in 2023, became the fastest in league history to reach 5 million spectators at home over 103 regular-season contests.

At the time Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened, AMB Sports made a big splash when the group announced that hot dogs, sodas with free refills, popcorn and pretzels would all cost $2; bottled water, nachos and pizza slices $3; and small beers $5. Those prices have remained the same as the program goes into its eighth season, on both public concourses and private club lounges.
The prices are fixed for all events, including Super Bowl, the SEC college football championship and the 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, when Mercedes-Benz Stadium will play host to eight matches, including a semifinal in June. That’s the twist on a critical piece of revenue that teams must grasp on the back end, where they juggle revenue streams to make the profit margins work for thinking outside of the box, according to Atlanta-based food consultant Mike Plutino.

Blank didn’t bat an eye when AMB Sports executives Jim Smith and Greg Beadles told him it would cost his organization $2 million to implement fan friendly pricing on the front end of the operation, said Plutino, a former general manager with Levy familiar with the program’s beginnings.

“You can move that (gap in pricing) over to the ticket price and make them feel good about buying $2 hot dogs and $5 beers,” he said. “You’re not making any less money. It’s a bigger weapon than is being used, because it’s not in the food provider’s best interest to go overboard. No one has time to sit there and scratch their heads about one account, but they did something new in the market. No matter how much money you have (to spend), you love not getting ripped off on a soft drink and hot dog.”

 

INTERNS LEVEL UP

by Wendy Pearl

Developing the next generation of hospitality professionals is more than a half-baked idea, with most industry leaders offering a variety of internship programs to attract and develop future employees.

“Offering a robust internship program gives the opportunity to create homegrown strength and can support future succession planning as you get the chance to help build up the careers of these rising future leaders,” said Michael Barrett, head of talent management for Sodexo Live! “A good internship program also enhances brand exposure and the talent pipeline by getting your company in front of new eyes, especially the younger generations.”

Sodexo Live! internships are paid positions, whle other programs, including OVG Hospitality, depend on the program, officials said.

Food vendors find that having direct contact with potential staff members eliminates some of the guesswork with new hires who are entering positions right out of college.

“Internships in general offer the students an opportunity to see what’s out there,” said Ken Gaber, president of Oak View Group’s OVG Hospitality. “To figure out, ‘Is this what I want to do for my career? Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?’ The ability to see and understand what you are getting into — no matter what business it is — is amazing to be able to do while you are still in college.”

Some of the most successful hospitality internship programs offer access beyond the student’s field of interest with learning positions across various departments including hot-button topic technology.

“During an internship we get to understand their professional goals better, which then allows us to offer personalized guidance to decide what the right venues and teams are that they would thrive with long term,” Barrett said. “It ultimately supports their growth and development in the long term, too. It’s mutually beneficial and leads to success for both the intern and the company.”
Launching a meaningful program takes time, attention and support from the C suite. The days of getting an intern to handle the overflow workload is past.
Students and companies are looking for a real learning experience with tangible results and long-range dividends.

“If it’s a great company, and a great culture, they are going to show you everything you need to know from start to finish as you grow,” said Gaber, who actively sought out internships while a student at Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island. “They are not there to supplement staff. They are there to become the next leaders of the company.”

Sodexo Live! offers a 12-week internship program for currently enrolled college students to get hands-on experience at partner venues across the country. Students gain valuable experience in a variety of roles including culinary, marketing, sustainability and operations, or with departmental teams, such as communications, human resources and finance.

Current interns come from an array of schools including Cornell University, University of Chicago, University of San Francisco, University of Florida and University of Alabama.

Sodexo Live! has a partnership with Ohio State University’s Hospitality Management School to build out international and national campus immersion experiences. Earlier this year, 10 students from the program visited Lucas Oil Stadium where they shadowed Sodexo Live! leaders from different departments to see how a real gameday comes together. Topical and timely with the 2024 Olympics, a group of students visited Sodexo Live!’s Paris headquarters and partner venues Lenotre culinary school, Roland-Garros, the Eiffel Tower and Bateaux Parisiens.

Oak View Group and OVG Hospitality are rewriting the cookbook on hospitality internships with a company-wide program hosting more than 50 students across several departments this summer. In the fall, OVG will launch a new career readiness initiative that creates career pathways for talent from historically underrepresented groups. The program has several variations, including hospitality, which focuses on giving students experience in food & beverage positions and back of house where dozens of venues have stepped up to let students shadow executives at their facilities.
In early 2025, OVG is collaborating with culinary expert Christian Navarro, Edgewood Real Estate Investment Trust and entrepreneurs Lee Ann and Mark Van Loucks to create Golden Oak, a state-of-the-art restaurant and culinary academy in Penterra Plaza in the Denver Tech Center.

STARS ALIGN FOR WNBA ALL STAR GAME IN PHOENIX

by Ryan Borba

High-profile events make for an opportunity for food service operators to show off their capabilities and get creative, as was the case at Footprint Center in Phoenix for the WNBA All Star Weekend, July 18-20. The festivities culminated in a game between Team USA and the WNBA All Stars for a special Olympic-sized matchup, bookended by special events in the vicinity including private meetings, receptions and other gatherings on — all revolving around food service.

OVG Hospitality, which has run food service at Footprint Center since summer 2023, assembled an all-star team and introduced new menu items including a two-foot-long Sonoran hot dog, fry bread tacos, carne asada fries and ice cream sandwiches. They partnered with five local food providers for ingredients, and enlisted additional support from its own hospitality divisions, extending to Rhubarb Hospitality and Stadium Clubs to help serve everyone from the Average Joe basketball fan to WNBA and NBA team owners.

“The weekend was a huge success for us and it wasn’t just a weekend,” said Joseph Freitas, hospitality manager at Footprint Center, home to the NBA Suns. Events started on Monday and encompassed multiple properties, including the Suns’ Verizon 5G Performance Center training facility, the On Jackson event center behind the arena as well as the official opening of the new, $100 million Phoenix Mercury practice facility.

“We also executed several events here at the arena from feeding obviously all of the fans but the WNBA All Star Team and, then over at the HQ, the entire Team USA as well,” added Freitas. “So there were a lot of moving parts and a great effort from the team throughout. Many properties don’t get the opportunity to do outside catering at these other other venues, so it was a unique situation for us. We’ve personally done everything from NBA All-Star games to Super Bowls, but to be able to do it at this level at so many different venues was a welcome challenge and we accepted it with open arms. We crushed it for sure.”

The event saw added excitement as the first year of college hoops stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese meeting again on the court as WNBA players, coinciding with an overall groundswell of excitement for women’s sports.

Senior executive chef Otis Huemmer said planning began six months ago. An additional 30 support managers were brought in to execute the weekend festivities, doubling the usual 30 for most events, which went a long way toward ensuring service for both teams.

“When you have a group like this coming to our city, it’s kind of our time to showcase what we can do,” Huemmer said, adding that successfully pulling off high-profile, complex operations builds experience and confidence among staff.

“It’s almost like we’re conditioning our support team to be in the mix on the regular, at least as far as chef support,” he said, noting that a lot of the staff pool has now been involved with major events including NBA playoffs and now WNBA All-Star week, leading into the NBA All-Star game in 2027. “You’ve got to kind of build that bench of resources.”

As far as food items specifically, Huemmer noted special items such as a made-to-order sushi station in the arena’s Annexus Social Club, which used local partners to source high-quality fish.
“We also added a helium bubble gun that basically was making a mint-flavored bubble we put on top of nitro ice cream,” he said. “Things like that, that you don’t see every day, get guests to pull their phones out to take a picture. Those are proud moments for us and we want to build on those as much as we can.”