Tim Witkowski
District Manager | Aramark
2019 Denny MedleyRandomPhotography
These are the glory days for Tim Witkowski, Aramark’s district manager headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.
Witkowski has spent the past 22 years with Aramark, the past decade of which he’s run Arrowhead Stadium’s food service as general manager before getting promoted to district manager in 2016, a position where he oversees seven venues in Greater Kansas City and San Antonio, Texas. Over the past 10 years, he’s been fortunate enough to see the Kansas City Chiefs win three Super Bowls and the Kansas City Royals win one World Series title.
Witkowski’s jurisdiction covers two convention centers, plus Arrowhead, Kauffman Stadium and Frost Bank Center, where three of the most dynamic professional athletes compete: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Royals outfielder Bobby Witt Jr. and San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama.
“I’m blessed,” Witkowski said. “Being responsible for those accounts, it gives you the opportunity to get insight to organizations that haven’t seen a superstar in a while grow and expand their business, both on the food and retail side. (Chiefs president) Mark Donovan always had a great line — ‘You have to be prepared for success.’”
Witkowski grew up in suburban Detroit, Michigan, and graduated with a degree in hospitality business from Michigan State before taking an internship with Olympia Entertainment working premium spaces at Comerica Park, home of MLB’s Detroit Tigers. Aramark hired him in 2002, where he started at Coors Field in
Denver, working both premium and general concessions before moving to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, now Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
After 15 months as general manager of the NBA Indiana Pacers arena, Witkowski relocated to San Antonio, where he spent four years as GM at AT&T Center (now Frost Bank Arena) and Freeman Coliseum. Over that time frame, Witkowski managed $20 million concessions, retail and facility service revenue. In addition, he steered food service at the 18-day San Antonio Livestock Show & Rodeo, which led to a 12% increase in revenue to $5 million over a three-year period.
Witkowski landed at Arrowhead in 2013. Over another three-year span, he managed total volume of $17 million in concessions, retail, e-commerce and team dining revenue in one of the NFL’s older buildings that turned 52 years old this season. Arrowhead’s concessions caps increased by 18% with average retail spend up 6%.
Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadium sit next to each other, and their combined infrastructure presents unique challenges. There’s only one place to back up a supply truck for both buildings, but the Chiefs and Royals have trust in Aramark to work around those obstacles.
“We’ve done self-checkout for six years, before it was popular,” Witkowski said. “When I got to Arrowhead, we had two walk-in retail locations and have systematically renovated eight places in the stadium with no more belly-up retail. We’ve built three new team stores over the last four years. At two of them, we knocked out concessions. You never hear about that in pro sports, but we put them in key locations on our upper levels and they have performed well. We’ve shown them proof of concept, which makes them trust us to do more.” — Don Muret
