- [Chris] So on a typical game day
we'll serve approximately 1,500 servings of popcorn,
1,200 hot dogs, 1,100 chicken tenders.
Then you have the burgers and the tacos and the salads
and it really does become, you know,
a moment where you take pause and say, "Wow, you know,
how did we just serve thousands of anything?"
I think you have to be wired a certain way.
I think you need to have a little bit of a screw loose
to be quite honest with you, because it's so hard.
(upbeat music)
- Have a good day.
- You guys ready to rock and roll?
My title is Vice President of Hospitality and Strategy.
So my day typically starts around 9:00, 9:30.
We have a bunch of calls
and there's always something
to be ready for that evening's event or game.
We are gearing for the transition of a weekend full of
fantastic concerts into an amazing Nets game.
And we're expecting another sell out,
so that is a real 180,
because now we're shifting from really high bar sales
to high food sales.
Headed to you and Crown.
Yeah, yeah, headed to you and Crown.
The calm before the storm for us is the walkthrough.
So we've got, really, a couple of hours starting about
two and a half to three hours before doors
where we're ready for our team members to join us
so they can start helping us get all of our areas ready.
It's one thing to kind of hear
that everything's on track and doing well,
it's a very different thing to see it for yourself.
Ladies, how are you?
- I'm good.
- Hey, how are you?
How are you?
Thank you, good to see you.
So we have several clubs with within the Barclays Center.
Some of our others are the Qatar Club, 40/40 Club.
So in general, we have three clubs total,
Crown Club being the third.
This is our pantry in our Crown Club.
So this is where all of our Crown guests
get to enjoy what we affectionately refer to
as a Willy Wonka experience.
The Crown Club is our brand new, Ken Fulk-designed,
Major Food Group-curated in partnership with us
event space for our court side guests,
or as we affectionately refer to them,
the folks with their feet on the wood.
The Crown Club opens 30 minutes earlier
than the rest of general doors,
and that's because of the style of service.
We need to get guests sat down a little bit quicker
so we can get them their meal
and onto the court for their action.
Hey.
Fresh,
fresh haircut.
You doing all right?
About to check in with Chef Livio
a little ahead of schedule.
And I think based on the post-game reservations we had,
we're in solid shape.
So it shouldn't be a bad one, all right?
- Easy money.
- Easy money, easy money. - That's how it is.
- This is the spicy rigatoni
that we serve in the Crown Club.
We probably serve anywhere between, I would say,
150 to 200 orders a night on average.
This is our most popular dish by far.
- Rigatoni window.
- So Executive Chef Livio,
one of the best culinarians I've ever worked with,
and I think, more than that,
one of the best people I've ever gotten a chance to know
and he makes this job a lot of fun.
- I spend more time with him
than I spend with my wife.
- So the way our kitchen spaces are organized is
they're thankfully spread out amongst the operation
so we can get the hottest food to our guests the fastest.
So we basically have three commissary kitchens
that really handle all of our major service locations.
Livio oversees every single bite of food
that comes through all those departments.
So our suite-level kitchen
does all of our clubs on the suite level, including 40/40,
and does all the suites but also handles our catering.
- So 40/40 Club, we do chef tables out there,
really nice buffet setups,
people kind of walk through, they kind of graze and take,
you know, food from all the different areas.
The suites is more of an individualized setup.
People order packages, they order a la carte as well.
And then we send the food out there,
the cold food, the hot food.
It's set up right before they go in the suite
and they walk in there and everything's there,
they have an attendant who helps serve them
and also comes back and gets more food and whatnot
during the evening.
This is our dry-aged Tomahawk.
It is dry aged for 28 days.
We serve it upstairs in suites.
This is a huge seller as part of the steakhouse package.
I think one of the joys about cooking
here at the Barclays Center
is not only do we have the clubs
where we can do a little bit more fine dining,
but we also have the concessions where we can try to,
you know, do like a really nice wing
or a really good burger,
you know, hot dogs.
We get a chance to play with everything, so.
- Suites seems very uncomplicated to the naked eye
because there's 15 people in a room enjoying food, right?
Times that by 80, 86,
depending on the amount of suites that are booked that night
or some party suites got expanded to host bigger groups.
And so, effectively, what you're doing is
serving 86 separate parties.
- The next dish that we're gonna do here
is our Barclays burger.
So we serve this in concessions.
We serve it in suites.
We serve it in 40/40 Club.
We serve it down here in our Qatar Club.
I'm gonna say, we probably serve about
1,000 pounds of ground meat per game, at least,
probably a little bit more than that.
And our burger is four ounces,
so you could calculate that, you know,
that's a lot of burgers, right?
I think if you're coming to a sports game, you know,
number one is
you want something you can just hold in your hand.
More than anything else,
I think people love simple food,
something they can relate to,
you know, and also they want it to be delicious.
So that's it, that's our Barclays burger 2.0.
(instrumental music)
- A check-in for suites is around 4:00, 4:15.
That's when we start pushing the cold food out.
And then that all leads up to our big, hot food push
at around 20 minutes to 30 minutes before doors.
- So, essentially what we do is we get in all our pre-orders
and we print everything out
so we know exactly how many packages we have
and we can label the stuff accordingly.
In a normal restaurant, right,
you're getting tickets as things are coming in, right?
People are ordering, you get a ticket.
We basically have a book of tickets, right?
- Our suites' operation
is something I'm probably the most proud of,
along with all the other great stuff we do,
because they're so consistent.
As complicated and intricate as it can be,
I think our systems support that intricacy
and really help execute it well.
So right now it's 5:30.
We're doing our big, hot food push into the suites,
and at the same time, all of our clubs,
Qatar and 40/40 are pushing out of their club's food
at the same time,
so this is peak hour for the kitchen.
- Richard, I need a spatula, please.
- So we're gonna start
getting it out to the suites now.
(percussion music)
So on a typical game night, amongst all of our departments,
we're serving 18,000 people
in about two and a half or three hours,
without exaggeration.
That's typically spread out across every single club
and concession stand or catering in suites.
(percussion music)
Ready for tonight?
How you doing, Margaret?
You're good?
- How you doing, man?
- Good to see you, hey.
Ladies, hello.
I love my team.
(Chris laughing)
That's what I love the most about them, that we are a team.
They wanted to see the best suites team in the business.
- All right.
(team applauding)
- We have an hourly team membership
of around 650 people on any given game day.
From that, we're almost 1,100
with the amount of part-timers in availability,
but without them, nothing could happen.
One of the cool parts about having opened the building
is I actually hired a lot of these folks.
So we have a connection eight, nine, 10 years old already.
You guys good?
- Thank you, yeah.
- Awesome.
Let's get it.
Sorry, one sec.
Super urgent.
With all this going on,
with being in this, you know,
action packed environment of live guests and food service,
there's also a very heavy administrative part of this job.
And on average, I'll get between three and 400 emails,
dozens of text messages, phone calls, group texts,
WhatsApp alerts,
and it really just doesn't stop all day.
And the nature of our businesses is
there are a lot of last minute requests
that we do everything we can to accommodate.
So being glued to your phone
and making sure you don't miss anything
is really mission critical
to making sure there's a flawless experience.
We've got about 30 minutes for doors.
The worst part of my day, I would say,
is that one minute before doors,
because that one minute before doors,
all the self-doubt comes crashing in.
Are we as prepared as we think we are?
When I did my walkthrough, did I miss something?
Because those 18,000 people are coming
whether I like it or not.
It is 7:23 and we're in the atrium,
but it looks like it's a great crowd coming in
in a nice, orderly fashion.
So we're in good shape.
The department with the most variables
and has the most challenges
is definitely concessions.
It's just such a juggernaut.
So feeding 16,000 guests in two hours is no small feat.
How are you?
This amazing team of ladies
holds down one of the busiest stands in the entire building.
People can't leave Barclays Center
without a Fuku chicken sandwich
or a set of Fuku chicken tenders, so.
The majority of our concession stands
are considered mini kitchens.
So we do all of the cooking and preparation
live in those stands.
- Danny Zacharia, 107.
Main concourse,
walk through those doubles doors,
come right in to the stand.
We got you.
- Let 'em know who's making this.
Let 'em know who's making it.
Right on, right on.
These people are excellent.
Come get it.
Barclays.
- This is exactly what we love to see
in the Brooklyn Market.
Nice and busy
and getting a lot of traction for our local businesses, so.
So right now we're at halftime.
This is our biggest crunch to get all of our guests served.
We have 15 minutes to really get it right
so we can get them back in their seats to watch the game.
- Following guests.
- So during halftime section one or 101
is the eye of the storm for service.
So our guests really tend to congregate there,
'cause it's their first opportunity to make a food purchase,
first opportunity to make a beverage purchase,
and they take full advantage of it.
So, so far we're feeling really good,
lines are moving,
food is in the windows, guests are being served.
And right now we're just gonna make sure
all of our guests are happy.
- Excellent.
- You can enter right this way, guys.
How you doing, guys?
If you wanna line up right back there,
we'll take care of you real fast.
So immediately followed by that eye of the storm
is the calm of the wake of the storm,
but it is pretty impressive to watch the spike
followed by the inevitable gear down,
'cause it all happens within six minutes.
So now we're headed down to the Crown Club
because it's post game,
and that's the next big push for the Crown.
- Fish fry solo, two, two, four.
- What's cash flow?
- What table?
- One burger medium, one fries.
- This job is very challenging.
And so, with that challenge comes
just such an incredible amount of reward.
You feel a sense of accomplishment.
You get through a game, you get through a playoff,
you get to sit back and realize
there's not a lot of people that can do this.
That orchestra is something that gives me chills,
literally, as I'm telling you.
It's so crazy to think it can all work out
and not only does it work out,
but it works out to a super high level.
(electronic music)
And with just an amazing group of great people
that are high fiving with their last bit of energy
or smiling and high fiving on their way out the door,
16 hours later,
just to come do it all over again and.
- This scene is fixing.
- Thank you so much.
We'll talk.
It's 11:00 P.M.
The game is over, we did it.
Another successful one in the books.
My day's about halfway done.
I've got another three or four hours of emails
and other things to dig out of
and planning for the next one
and the next one and the next one,
but it's been an absolute blast.
You guys are welcome back to Barclays Center anytime.
Have a great night.
Let's go, Nets!
(Chris laughing)