Transcript
Transcript
Transcript
More than 215,000 people are expected to flock to Miami for America’s biggest sporting event. And all of those fans come with big appetite. We do two things here. We play, we eat. That’s Gianni De La Cruz or Chaffee, the executive chef of the Super Bowl. She’s in charge of feeding everyone from the fans to the players and performers. She runs an army of 3000 culinary professionals, hustling day and night leading up to the big game. But they’re not just serving up stadium nachos. They’re also whipping up complex dishes like porketta and seafood paella. And they’re doing it all against the clock, delivering meals across the stadium the size of, well, a football field. We are living at this amazing adrenaline rush, and it’s like a bomb just blow in the middle of the kitchen. Just feels like we all go to word, We all fight our own battles. And at the end of the run, we come back and we tell the stories about how we made it. So how do they feed all the football’s biggest fans? This year, Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium is hosting the big game. The stadium and its caterer Centerplate are no stranger to big events, but for Super Bowl 54, things are taken up a notch. We are doubling the building and everything that we’re doing. So far, 50% more staff was brought in just for Super Bowl Sunday, including dishwashers, line cooks, inventory staff and 35 chefs flown in from all over North America. But the staff has to think beyond the game. They’re also press events, NFL executive dinners and the fan experience at Miami Beach. Convention Center, which means on top of the 65,000 fans squeezing into the stadium, the chefs are responsible for feeding an extra 150,000 people in just one week. While it wouldn’t share an exact number, Centerplate does expect millions of dollars in sales for the Super Bowl alone to get it all done. The culinary team began planning for this event nearly four years ago, but it all comes down to the 24 hours before the Super Bowl. There is a system to the madness. I know people don’t believe that, but it is there is there is something behind it. So this is how we work Super Bowl. Everything is in order. We kind of have a system. We have orders, we have labels. Inventory staff receives all incoming produce starting 36. Hours before game day, it’s hustled into storage or divided into kitchen fridges. Chests typically do most of the cooking from 7 kitchens in the stadium, but for Super Bowl Sunday, they had to wheel in three extra mobile kitchens and outsource cooking to local vendors in the Miami Beach Convention Center. Main kitchens crank out food for lounges, sweets and concession stands. And in those stands, the staff aims to keep the time between ordering your food and getting it in your hand at 45 seconds. We pre cook them and we’ll finish them in the oven the day of the game and we’ll keep them in the hot boxes at temperature and then we’ll serve them. Kitchens are divided up into cold and hot sections and the cold kitchen they’re throwing together dishes like wedge salads and ceviche. And hot. They’re frying up heaps of plantains and chicken wings. Chefs line up rows of Turkey sandwiches, labor over bats of lamb Curry, and dish out gallons and gallons of baked beans for the sweets. Here they’ll be cooking 10,000 hot dogs alone. A little bit wary. Tons of fun, though. I’m a football fan, so go 49ers. Once cooked, all the food is rushed down the stadium secret highway under the stands. Sorry, I walked fast. Don’t. Maybe I’m gonna slow down. We call these the belly of the Beast. We are walking through what we call our area when it comes to food and beverage. I’m having a coffee macaroon so I can continue going. Anybody who walks on game day should have between 6 to 11 miles. All this is in preparation for the biggest food rush right before kickoff. Food heads up to 1 of the 85 concession stands and carts in the concourse. While some stands have small grills to finish up cooking, most rely on deliveries from downstairs whenever they get close to running out. Let’s just say that doesn’t happen often, but if it does, then somebody calls the radio and then somebody runs really fast, but with the stadiums massive size. And thousands of people clogging up the concourse. Deliveries can be tough. The big giant that moves on his own sometimes. Today you might be selling all the flat pie pizza, tomorrow you might be selling all the burgers. So it’s all about readjusting and making sure that we manage the expectation. Upstairs are handling smaller tasks but the same amount of food we are and what we call the cold side area for sweets. Out of these two kitchens, we fit about 157 suites. Imagine 157 small. Restaurants We are in the best kitchen at Hard Rock Stadium. Who was the second Super Bowl? We got 22 pioneers, 3 here. They’re slicing up cheese and roasting racks on racks of mushrooms. Imagine what you see here and cook for 1600 people. For me, The team cranks out 400 different menu items on Super Bowl Sunday alone. And if one thing breaks, well, if one of them breaks, it’s like a dominant effect. Something is going to fall behind. So you can’t take anybody for granted, especially in such a large. Operation like what we have here and in this game the size is the biggest hurdle at a regular restaurant for a regular day you might order just two cases of lobster tails instead of receiving 2 cases a lobster tail you’re receiving 3000. We just smoked about 4544 hundred almost 5000 lbs of 40 bucks right now Actually I’m bringing about 9000 cookies which is crazy. I just called my my vendor and I said you know I need more cookies. Luckily chef D can rely on others to help make the magic happen she’s hired 40 local. Vendors to turn out everything from 4000 popsicles within a week to cake pops, cookies and bundt cakes for the sweets working 24 hours a day I have four shift right now I have to rent extra refrigeration. This is the founder of pastries art, a family owned bakery in charge of all the desserts for the Super Bowl and yes she did get that call for those 9000 cookies. These super funny we plan and get organized and they just say ohh buddy why Mama just so you know I may order a little bit more cookies I’m like. OK, sure, no problem. How many more? Just not enough. About 2500 more years said sure, no problem. I got it, I got it. And then when I hang up the phone I’m like, Oh my God, we have 2500. We’re cookies. It’s underplates 15th Super Bowl, but it’s chef’s first. We are all of us bearing ourselves through thousands of fans out there. I always tell everybody on game day, find a little moments, you know, and look down into the bowl and and find yourself thinking, you know, pat yourself on the back and say I did that.
