Several city-inspired food items during All-Star Weekend included the Charlotte Pork BBQ burger.
During the NBA All-Star events that took place Feb. 13-15, Brooklyn, New York’s Barclays Center hosted National Basketball Association teams from across the country, their fans and — in a specially developed program — their food. The initiative, dubbed All-Star Taste, is an extension of Levy Restaurants’ BrooklynTaste program, which features 55 popular local Brooklyn restaurants in the venue.
For All-Star Taste, Levy introduced 22 menu items, which represented and were inspired by 22 NBA teams, to concessions stands for All-Star events. The items were signatures already served at those teams’ venues, but new to the Barclays Center, such as the Memphis Grizzlies’ Brown Bag bologna sandwich or the Orlando Magic’s OMG dog.
“We had a meeting with Levy and we said, ‘How do we upgrade and really make the food experience topnotch for folks who are coming into town, who are going to be guests at the All-Star festivities?” said Elisa Padilla, chief Marketing officer for the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center. “During a [brainstorming session], someone in the meeting said ‘All Star [weekend] is really not about one team; it’s really about 30 collective teams within the NBA. Wouldn’t it be great if we brought a piece of San Antonio, a piece of Los Angeles … to Barclays Center? What would that look like?’ That’s how the All-Star Taste program came to life.”
Jennifer Sutherland, Levy Restaurants senior director, Communications strategy, explained that the motivations behind the initiative were specific to enhancing the fan experience, and presenting something unique for the special event. “Brooklyn fans are already used to seeing 55 local restaurants in their venue every single week, but now we’re adding another layer on that, building on the local favorites, adding flavors from around the NBA,” she said. “We wanted to represent the entire NBA through the All-Star Taste program.”
Leading the creation of the items was Ron Krivosik, Levy Restaurants vice president and regional chef. He asked chefs from the NBA teams’ venues to send information about signature dishes, then went to work on figuring out how the Levy team at Barclays could make them happen. “It’s 100 percent Brooklyn Taste, with 22 ideas from across the country,” he said.
Rather than order ingredients from faraway states, Krivosik explained that they sourced products nearby so that food costs weren’t affected dramatically. “It will affect [food costs] a little bit, but all we’re really worried about is giving the fans the experience of different food from across the country—like the famous fried pork chop from Indianapolis, to give fans a little taste of that here in Brooklyn if they’re not able to get down to Indy.
“You never know who’s coming to the All-Star Game,” he added. “We could get some people from Phoenix who are looking for their [Phoenix Suns] Ignite Bites, and all of a sudden, poof—there it is. So it could be fun.”
Prices for the All-Star Taste items were comparable to the BrooklynTaste items, ranging from $11 to $14. The new additions made their debut at the Feb. 6 game against the New York Knicks, to which Krivosik said, they received a good response, selling between 10 and 30 items per signature dish. The most popular of the dishes were the burgers, as well as the Golden State Warriors’ BBQ pork banh mi.
The chef admitted that some guests may be hesitant to spend $12 on a new item like the Denver Nuggets’ Fiery Footlong (a spicy foot-long sausage with coleslaw and barbecue sauce), so Levy and Barclays Center rented a food truck for a day to get the word out around town. The All-Star Taste Truck went to Times Square on Feb. 9 to give out free sample-size tasters of the program’s dishes. Padilla estimated that the truck gave out about 1,000 tasters.
“We had some dancers with us, so people were able to take pictures with the dancers,” Krivosik added. “We were hoping to get some traction when we did some tastings … to say, ‘Hey, if you’re coming to the [All-Star] game, you’ll be able to try that full-size [item].’”
“[The food truck] is really more about getting the community involved and excited about the All-Star game weekend and, specifically, for the food that’s going to be served there,” Sutherland added.
At each of the All-Star Weekend events, Levy sold an average of 100 of each of the All-Star Taste items, said Krivosik, adding that the culinary team also received good feedback. “We were able to get some food in front of Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley, and they loved it, and I think that was a huge success,” he explained. Reigning supreme as the most popular were the Atlanta Hawks’ Flying South chicken sandwich; Chicago Bulls’ Mad House burger; and the Thunderstorm dog from the Oklahoma City Thunder. All-Star items were placed among the regular Brooklyn Taste stands where they were most relevant. For example, the Mad House burger was sold at Paisano’s Burger and the LA fish tacos were sold at Calexico, the venue’s Mexican restaurant vendor, also a local favorite. “We were able to really look and say, ‘Where does it fit?’” explained Krisovik.
Although the items were introduced specifically for All-Star Weekend, Krivosik and Padilla explained that Levy and Barclays Center would assess the possibility of continuing the sale of some or all of them at future games. Padilla said that the Levy and Barclays Center teams have not had those discussions yet, and Krivosik explained, “We’ll see if they really take off, and [about] doing specials throughout the year, featuring them when different teams come in. But we’ll have to play that by ear.”
Interviewed for this story: Ron Krivosik, (847) 385-7482; Elisa Padilla, (718) 942-9616; Jennifer Sutherland, (312) 335-5133