REPORTING FROM PORTLAND, ORE. — Walking the concourses in Portland’s Moda Center or Providence Park shouldn’t bring fans away from the eclectic vibe of Portland, Ore. It should bring fans closer to it, which is why both venues have embraced Portland in all its weirdness and pushed an ultra¬local, intensely Portland feel inside the venues’ food and beverage scene. And they’ve had success because of it.
The most dramatic change comes at Moda Center, the 22-year¬old home of the National Basketball Association’s Trail Blazers. When Levy Restaurants took over the concessions for the building in 2013, they revamped the tired corporate feel of the food and beverage service, bringing in local favorites—Moda Center now has nine popular Portland¬area eateries inside the venue—and turning the concourse into a Portland¬esque feel.
“What we are trying to say is we are Portland,” Jessica Helms, Levy’s executive chef at Moda Center, told Venues Today. “We are who we are. Portland is weird and we like it that way. It is special and unique.”
Providence Park's food and beverage supplier, Centerplate, took on a similar challenge, but had a different approach. The historic 1926 downtown stadium underwent a remodel in time for the 2011 Major League Soccer season, the first for the Portland Timbers. The club, moving up from a smaller league, brought with it an intensely loyal fan base that demand¬ed inclusion. That inclusion stretched to con-cessions, where the Timbers have partnered with local purveyors to fill the stadium with recognizable Portland brands and even embraced the city’s popular food cart scene. In an agreement with the Food Cart Alliance, the Timbers have fans vote to help them choose which Portland food carts to invite into the stadium in a special location, rotating between a handful of popular shops throughout the season.
The Portland feel for the Moda Center starts outside the 19,000¬capacity arena at Dr. Jack’s, a pub within the Rose Quarter campus operated by Levy, but without the constraints of in¬arena sponsorship. Open three hours before tip¬off, the restaurant remains 100 per¬cent event¬based, tied to both the Moda Center and adjacent Veterans Memorial Coliseum, also operated by Levy. Inside Jack’s, the beer on tap doesn’t have to follow the sponsors inside the venue, allowing for an ever-revolving mixture of seasonal and trendy craft choices.
Inside Moda, Charles Jones, Levy’s vice president of hospitality strategy in Portland, told Venues Today the concourse transforma¬tion had one goal: represent the city. Levy went into the community to find the best providers of burgers, pizzas, sandwiches and more, bringing in the likes of Killer Burger, Sizzle Pie, Salt & Straw ice cream, Bunk Sandwiches, Ruby Jewel and Daddy D’s BBQ.
Helms said having a mix of Levy-operat¬ed spots and community¬run locales actually helps her operate at a more efficient level. And by partnering with the local purveyors on a revenue-sharing deal, Levy doesn’t lose out on the popularity.
But it wasn’t that Levy just wanted the locals to have all the Portland fun. It wanted in on the action, too. Helms partnered with Zenner’s, located in downtown Portland, to furnish all the hot dogs. She also worked with a local meat provider to develop a custom grind for Moda Center for all hamburgers sold out of the Levy¬run Crafters concessions on multiple levels. She went back¬and¬forth before finding the perfect mix.
“Everywhere you turn in the stadium it is a chance to CELEBRATE and taste the amazing food and beverage scene happening in Portland.” — MIKE GOLUB
“We are not buying mass¬produced stuff,” Jones said. “Portland embraced us right away and the partners love being here.”
Michael Lewellen, Trail Blazers vice president of communications and public engagement, told Venues Today they fully backed the effort, so much so they underwent a $13¬million upgrade to Moda Center that included bringing cooking gas into the conces¬sion areas as part of an arena overhaul. And he hears all the time how fans enjoy the experi¬ence of a local restaurant inside the venue.
The Trail Blazers don’t release per cap figures, but Jones said that the change in con¬cession strategy saw a marked increase in rev¬enue, even though buying locally was rarely cheaper. That same spend¬more, make¬more mindset pushed Levy to increase wages for its concession workers. With the robust Portland job market and unstable hours of an arena food worker, Jones said they were spending exorbi¬tantly on temps, losing time training them along the way. And Helms worried about quality with such high turnover. Between the 2015¬16 season and the 2016¬17 season, Levy raised average hourly wages by eight percent for positions and 15.4 percent for cashiers. During that same time, Levy jumped nearly 11 percent in per caps for NBA games while reducing its variable labor cost, as a percentage of sales, by
12.5 percent.
With the strategy locked down, it became all about the experience. The main concourse features the 10 Barrel Taproom, bringing a popular Portland pub into to Moda Center. With 15 rotat¬ing items on the menu, but always with signatures such as the steak nachos on housemade potato chips, the same served in the pub. Not far away sits the Adelsheim¬run Local Cork for those interested in local wines.
The 100 level contains the most diverse mix of concessions, from the famed PB Pickled Bacon Burger from Killer Burger to Levy’s Fowl Language hand¬dipped chicken tenders and
loaded fries to hand¬torched s’mores via Nineteen27 to Plum Tasty, a partnership between the arena and its naming sponsor, Moda Health, to ensure healthy options per¬meate the venue, all housemade choices for vegans, vegetarians or healthy seekers. “We see their doctors in here all the time and it was a very exciting collaboration for me,” Helms said. “It is a great opportunity.”
The 100 level doesn’t stop there, with Levy’s Hook/Line, an all¬local oyster bar in the middle of the arena (plus, the Dynamite Shrimp Banh Mi offers up a top-notch Portland favorite and one of the best items in the venue).
The 300 level doesn’t lose out either, with The Pines bar enjoying a vista over the city, special Zenner’s sausages only available on the 300 level and a housemade pretzel only found upstairs. The kid zone includes root beer on tap.
For premium seating, which makes up about 40 percent of the concessions when suites, clubs (at 15 percent), catering and VIP events all add in, Levy includes a few extras too, all designed to give local, housemade diversity in an ever¬evolving menu that keeps the menu fresh.
From 10 Barrel to 300¬level concessions, Moda Center serves up four craft beers and one craft cider, with local crafts accounting for 70 percent of all arena beer sales.
Experiencing the food and beverage scene of Portland well before joining Major League Soccer (MLS) allowed the Timbers to launch a brand steeped in community, Mike Golub, Timbers president of business, told Venues Today. “We need to be truly authentic of the people and by the people of Portland,” he said. “That has always been our credo.”
“Everywhere you turn in the stadium it is a chance to celebrate and taste the amazing food and beverage scene happening in Portland,” he said. “It feels like Portland. You would know very quickly that this is Portland.”
The first food partnership for the Timbers came with Tillamook, serving up everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to ice cream and yogurt.
Ben Forsythe, Centerplate’s general man-ager of food and beverage, leverages that part¬nership into something fun with a specialty quesadilla of every match. Sometimes he mixes in special loaded tots, too. He’s served up everything from a Pho Rito’dilla with his spin on pho inside a quesadilla to loaded tots packed with Tillamook, Zenner’s bacon and more.
That Tillamook partnership extends to yogurt for fruit dips in premium areas or the cheddar for loaded tots, not even counting the cheeseburgers and grilled cheese. “It allows us to do anything and add some local flavor,” Forsythe said.
The Timbers also partnered with Bunk Sandwiches, Garden Bar, Zenner’s (located less than half a mile from the stadium), 2 Towns Ciderhouse, Eatin’ Alive and plenty others. “We keep it fresh and we keep it revolving,” Golub said. “Portlanders have a refined palate and crafts accounting for 70 percent of all arena beer sales.
PROVIDENCE PARK
Experiencing the food and beverage scene of Portland well before joining Major League Soccer (MLS) allowed the Timbers to launch a brand steeped in community, Mike Golub, Timbers president of business, told Venues Today. “We need to be truly authentic of the people and by the people of Portland,” he said. “That has always been our credo.”
“Everywhere you turn in the stadium it is a chance to celebrate and taste the amazing food and beverage scene happening in Portland,” he said. “It feels like Portland. You would know very quickly that this is Portland.”
The first food partnership for the Timbers came with Tillamook, serving up everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to ice cream and yogurt.
Ben Forsythe, Centerplate’s general man-ager of food and beverage, leverages that part¬nership into something fun with a specialty quesadilla of every match. Sometimes he mixes in special loaded tots, too. He’s served up everything from a Pho Rito’dilla with his spin on pho inside a quesadilla to loaded tots packed with Tillamook, Zenner’s bacon and more.
That Tillamook partnership extends to yogurt for fruit dips in premium areas or the cheddar for loaded tots, not even counting the cheeseburgers and grilled cheese. “It allows us to do anything and add some local flavor,” Forsythe said.
The Timbers also partnered with Bunk Sandwiches, Garden Bar, Zenner’s (located less than half a mile from the stadium), 2 Towns Ciderhouse, Eatin’ Alive and plenty others. “We keep it fresh and we keep it revolving,” Golub said. “Portlanders have a refined palate and discriminating taste. More than anything they have this really palatable affinity for all things local. It is a big reason why sports teams like the Blazers and us have gotten the support we have. That huge civic pride and identity extends to the food and bev¬erage experience.”
That buy¬in goes both ways, as Golub said when fans don’t feel the Timbers have the right beers on tap, they let them know, setting a high bar.
With every Timbers home game ever played a sell¬out in the 21,000¬cpacity venue and 13,000 more on the season-ticket waiting list looking forward to a 4,000¬seat expansion set to open in 2019, the Timbers get a lot of repeat season-ticket holders. “It means we have to keep delivering and surprising and introducing new things,” Golub said. “People are coming repeatedly.”
The Food Cart Alliance literally brings Alder Street flavor and drops it in the stadium, an experience Forsythe hopes to expand in the future. In the meantime, Centerplate aims to replicate that atmosphere throughout the con¬course, whether fun with Tillamook¬topped tots or the variety of offerings that mimic what you’d find on the streets of Portland in four Centerplate¬run carts on the east side.
In a constant effort to keep things fresh and bring in as many local establishments as possible, sometimes restaurants make a one¬time showing. Recently, the amazingly popu¬lar Pine State Biscuits offered its biscuits to Providence Park, where Forsythe created his take on the popular Reggie Deluxe from the restaurant, using Tillamook cheese and fried chicken. “Fans loved them,” he said.
Forsythe said the fans of the Timbers expect Portland quality and experiences every time, helping push him to create. And the Timbers support him, he said, giving him free¬dom to do so. With the historic stadium’s seat¬ing arrangement meaning only 15 percent of overall take gets generated from premium, food and beverage remains driven by the main concourse. That doesn’t mean the premium doesn’t get a little extra touch, though, such as the food cart they order from just outside the venue and bring into suites or club buffets that includes live shucking of oysters.
In keeping with a Portland trend, craft beer outsells domestic four to one inside Providence Park and every stand features at least half craft offerings, not even counting the craft beer bar with 45 rotating taps.
Throughout the experiences in Portland’s two major sports venues, the goal remains the same: Retain the essence of Portland, especially at the concourse level. “This is not,” Helms said, “arena food.”