Catering to the Masses

3:55 p.m. Clutch time. Suddenly, the kitchen becomes a joke-free zone; everyone feels the urgency. On the hour, Martin and the team serving a big lounge for season-ticket holders have to hand off the ovens and fryers to the concessions team. If Martin is late, it throws everything else off. "What's the time, gentlemen? Let's go, let's go!"

The food is out the door. The team finishes early. Huge relief.

Larry and Mark Levy started out in 1976 with a simple deli. When it began struggling, they used recipes from their mother, Eadie, to turn the business around. Emboldened, they opened more restaurants. They got into sports events when the Chicago White Sox asked them to cater its new skyboxes in 1982. Levy's chefs cooked at the restaurants, then took their food out to the ball game.

Over the years, the business shifted dramatically. Last year, event catering generated 90% of Levy's nearly $600 million in annual revenue (up from $382 million four years ago). According to the Sports Business Journal, the company is now the leading purveyor of premium food at major sports venues, with 29% of the market. That growth convinced the Compass Group, the world's largest food-service company, to acquire Levy this year (it bought 49% in 2000).

Levy encourages a hunger for new ideas. Once a year, it holds a culinary, beverage, and service Olympics to identify new ideas and best practices across facilities. This year, it launched a contest simply called the Biggie: Whoever comes up with the next big idea to help the company receives a $5,000 prize. And it runs an innovation kitchen in Chicago, where John McLean, a vice president and chef de cuisine for Levy's sports and entertainment group, and his colleagues created one-of-a-kind concert menus for U2 (with an "Even Better Than the Real Thing" cocktail of Guinness in mini-chocolate cups) and the Rolling Stones ("Beast of Burden" churrascaria).

Even with the ballpark basics, Levy stresses quality and creativity, opting for all-beef (as opposed to all-meat) hot dogs and natural casings (more snap when you bite them). For Miami, the innovations group helped introduce soft tacos, spicy tuna rolls, and Asian noodles, all cooked in carts, filling the concourse with a delectable aroma. Last year, sales at Levy's Sushi Stop, Wok Stop, Mexi-Go Stop, and Samba Stop quadrupled, jumping to 20% of concessions. Impressed, the Heat extended the concessions deal.

5 p.m. As the Heat and Sonics start warming up, Martin and the chefs have moved their operation in a brisk procession of hot boxes and cold-food racks to the satellite kitchens. In the upscale dining venues, they metic-ulously arrange buffet tables by theme: Asian, steak house, Yucatán, seafood.

Although the main concessions (hot dogs, hamburgers, and fancier fare such as nachos with BBQ pork) don't change, the premium menu does. The 200 elite season-ticket holders with access to the Flagship North and South restaurants pay $20,000 a year for the VIP treatment--three-quarters of ticket revenue. Many eat here every game. That's 40 dinners over six months, a potential recipe for boredom. "They don't mind spending a lot of money," Nicely says, "but they have very high expectations."

Jo-Jo Doyle left a local gourmet restaurant to be banquet sous chef for the Flagships. He and his staff know the regulars--their favorite tables, wines, desserts. He delights in giving them what he knows they like as well as the odd surprise, which is why he tweaked tonight's menu "an insane amount." Along with steak, a recurring favorite, he's introducing a watermelon gazpacho, crepes filled with white or dark mousse, and "a duck pâté so good it'll make your tongue slap your brains out."

Meanwhile, on the main concourse, George Scott, Miami's director of concessions, has already walked more than a dozen laps. Dressed in a navy suit and exuding an infectious enthusiasm, he'll cover several miles in the course of a game, studying each food stand and cart for anything amiss--long lines, empty or messy condiment stations, not enough smiles from employees. As he and the other managers remind the staff, "the Levy difference is in the 1,000 details."

6 p.m. An hour and a half before tip-off, the doors to the Flagships open, the rest of the arena 30 minutes after that. Nicely and his staff brace for the pregame rush.

No matter how diligently Levy prepares, it can't control everything. An oven goes out on Super Bowl Sunday. A dishwasher breaks during the Latin Grammys. A special request comes in from a celebrity. (Heat star O'Neal sometimes calls up for lasagna or a pregame snack of apples and watermelon.) Without fail, there are surprises, and Levy's ability to improvise is critical. "Clients don't want to hear about the labor pains. They just want to see the baby," says Andy Lansing, Levy's CEO.