The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
All in a day’s work for Progressive Field chef
It’s 7 o’clock in the morning on a game day at Progressive Field.
Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer won’t throw the first pitch to Cincinnati Reds leadoff batter Scott Schebler for another 12 hours, but already Todd Brazile is at his desk, in uniform and readying for the tasks at hand.
Brazile is the executive chef for Delaware North Sportservice, Progressive Field.
His uniform consists of a monogrammed white chef’s tunic, black slacks and sensible shoes that will have covered large tracks of the complex by this workday’s end.
The 45-year-old Texas native is in charge of the food operation at the downtown Cleveland ballpark the Indians have called home since April 1994.
“Food goes hand-inhand with the team and the game. It’s part of the ballpark experience, 100 percent,” Brazile said.
First thing’s first
Brazile budgets time at the front end of the day for catching up with emails and readying himself to tackle that day’s labors.
For the 45-year-old native of Texarkana, Texas, the todo list on game days centers on making sure all elements are in place to prepare lunch or dinner, snacks and desserts for anywhere from 15,000 to 35,000 guests.
He oversees seven kitchens and upwards of 200 employees. The items prepared in those kitchens, from condiments to appetizers, main courses and desserts, are served in over 100 concession stands, 64 suites, the media dining area and in the ballpark’s specialty dining areas — Club Lounge, Terrace Club and Infiniti Club.
It’s a daunting task made easier by Brazile having long ago drawn up the menus for each of the regular season’s 81 home games. There is variation from game to game in orders coming from patrons in the suites, but the core elements of each game’s menu are set in stone.
“The menus were done in December (2017),” Brazile said, smiling.
Major league baseball’s 162-game regular begins in early April and ends in late September or early October. Accordingly, Brazile’s menus are geared to spring, summer and fall weather. Also taken into account are preparation and cooking times as well as costs.
“The same as everyone else in the building, we have to hit our (budget) number,” he said.
Getting down to business
By 8:30 in the morning, Brazile is having the first meetings of the day with senior staff that includes his right-hand man, executive sous chef Paul Deiana-Molnar, and three other souschefs.
Deliveries of fresh meat, vegetables and fruit are being accepted from outside suppliers. On many mornings, Brazile takes time to hand-pick fresh herbs from plants growing in raised gardens beyond the bullpens in center field. Cilantro is the most widely used of the herbs in the Delaware North kitchens.
The track of Brazile’s career prepared him well for this job.
When he signed on as executive chef at Progressive Field in September 2017, he was coming off a long stint as regional executive chef for Aramark food-service company. His assignment was to supervise food preparation at U.S. Air Force bases across the U.S. Prior to that, he was an executive chef for the Hilton hotel chain.
Brazile’s first full-time job in food preparation was as a galley hand for Edison Chouest Offshore, a Louisiana company that operates vessels servicing oil-drilling platforms. The company put him through Le Cordon Blue culinary school in New Orleans, where he earned his chef’s toque, or hat.
“It all started when I was 7, in the kitchen in Texas, making biscuits from scratch with my mom and grandmother,” Brazile said.
In full swing
By noon, work is in full swing in the ballpark’s seven kitchens.
“The sauces, home-made salsa and cold prep come first,” Brazile said.
Cooking of the meat dishes and other elements of the main courses follow.
Brazile has eyes on every aspect of food preparation, including items served at the speciality stands bearing the names of Barrio, Melt Bar & Grilled and other well-known restaurants in Greater Cleveland.
So comprehensive is his grasp of the flow of food at the ballpark that Brazile can say without a moment’s pause that his staff prepared and served 50,000 hot dogs for a recent “Dollar Dog” promotion.
Brazile pays special attention to the opening of the gates and the streaming of fans into the ballpark. For the game against the Reds, that was at 6 p.m.
At 5:30, Brazile was in the hallway outside the press dining area, speaking into the handset of his two-way radio,
“Do you have a spare body we can use in carvery?” he said.
In a matter of minutes, Brazile is meeting a kitchen staffer outside of the Inifinti Club and installing him at the carving station for Roasted Pork Loin in a Port wine sauce.
Man on the move
Brazile’s game-day routine includes a walk around the entire lower concourse of the ballpark between the opening of the gates and the first pitch.
While he enjoys interacting with fans, these walks are all about business. He closely monitors the activity at each concession stand, often stepping behind the counters to interact with staffers. He sends text messages and answers cell phone calls as he moves through the concourse.
“Every day is different, every game presents new challenges,” Brazile said. “I’m watching the lines and keeping track of the stands where we’re getting hit hard.”
When his trek through the lower concourse is complete, he heads upstairs for similar tours of all the food service areas. In the Club Lounge, he pauses to apprise the reporter of plans for an extensive renovation of that area during the upcoming off-season.
“Our goal always is for fans to get the food they want, prepared the way they want it, in a short a period of time,” he said
Barring an unexpected development, by the time games are in the seventh or eighth inning, Brazile said he has called it a day and headed home.