Flavor Trailblazer: Vishu Nath

Vishu Nath oversees a massive culinary operation at Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Guardians. Although standard ballpark items like hot dogs and nachos boast a top-selling position, Nath pushes the envelope with strategic additions that showcase creative menu development. A master at combining the familiar with the unexpected, he draws guests in with classic formats transformed into playful iterations. He certainly has a large culinary playground; Progressive Field offers a wide variety of concession options, club-level dining, and exclusive suites with high-end menus. We sat down with Nash to discuss the challenges and rewards of running a stadium concession operation and how he balances innovation with expectation.

Katie Ayoub: Let’s start with an overview of venues and food outlets at Progressive Field.
Vishu Nath: I am executive chef of Progressive Field, home of the MLB’s Cleveland Guardians. I work for Delaware North, which is the concessionaire for the ballpark. My purview is everything culinary. We serve about 100 concession stands, which is the biggest money maker for us. Then we have about 70-plus suites, divided into ownership suites, party suites, contractual suites and non-contractual suites as well. We also have catering areas called picnics, where a company will buy 600 ballpark seats in the upper deck, for instance, and we set up a buffet for them. Apart from that, we do the F&B for two clubs, one high-end space that feeds about 130 and one medium high-end that feeds approximately 1,800 people every game. We also have a press dining area and two employee dining areas, and we take care of the players, their spouses and families.

KA: With all of those venues, about how many people are you feeding every day?
VN: It could range from 21,000 to 36,000 people any given day. We fortunately have a tracking system that tells us what to anticipate. Currently my team is about 107 associates.

KA: What’s your creative process for developing new builds?
VN: We have a tight timeframe where we get to showcase a lot of menu items. I’m in the planning stage for next year already. I challenge my team to come up with a massive list of crazy ideas; there’s no bad idea. Then we scale it down, taking into account fan feedback at the end of the year, always asking, “What are the trends that fans are looking for, what sells a lot, what is the star, what is the dog?” After that, we come down to around 20 items for each location and we taste all of them in the winter. Then we redo, re-engineer everything, and start getting procurement involved because of the volume we do.

KA: What is today’s consumer looking for in stadium food?
VN: So the ballpark classics will never go away. Hot dogs are the number-one seller. Peanuts, Cracker Jacks, pretzels, beer and Pepsi—those are the top six. I don’t think I can ever topple those. However, when you take a hot dog, how creative can you be? People like whimsical stuff. We have a restaurant partner called Happy Dog. He puts pimento mac and cheese and Froot Loops on his hot dog and when we run it at the stadium, it sells out.

KA: What about global flavors?
VN: Yes, people want to see globally inspired flavor combinations at the ballpark so we’re having fun with coming up with new ideas. We have an Indian fast-food concept called Choolaah that serves basmati rice bowls with protein options that include chicken or paneer with a choice of tikka masala sauce or yellow lentil dal. Fans love it. Our team is also coming up with crazy concoctions that go with nachos and fries—that’s a revolving door of ideas for us that keeps ever changing, which helps us push innovation.

KA: What is your biggest challenge today in flavor innovation?
VN: I think risk is the biggest challenge. We try to introduce so many different items that are both fun and trendy. The challenge is: How long will those trends actually last? Our baseball season is so short, so is six months enough for us to actually know whether this item worked or not to keep it on for the following year. We want to build upon a success, but we don’t want to be stagnant with that same success as well. For example, we added Crab Rangoon Nachos two years ago. We want to build upon its success. Do we replace the crab with shrimp and add a few other modifications? One of our biggest challenges is thinking through logistics: Can the stand withstand it? Can the people working the stand do it consistently? The human factor is one of the biggest challenges. So there’s a lot of logistical issues apart from just putting something out there that looks good, smells good and tastes good. Can these guys execute it every single day?

KA: What trends are inspiring you today?
VN: I’ve been playing a lot with African spices. Baharat seasoning has been a huge hit. I’ve played with it club-level menu development, from lamb and chicken to fish. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Exploring different spice blends is where I think the future is for us for the next couple of years.

QUICKFIRE

Where do you find inspiration?
I’m big on looking at social feeds, on Instagram, on LinkedIn. Also, since our company has different sports service conglomerates—hockey, basketball, the NFL—we get to see the inspiration from our peers. The builds are tried and tested, which is awesome. We share ideas with each other. I also get inspiration from old cookbooks—I’m a big book nerd. And of course, I get inspired by magazines like Flavor & The Menu and Cook’s Illustrated.

Something in your fridge that would surprise people:
I do a lot of barrel aging at home, so I have a barrel-aged Manhattan in my fridge.

Cuisine or ingredient you’re particularly excited to explore:
We’re exploring African cuisine, on the cusp of going deeper into that region.

Your go-to late-night snack?
Scrambled eggs with one of the many salsas I have on hand, eaten with either a tortilla or chapati.

Best bite you’ve had recently:
We had taken our three-month-old to a Cincinnati game where the Guardians were playing. On our way back, we always stop in Columbus at a farm-to-table place called Local Roots. I ordered the flanks steak with red chimichurri, and it was phenomenal. The red peppers and smoked paprika brought this depth of flavor that was different, but the secret ingredient was ancho chile paste that gave it this well rounded, amazing flavor.