Super Bowl XXVII : Stadium Seats Won’t Be All That’s Stuffed on Sunday

PASADENA —  Super Bowl players spend 60 minutes trying to knock the stuffing out of one another. Super Bowl fans spend the game stuffing themselves.

On Jan. 31, the 101,000 fans gathered at the Rose Bowl to watch Dallas and Buffalo will consume 13,750 pounds of hot dogs, 55,000 soft drinks and more than 100,000 cups of beer. So says Mark McClure, general manager for Service America at the stadium.

In addition to six booths selling hot dogs, pizza and burgers, he said vendors will be hawking pretzels, ice cream, sodas, coffee, hot chocolate, peanuts and popcorn from portable carts.

McClure, who worked Super Bowls in 1983 and 1987, has 1,200 employees ready to feed a different sort of crowd.

“The Rose Bowl is a college-type atmosphere. This is professional,” McClure said. “People have more money to spend and they demand more.”

During the Rose Bowl, sodas sold for $2.75. During the Super Bowl, the price is $3.

McClure won’t be feeding everybody on game day.

Regency Productions by Hyatt, Don Paul and the Bashful Butler were hired to cater to several groups, including 3,000 journalists working the game.

The Bashful Butler will feed team owners and TV and radio personnel, said Scott Hart, event coordinator for the Arcadia company.

Team owners get a pregame Italian buffet with several types of pasta, fresh fruits and gourmet salads. At halftime, they’ll choose from three kinds of hot dogs, a slaw salad, popcorn, nuts, chips and salsa.

One of the most complex coordinating tasks is assigned to a food sampling charity event called Tastes of the NFL, which brings together chefs and former players from 28 NFL cities.

Wayne Kostroski, a Minneapolis restaurateur involved in Tastes of the Nation, an organization that raises money for the nation’s hungry, helped tailor the event. In its debut last year, the feast “was the second-hottest NFL ticket outside the game and the biggest fund-raiser during the Super Bowl,” Kostroski said.

This year’s event will take place on Super Bowl Eve at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Premiere tickets cost $250 each; regular tickets are $125.

Kevin Rathbun, the chef from Baby Routh in Dallas, will be fixing smoked scallops with a tropical black bean salsa and a coconut curry cream.