You will have to wait a few years to find out what food and drinks will be served in the new Buffalo Bills stadium, which doesn’t open till 2026. But the lease and construction documents for the $1.54 billion stadium do contain details that give Bills fans a glimpse at how, and where, they can indulge on game day.
For starters, you can begin thinking of food and beverage areas as shops or markets, not simply as food stands – though those will still exist.
“You won’t find that everything comes over a counter,” said Dan Smith, the president of Legends Hospitality, which last week was awarded the food and beverage contract for the stadium. (The current operator, Delaware North Cos., will continue at Highmark Stadium through the 2025 season.)
Here’s a snapshot of the details contained in the documents:
• You may shop for food, not just order it. The new stadium will have more places to purchase food than Highmark, which was built 50 years ago. “That’s not just quality of service, but quantity,” said Ron Raccuia, the Bills’ executive vice president and chief operating officer. “There’ll be a lot more points of sale for food and beverage throughout the entire stadium, on all levels.”
Details are still to come. The mix of options “will be determined as the design progresses,” according to the documents. “The current goal is 35% food and 65% beverage.”
The documents differentiate between “concessions,” which resemble food stands as we think of them today, and “markets,” which are retail areas where you choose your meal “from self-service refrigerators, freezers and warmers and bring them to a cashier position for check-out, similar to a convenience store operation.”
• You should spend less time waiting. Those walk-in markets are designed to create less waiting and crowding while you’re in line to pay. While the methods of payment will be determined by the technology of the time, it could range…
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