Cool Heads Keep Food Hot

Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 2/26/2007

Managed chaos. That's how James Kohler, Aramark general manager of the Las Vegas Convention Center's Convention and Cultural Attractions, described the job he and his staff do when major tradeshows are in the building.

To get a first-hand look at the process, Tradeshow Week traveled deep into the bowels of the LVCC, where Aramark Assistant Executive Chef Scott Endy and his sous chefs, first cooks, pantry cooks, pastry chefs and other staff were busy preparing food for the 100,000 or so people that visited MAGIC Marketplace Feb. 13–16.

Aramark is responsible for all the food consumed at the LVCC during such tradeshows, even, ultimately, that of the handful of contracted local restaurant vendors. Kohler said it's divided into retail food served at concessions and restaurants, and catering done for banquets and buffets (in designated dining areas as well as in exhibits), with MAGIC using an even mix of the two.

Our idea was to follow the preparation of MAGIC's Presidents' Club luncheon, one of its largest and most lavish sit-down affairs, a meal served to 1,300 VIPs on the peak day of the show.

Unfortunately, one has to get up pretty early in the morning — about 3 a.m., to be exact — to beat a convention center chef to the kitchen. By the time we straggled in at 9 a.m., a full night's worth of preparation had been done: washing and chopping produce, arranging cold cut platters, baking pastries, and other tasks involving food from cold storage and pantries. By 9 a.m., cooking the hot food for lunch was well underway.

It takes more than a degree in journalism to follow the complex system of ordering food, creating production lists, compiling cooking schedules, tracking banquet event orders (or BEOs) and staging meals that Kohler, Endy and their team use. To a magazine editor it looked like, well, managing chaos.

Following are some highlights from a day in the life of a convention center catering company.