Quality stadium food? Tulane football concessions get more NOLA restaurants for 2024

Tulane University football fans have had more to cheer lately as the Green Wave has been on the rise. As a new season begins this week, things are looking up for food at Tulane’s Yulman Stadium, too.

The key ingredient has been making more New Orleans restaurants and local brands part of the game day experience. It’s been growing progressively, raising the quality of the food in the stadium and giving the concession stands a more pronounced sense of New Orleans place.

One major addition for the 2024 season underscores this change with seafood platters that arrive in football-shaped bowls, from a family known as ambassadors for New Orleans flavor.

Edgar “Dook” Chase IV is a restaurateur from the fourth-generation of the family behind the landmark Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, with his own restaurants downtown (Chapter IV) and at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (Leah’s Kitchen and Dook’s Burgers).

Now he also has two adjacent stands in the Yulman concourse, both at section 125.

Dook’s Tackle Box makes an impression from the jump with fried shrimp, oysters or catfish piled over waffle fries and served in plastic football-shaped bowls, akin to the ballpark novelty of batting helmet nachos.

Right next door is a second location of Dook’s Burgers, serving burgers, chicken tenders and fried chicken sandwiches topped with pickled onions.

“We’re giving people a taste of who we are by representing the seafood here,” Chase said. “Especially for the visiting team, we want to give them a sense of local flavor, and say, ‘hey, even if we beat you on the field, at least we fed you well out here.’”

Local restaurants at Yulman

Chase’s new concessions join others returning this season, including Blue Oak BBQ, one of the city’s top smokehouses, which is back with a stand on the Westfeldt Terrance, in the stadium’s upper level. Blue Oak is slinging pulled pork nachos in the same football bowls.

Dat Dog, the emporium of encased meats, with its original restaurant near campus on Freret Street, has two concourse stands (in sections 101 and 118). Local pizzeria brand Reginelli’s has two outlets as well (in sections 103 and 111).

Other local names returning to Yulman this season include Williams Plum Street Sno-Balls, a New Orleans institution since the 1940s, and the roving lemonade cart Meyers Lemonade, no stranger to the Tulane campus. Uptown Tex-Mex mainstay Superior Grill is back with outlets for its margaritas, while Fat Tuesday daiquiri booths have a new blended boozy special called the “Frozen Wave.”

New food across Tulane

An overhaul of concessions around Yulman this year is part of a much broader change to food and beverage service across the Tulane campus.

Earlier this year, Tulane signed on a new food service vendor, Aramark Collegiate Hospitality, which took over from Sodexo after a 40-year run.

The move replaced one global giant of the institutional food service game with another, though one upshot is the involvement of more local players.

Since July, Aramark has been handling everything from the student dining hall to campus catering. That includes a new faculty lounge, also developed in partnership with Chase, called the 1834 Club by Dook Chase.

Products from local companies including Gracious Bakery, PJ’s Coffee and French Truck Coffee are in the mix for campus food now, and Aramark has been working with the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute to boost training for staff locally.

On game day, more changes abound around the 30,000-seat Yulman Stadium.

“This isn’t the concessions of the 1980s,” said Ron Ranieri, director of the athletics food program at Tulane for Aramark.

Part of the approach is to bring concepts that are becoming more common in pro sports venues to the college stadium, he said.

“You have to have your fan favorites; you have to have beer and hot dogs,” said Ranieri. “But what you really want to have today is your local flavors, the things that mean something here.”

Food, drink changes concourse to club

Indeed, you can still find a regular “stadium dog,” popcorn and Dippin’ Dots ice cream at Yulman, but the changes to the food and drink game at the stadium go from bottom to top.

The ground-level concourse, where most of the food stands are located, is lined with many “Walk Thru Bru” beverage stations. It’s intended to avoid long individual lines at large single booths, and put many drinks into many thirsty hands at once.

There are also new “markets” where people can browse around more self-serve offerings. That includes cases of salads and wraps for healthier options from Robért Fresh Market, in coolers that look much like the grab-and-go deli case at that local grocery.

The food goes more high-end upstairs in the Glazer Family Club. Here the spreads and catering stations can resemble the reception at a pricey wedding, from cast-iron skillets filled with couvillion and carving stations to multi-tiered ice sculptures loaded with boiled shrimp and chilled crab claws.

How it works

The shift around the concourse resembles the changes for the New Orleans airport when its new terminal opened in 2019, transforming what had been a feeble food program into a better representation of New Orleans restaurants to greet travelers.

Chase played an important role in that change, too. He’s taking some of the experience from the airport concession business to the stadium but notes the pace is much different, with a rush that happens before kick off and at halftime versus the ebb and flow of daily airport traffic.

At Dook’s Burgers and Dook’s Tackle Box, event-day employees work the counter while managers and chefs from Chase’s other restaurants run the stands. That includes chef Gavin Goins Jr., Chase’s cousin and longtime culinary collaborator.

Last week, when the Saints held a practice at Yulman, the new food outlets had their first trial run with crowds in the stands before Tulane’s season begins Aug. 29. Chase was on-hand early in the day, inspecting the shrimp and oysters coming in for those Tackle Box helmet platters, and Goins was supervising the burgers as they were prepped on site for the busy night ahead.

“What this is about is sharing what we can do here with New Orleans food,” said Chase. “If you’re in New Orleans, even at the game, you should have a taste of that.”

Tulane Green Wave football hosts the Southeastern Louisiana Lions at Yulman Stadium Aug. 29. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.