Delaware North has been awarded an extension to continue serving as the food and beverage partner at KeyBank Center, home of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
Delaware North has partnered with the Sabres since the team’s inception in 1970 – managing concessions and dining at clubs and suites within the arena. During the past two years, Delaware North’s onsite team, under the leadership of General Manager John DonVito, has been working with the Sabres to upgrade offerings.
News of the extension first broke in The Buffalo News. An excerpt of that story can be found below.
“Delaware North has been a tremendous partner to the Sabres and KeyBank Center, and has been heavily engaged with us to help improve the food and beverage offerings for our fans,” Pete Guelli, Sabres executive vice president and COO, said.
“We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made and are happy to have an agreement to extend our partnership through at least the next three seasons,” he added. “We look forward to continuing our longstanding partnership with Delaware North and hope to secure a long-term agreement in the future.”
The team has worked with Delaware North to take a back-to-basics approach in improving some of the bestselling arena fare, such as hot dogs, pizza, beef on weck and nachos, while coming up with some original ideas to appeal to a variety of palates. They also began offering a 25% discount on food and beverage products this season for season ticket holders and will be offering a kid’s menu and value menu next season.
This season, Delaware North also changed some of its service styles, added locations for certain popular offerings, renovated some of its spaces and stands, improved traffic flows in and out of concourse quadrants and focused on ways to make items easier for fans to find around the arena with increased way-finding efforts.
The company also doubled the culinary staff at the arena last year and added another 10% this season to work in the nearly 30-year-old building.
“Together with the Sabres, we’ve made significant strides in enhancing the food and beverage experience throughout the venue – with a shared focus on quality and speed of service,” said Jamie Obletz, group president of Delaware North Sportservice and Patina Group. “We’re excited about the future and look forward to building on this momentum in the coming seasons and beyond.”