Todd Barin
Web Editorial Associate
The Minnesota Timberwolves and Delaware North hosted a ‘Minny Media Lunch’ on Tuesday for Members to try new food offered at the Target Center.
This type of food sampling event is a newly implemented monthly occasion for the fans to experience the new dishes that Delaware North has made for the arena.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to showcase the variety of brand new items that we have this past season,” Jeff Munneke, the Vice President of Client Development and Community Youth Basketball for the Timberwolves said. “What’s been really fun is that previously, we did have a lot of new items in the building last year, but we didn’t do a great job communicating what all of those new items would be. So this year we’ve done a monthly sampling session for season ticket members that has gone over extremely well.”
The theme for the foods offered at today’s sampling was ‘Minnesota Made.’
“For the Minnesotan, this is great,” Munneke said. “I think we’ve done a much better job of serving, asking questions, doing focus groups, just to make sure that we might have all of the ideas, but we want to make sure that we’re knocking it out-of-the-park for the fans and delivering on what they want.”
The Minny Media Lunch menu consisted of:
Lefse Cod Wrap: fresh cod with mango salsa and lettuce served in a lefse wrap.
Man Cave Sliders: buffalo wing or BBQ cheddar with cole slaw on top
Tot Dish Tacos: tater tot hot dish topped with lettuce and spicy ketchup, taco style
“I’ve enjoyed everything I have had today,” Christopher Zimmerman, a seven-year season ticket member said. “The Man Cave Burgers are probably my favorite, it’s closest to what I usually get which is burgers. The Tot Dish Taco, really good; the Cod Lefse, that’s kind of out there for me, even as a Californian with mango and salsa and stuff, but it was good and good to try.”
Over the past couple of seasons, AEG, Delaware North and the Target Center have really tried to diversify the food selections and improve the food quality.
“Increase in quality as well as variety,” Steve Sawyer, the General Manager at Delaware North said. “We’ve made some good progress, especially this season. One fun fact is that you can only buy hot dogs at two locations on the main level of Target Center this year, so that’s been a good way to branch out and show some of the other foods that we offer here in the building.”
The improvement in food variety and quality has not gone unnoticed by the fans.
“I used to not really be into the food, but now I’m a lot more interested in the food and it’s definitely gotten a lot more diverse,” Zimmerman said.
With Man Cave Sliders flying off the shelves and fans just starting to realize all of the different foods available, Sawyer is still is looking for ways to improve.
“The next step is really we want to take our cooking showcasing to the next level, so it’s kind of coming out from behind the scenes,” Sawyer said. “We want to do more front-counter cooking, bring more culinary staff into some of the locations so you can actually see the cook that's making it. It requires a little capital investment to change some of the structure, but so fans can come up and see their food is being made fresh in front of them.”
All of the foods listed above are available at every home game along with 31 new items that are brand new this year to the Target Center menu.