case study

T-Mobile Park
Picnic Hits a Home Run for Centerplate

Centerplate serves up award-winning food and beverage experiences to hundreds of thousands of sports fans all over North America and the United Kingdom every year. Recognized for their food and beverage innovations in sports venues, they are equally known for their agility and thought leadership.

The challenges Centerplate faces at T-Mobile Park are classic. The kitchen needs to produce a lot of food in short amount of time while maintaining quality and freshness. Add in the extensive menu options for people in the suites, and everyone goes into overdrive to meet the food demands during that brief window of time before the game begins.
The Results

In addition to dramatic increases in production speed and consistency, Centerplate also realized several other benefits.

‍Operator skill level did not impact pizza quality
Staff loading was smooth, with no large staff spikes required.
There was a uniform work area and process flow.
‍Sustainability increased because food waste decreased
Less food handling improved food safety.
One success leads to another

Making great pizza in this environment is very difficult, but that doesn't stop Centerplate from finding ways to deliver even fresher, faster, and well-made food.

Following its innovative nature, Centerplate wanted to test the capabilities of Picnic Pizza Station to see if it could improve pizza quality, consistency, production efficiency, and the overall customer experience delivered from the park’s suite kitchen.

The Picnic team first took time to observe the suite kitchen operations during game days, specifically to understand the existing pizza-making process, to find ways to improve it with automation. Centerplate agreed with the proposed process improvement ideas from Picnic and implemented them. The Centerplate pizza recipes were then loaded into its station and approved by the executive chef. Two days before the first game in September, the station assembly began, Centerplate employees received training, and everyone was ready to begin making pizzas in a new and better way on game day.

This month-long trial during baseball season went very well. From jaw-dropping speed and quality improvements, to positive comments from the suite patrons about the pizza’s taste, the Picnic Pizza Station earned many new fans. Because of this success, the station received an invitation to expand pizza production and make pizza for the whole stadium during T-Mobile Park’s upcoming winter event, Enchant Christmas.
Picnic Steps Up to the Plate

One operator, one station, a whole stadium fed

Enchant Christmas’ sparkling, intricate light maze and Christmas market draws large, holiday crowds every night for about a month. These nighttime crowds are hungry, and of course there is a big demand for pizza.

The Picnic Pizza Station was ready to go. The process flow and recipes were already set from the station’s experience making pizzas for the suite patrons. All it needed was an operator to load ingredients and run it.
After Enchant Christmas was over, the head chef at Centerplate and his employees gave the station rave reviews. Everyone was amazed that one operator entered orders, fed dough, refilled hoppers, and in turn made enough pizzas for a whole stadium. Employees thought the 10-minute setup and 15-minute cleanup were great, likening the experience to working with a food processor.
Watch the pizza station in action in the Centerplate video testimonial.

Picnic fulfilling its mission

Picnic aims to deliver unparalleled value by solving fundamental problems that get in the way of delivering the ultimate customer experience. In the case of Centerplate at T-Mobile Park, the station's entire value proposition came to life in the kitchen. According to Taylor Park, Centerplate Executive Chef at T-Mobile Park, the pizza quality, consistency, and speed of the Picnic Pizza Station “blew him away.” Huge spikes in orders were no problem to fulfill. Workflow in the kitchen was continuous and smooth. Most importantly, the pizza was made the Centerplate way, with their recipes and their ingredients.

Ultimately, everyone from fans in suites, to those reveling in a winter wonderland got to enjoy excellent pizza the way the Centerplate brand intends—helping people share a taste of the places and moments they love.
About Picnic
Picnic is transforming the future of food prep through reliable and thoughtful automation. We’re a fast-growing company based in Seattle. Since 2016, our engineers, designers, food scientists, and trailblazers have been working to answer the needs of the food service industry. By automating food preparation, we save kitchens time, money, and, labor so you can spend it on elevating your customer experience.