Enjoy OU?s Culinary Creations on Saturday

There's so much that goes into making Oklahoma Football game days in Norman memorable. The game itself. The tailgating. The constant cries of “Boomer Sooner!” The sea of Crimson and Cream. The Pride of Oklahoma playing the state song during pregame. The intro video welcoming the Sooners to Owen Field.

Oh, and the food. Don't forget the food!

Tacos, barbecue, onion burgers, snow cones and frozen yogurt are just a few of the favorites to choose from at every OU football home game and are the perfect addition to the overall experience.

OU Concessions offers a wide array of selections inside Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on game days. As Director of OU Concessions Keith Mackie says, there is a variety of cuisine available to fit almost any taste or craving a fan may have.

Wonton Dog

“There's pizza to sweet treats to Tex-Mex to BBQ to hot dogs to nachos to popcorn to pretzels to hamburgers to chicken tenders to corn dogs to taco salads,” Mackie says. “We offer just about anything a fan would want to find at a venue like this.”

The key is knowing what locations offer what foods, and the customer service kiosks set up throughout the stadium have this information available for fans, Mackie adds.

This season, concessions have introduced some new concepts and items, including Bavarian pretzels with cheese, Sooner Street Tacos, jalapeno cheddar dogs and wonton dogs, or hot dogs rolled in an egg roll wrapper, fried and served with a choice of dipping sauce. Other popular items include Mackdaddy's Onion Burgers, served at four locations within the stadium, and the footlong corn dogs, with about 4,000 sold per game.

“We wanted to create destination locations where people came to those spots to get specific foods after they heard about them,” Mackie says of the new game day additions.

There's pizza to sweet treats to Tex-Mex to BBQ to hot dogs to nachos to popcorn to pretzels to hamburgers to chicken tenders to corn dogs to taco salads. We offer just about anything a fan would want to find at a venue like this.
Keith Mackie

The Sooner Street Tacos concept, found on the east side of the stadium, serves flavor-filled tacos in spirited red and white tortillas and reflects the process of ordering from a food truck.

“It's a street taco concept quite literally based off of a street cart,” Mackie shares. “It's out of a stand, but it's the same concept in that we use corn tortillas and have a menu that includes carne asada (steak), chicken tinga, beef lengua (beef tongue), carnitas (a slow-roasted pork) and barbacoa (shredded Mexican beef).”

Each order comes with two tacos, and fans also have the choice of a red salsa or a green tomatillo/verde sauce, both of which are made from scratch in a production kitchen on site. The concessions crew also fries the tortilla chips itself from the corn tortillas used for the tacos.

Key in the creation of these items are, John Fulton, a graduate of Platt College who joined the staff in August 2013, and William Fish, who came from the Oklahoma State Institute of Technology and just started with OU Concessions last month.

The culinary experts' current endeavor? Working to perfect the corn tortillas so they hold up well on game days.

“It's something that a street vendor pulls them out of a steamer and they are very soft and pliable when they hand them to you,” Mackie explains. “Ours were getting hard in the window during the first game, so we are experimenting on how to make the tortillas softer.”

Onion Burger

Another new food addition this season is the presence of Billy Sims Barbecue stands. The franchise, founded by OU football great and 1978 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Sims and his current business partner Jeff Jackson, has more than 40 restaurants in five states.

The company approached the OU concessions team and asked if there was an opportunity to bring its business into Memorial Stadium, and Mackie says they decided to switch their internal operation over to a branded concept.

The barbecue went over well the first two games, and Mackie expects it to be a good program. Some products offered at those stands include hot links, pulled pork sandwiches, barbecue nachos, barbecue tacos, a rib combo and a turtle brownie.

Other franchises operating within the stadium on game days are Taco Mayo and Pizza Hut. This season, Pizza Hut has introduced an ultimate cookie, which is an eight-inch chocolate chip cookie that Mackie labels as “delicious.”

On game days, the concessions crew begins preparations seven hours prior to kick off, with food production starting about four hours before the contest. Roughly 900 employees of various positions run all the different locations operated by OU Concessions.

With so many options available, Sooners' fans are sure to find a new favorite or go-to food to make a part of their game day routines.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Enjoy OU?s Culinary Creations on Saturday

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