June 2002: Wayne Kostroski and The Taste of the NFL

Seven years after the first national Taste of the NFL (1992 Super Bowl, Minneapolis), Wayne Kostroski launched mini-Tastes hosted locally in cities with NFL franchises. The first was in Cleveland, the year the Browns rejoined the NFL.
 

He is, above all, driven. There is an intrinsic madness about Wayne Kostroski’s pursuit of excellence; and, as you will see, an indefinable obsession with that pursuit that drives him to excel as a restaurateur, humanitarian, and philanthropist.

You may wonder what possessed Kostroski to delicately balance the supervision of multiple and successful foodservice concepts in the greater Minneapolis area with what has since become not only a splendid charity event, but one of the most prestigious affiliated with any sport anywhere anytime —the Taste of the NFL. But pause for a moment not to pity Kostroski. Instead, envy him, wishing you had the guts enough to launch a project that not only affects the lives of so many people in need—men, women, and kids—but, in due course, provides you with access to enhancements that keeps you a step or two ahead of your competition. We’ll get to the latter later.

Kostroski won’t admit it, but the idea for Taste of the NFL had been simmering since 1985. After surviving in the restaurant business since 1977—having then abandoned a career in pop concerts and entertainments—he was asked as a member of a local business association to co-chair an art fair that had been active, more or less, for 20 years. He agreed, but only if he were allowed to enrich the event by adding a jazz festival and a charitable component.

Says Kostroski, “A couple of blocks from the business district was a food shelter and I went there and watched what they did and came away moved and impressed. I approached other board members and convinced them we could raise money for the shelter through the fair.”

There was also this motivating factor: “Look at the industry I’m in,” he says. “We have plenty of food; we know where it comes from and how to get it; how to produce and distribute it and we should know, better than anybody in the business, how to help people who are in need.” 

When in 1991 the National Football League announced that Minneapolis, with its domed stadium, would be the site, in 1992, of Super Bowl XXVI (Washington 37, Buffalo 24), Kostroski, now president of the Minnesota Restaurant Association and, ipso facto, a member of the city’s Super Bowl host committee, knew exactly what he had to do, provided the committee would help him produce what he had already decided to call, Taste of the NFL.

He needed sponsors; just as important: if sponsors were to be had, he needed the approval of the NFL. He got both; and with restaurants representing every city with an NFL team (back then there were 28, today, 31) and with alumni or current players from each of the teams volunteering to sign autographs and serve tastes alongside their respective chefs, Kostroski’s “Party with a Purpose” (as he dubbed it) raised $90,000.

To line up 28 chefs willing to work pro bono, Wayne made only 29 phonecalls. The next year in Los Angeles—the city that knows how to party, yet is bored to tears when a promoter with lackluster credentials decides to throw one—Taste bombed at SBXXVII (Dallas 52, Buffalo 17). It netted $19,000. Disappointed? Marginally so. Devastated? Not a bit.

“My idea right from the start was not to do a one-time event. I wanted to build a legacy that had roots in Minneapolis. Skip a year after L.A.? If your stated mission is to raise awareness and money for hunger and you give up, which is what you do if you miss a year, you not only lose momentum, you lose credibility among your supporters—the restaurants, the players, the sponsors, and the NFL. Taste was too good an event, too good an idea, to let rest.”

The assumption was that because Minneapolis was such a success, subsequent Tastes would follow suit. Weak assumption. Back to the drawing board?

Says Kostroski, “Say you have a down year in your restaurant: say it’s post 9/11. Do you abandon the business; complain about reduced customer counts; give up and sell the place? Of course not. You examine the core product. Is there anything that needs to be changed?  How can I improve it? How much confidence do I have in my services? Do you back off and pout?

“When L.A. didn’t pan out the way we thought it would, we upgraded Taste where we could, enhanced its quality, making it something more significant with suitable marketing, advertising, and PR, and moved forward.”

Post L.A., in Atlanta, Taste raised $192,000; then $225,000 the year after that, then $400,000 the next. With each successive Taste, the net increased exponentially. Since 1992, Taste has raised more than $3.3 million for hunger relief. Today, Taste of the NFL is a brand respected by sponsors, the NFL, volunteers who covet working for it, and partygoers who look forward to it and fork over top dollar for admission to it. It is known for its integrity, reliability, and credibility; and, if you ask around, it is the one party among dozens most in demand.

Now then, about that “access to enhancements” mentioned earlier? It is, upon careful examination, an extension of what all restaurants and/or foodservice operations do if they wish to remain a vital part of the community they live and work in. It is, simply and bluntly, exemplary of the benefit that accrues when you give back as did Kostroski in spades. The equation: give back and you are given back in return. Says Kostroski, “The people I meet producing Taste teach me a lot more than I could learn running my restaurants. I meet CEOs of companies, incredibly smart marketers, operators, and suppliers, chefs and restaurateurs. I walk away from every Taste with nuggets of intelligence that help me personally and professionally.”

Footnote: This article, a freelance piece written four years after I left Restaurant Hospitality, was one in a series of “Vanguard Awards.” As reported, the national Taste of the NFL, by 1992, had raised $3.3 million. The latest: through 2013, it has raised more than $14 million. Additionally, 11 local Tastes (see “Afterthoughts” below) have contributed to local Food Banks more than $8 million. For his efforts, The James Beard Foundation honored Kostroski with its annual Humanitarian Award in 2010.