The Dragon Stadium concessions stand will have a new vendor moving into the booth by August 30. That business is none other than Southlake’s own Feedstore BBQ.
The Carroll ISD Board of Trustees has been evaluating options for the past several months to procure food services from local vendors to operate the Dragon Stadium concessions booth. According to the board agenda, Feedstore BBQ was in active consideration for the agreement along with Jersey Mike’s Subs. Feedstore was ultimately selected after Jersey Mikes rescinded its proposal to the district last month.
“We will be handling all of the food that’s sold within Dragon Stadium,” general manager Mike Lafavers remarks. “Everybody there has heard about us. We thought we’d give it a shot.”
This isn’t Feedstore’s first collaboration with the district. Long before Lafavers was even considering the concessions proposal with CISD, he sold his chopped brisket and paper wrapping wholesale to the district. Concession employees would then prepare the sandwiches onsite and sell them to hungry Dragon fans.
“I can’t even remember how long we’ve been doing it,” Lafavers states. “But we’ve been doing it a very long time.”
Now that they’ve secured the new, exclusive agreement with CISD, Lafavers hopes to bring more of Feedstore BBQ’s products to the forefront. While he says they won’t be making significant changes to the menu, Lafavers says they will add their own “flair” to it and integrate some of their more popular items.
“The menu will be pretty much the same,” Lafavers states. “It’s still going to be right along the lines of the menu that the stadium already has. We’re just going to try and accent what they’re doing.”
In addition to incorporating items from Feedstore’s select menu, Lafavers remarked their concessions stand will still sell some of the stadium essentials such as popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy and hot dogs.
“You’ve got your chips, your candy, your popcorn, salty and sweet snacks,” Lafavers mentions. “All of that stuff is important because that’s what people are going to go out there and look for. We’re going to keep that and enhance whatever else we can.”
Although Lafavers is eager to move into the stadium and start serving his smokey snacks, he says there are some new challenges to the stadium agreement that Feedstore will have to adjust to.
For one thing, the Dragon Stadium is a non-cooking venue, which means they can’t grill their meat on the premises.
“There’s no fryers, no ovens,” Lafavers explains. “That kind of restricts us a little bit on what we can do. We’ll have to bring all of the stuff pre-cooked, fresh and warm so we can make the sandwiches and everything else there.”
Regardless of some of these changes, Lafavers expressed he’s very excited, and a little nervous, about what this new partnership will bring to both Feedstore BBQ and the Dragon Stadium.
“Football season is just right around the corner," he states. “Football season is here."
Lafavers says Feedstore will be serving for all of the home varsity and junior varsity football games throughout the 2019-2020 school year. Lafavers explained Feedstore will be finalizing the new concessions menu and its prices before they complete the move into the stadium.
The season's first game against Arlington High School is scheduled for Friday, August 23. The first home game against South Grand Prairie High School kicks off at 7 p.m. on Friday, August 30 at Dragon Stadium.