Two Wichita chefs facing biggest job of their careers: Feeding 45,000 NCAA fans, athletes

Chef Salvador Hernandez has fed big crowds throughout his career in the kitchen. And plenty of times, he’s fed the most demanding kinds of diners — rock stars, ice skaters, casino high rollers.

But the culinary task that awaits Intrust Bank Arena’s executive chef and his executive sous chef, Ethan Harland, is unlike anything either has faced before. When March Madness invades the arena for first-and second-round NCAA tournament play this week, the two chefs and their smallish staff will have to feed — at minimum — 45,000 people.

And that’s only if the teams that are sent to Wichita come from far away. If KU or a team from a state within driving distance is assigned to Wichita on Selection Sunday, that estimate may be way low.

“If we get a team from nearby, 45,000 is not a good number,” Hernandez said. “We’re probably going to be at 55,000 or more.”

Wichita is now in the midst of tidying up and preparing for an onslaught of basketball fans likely to descend on the city and cheer their teams. But Hernandez and Harland — two chefs who spend most of their time feeding country stars, hockey players and their fans — have been planning for the tournament for more than a year.

The chefs have been plotting since last year how — out of their windowless kitchen in the bowels of the arena — they’ll feed eight hungry basketball teams, 300 members of the media, 150 volunteers and 150 VIP ticket holders plus keep 24 suites, 40 loge boxes and 15 different concession stands stocked with food.

For the two chefs and their staff of roughly 30, which includes 15 temp workers brought in just for the tournament, the week will be a nonstop blur of dicing, slicing, grilling, baking, frying, plating and packaging. Their days will start at 5 a.m. and sometimes won’t end until 1 a.m.

Hernandez, whose past jobs included preparing food for large events, is so determined that it all goes right that he recently ordered a fold-out gray sofa from Amazon that he’s set up in his office. He refuses to leave anything to chance and is planning to bunk at the arena overnight, at least on Thursday.

“I don’t want to risk it,” Hernandez said earlier this week. “I don’t want to get into an accident. I’ll just sleep here, then everybody knows where I’m at. If something happens, I’m here.”

A date on the calendar

Hernandez, 40, took the job as executive chef at Intrust Bank Arena two years ago, having left the top culinary job at the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane after 13 years.

When he got the arena job, he asked his longtime casino kitchen sidekick, Harland, 35, to follow him.

The two have known since they started their jobs that March of 2025 was coming. But they weren’t worried. The two had lots of experience preparing food in volume: the casino operates several restaurants inside its walls, and they’re all open 24 hours a day.

The first meetings about food for the tournament started a year ago, with NCAA officials offering the kitchen a detailed plan outlining who they’d have to feed and when they’d have to feed them. The basketball players, for example, need to be served one plated meal each day, and it needs to be substantial, including double portions of protein, vegetables, starch and dessert. The media, meanwhile, is fed breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. The broadcast team from CBS, which broadcasts the tournament, has its own list of pre-game and post-game food requirements,

Four months ago, the kitchen started devoting much of its time to tournament preparation. The stack of papers on Hernandez’s desk related to tournament planning has grown to at least 4 inches thick, and he’s spent many sleepless nights solving backward math equations in his head as he tries to determine which foods should be prepped when to make sure they’re at their freshest when served.

“The logistics are tiring on your brain,” Hernandez said. “Sometimes, you have to walk away.”

It wasn’t until last week, though, that the chefs started to see exactly what feeding such a big crowd would look like.

Harland started his prep work a week and a half ago, rubbing and smoking 800 pounds each of beef brisket and pork, which will be used in sandwiches during the tournament. The smoker has been running constantly for 13 days now, and it will take him until the tournament opens to get all those massive meat slabs ready.

Also last week, the kitchen staff got to work preparing 20 massive tubs of homemade potato chips. Even with the kitchen’s four large fryers, it took two full days to get the chips all fried, Hernandez said.

They also marinated, grilled, packaged and froze pounds and pounds of chicken. They turned seven cases of sour cream into french onion dip, ranch dip and Mexican crema. They baked 100 dozen cookies and 160 dozen brownies. They fried 800 taco salad shells and sauteed 300 pounds of ground beef.

Just before the media starts arriving on Tuesday, the kitchen will be filled with a cacophony of chopping as the staff prepares produce that will be used in salads and as toppings.

“They sell a lot of burgers here,” Hernandez said. “So we slice a lot of tomatoes, onions and lettuce for them. It’s insane.”

‘Go to the light’

The busy season for arenas runs August through March. Employees work long, unforgiving hours for seven months then get April through July to breathe.

The last day off Hernandez and Harland got was March 2. The next one they’ll have off is April 1. Once the NCAA packs up and leaves town, the kitchen still has a Thunder hockey game on March 28 and an appearance by the Harlem Globetrotters on March 31 to get through before the staff can rest.

The dry-erase calendar on the wall in Hernandez’s office, which the chefs consult multiple times a day, shows mercifully blank squares starting in just a few weeks. That’s how they plan to get through the tournament, they said.

“That’s where the light is,” Hernandez said with a laugh, imitating what he often says to Harland. “Just go to the light. April is right there, chef. We’re almost there.”

Though the job in front of them is a big one, they said, both chefs are feeling confident. Both were subjected to a baptism by fire, of sorts, by two other events they led over the past two years. Last spring, they were part of a crew sent by the arena’s management company, ASM Global, to spend a week in Branson helping to open the new Thunder Ridge Nature Arena. The kitchen wasn’t ready by opening day, though, so the chefs on site had to improvise how to feed eager crowds.

Then, in January, the two managed food for the big Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which gave them a blueprint of what the NCAA tournament would look like — only this event will have four times the mouths to feed.

Even though they’ve never taken on a job quite this big, the two chefs say they’re feeling confident. They’ve planned as much as they can plan, and now it’s time to execute.

“I want to experience it,” Hernandez said. “That will be our biggest thing we’ve done. So I consider this our Super Bowl. We’re going to show what we do and take pride in what we do.”

Chef Salvador Hernandez

Title: Executive chef, Intrust Bank Arena

Kitchen background: Hernandez came to the United States from Chihuahua, Mexico, at age 14 and attended East High School. He got his first kitchen job after he graduated, washing dishes at the former Granite City East.

Resume: As a dishwasher, he took interest in what the kitchen staff was doing and worked his way up to trainer at Granite City. He worked as a line cook at Cheddar’s East when it opened then got a job at the Kansas Star Casino, working his way up to executive chef overseeing all of the casino’s restaurants.

Personal: Hernandez, 40, is married with three children ages 9, 7 and 5

NCAA picks: Hernandez hasn’t been into basketball since Michael Jordan played for the Bulls. He prefers to follow soccer.

Chef Ethan Harland

Title: executive sous chef, Intrust Bank Arena

Kitchen background: Harland grew up in a restaurant kitchen. His father once owned a barbecue restaurant in Wellington.

Resume: Harland started his kitchen career right after high school when he helped open the Dillons Bistro in Derby before moving to the Kansas Star Casino, he also worked at Carlos O’Kelly’s.

Personal: Harland, 35, is married

NCAA picks: Harland says he’s “not really a sports fan.”

Denise Neil

The Wichita Eagle

316-268-6327

Denise Neil has covered restaurants and entertainment since 1997. Her Dining with Denise Facebook page is the go-to place for diners to get information about local restaurants. She’s a regular judge at local food competitions and speaks to groups all over Wichita about dining.