Euro Puck

By JULIETTE ROSSANT The limited relationship between Wolfgang Puck Catering & Events Company (WPCE) and the Levy Restaurant Group that I wrote about in Super Chef (p. 42) never quite made sense to me. Why give up recipes and not get a bigger piece of the pie? As it turns out, Wolf & Co. had their eyes on a very big slice, indeed. Business Wire and Food Business Reviewreported Monday that Levy Restaurants and WPCE have been awarded "a multi-year contract to create and provide the food experiences at all AEG sports and entertainment properties throughout the world." "AEG" is Anschutz Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of the Anschutz Corporation, owned by Philip Anschutz, whose personal net worth this year was estimated at $5.2 Billion by Forbes. Levy Restaurants already caters at AEG's Staples Center in LA, home of the LA Lakers and Kobe Bryant, and Puck with them at the Kodak Theatre and The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Now, they will also cater such spots as: the Home Depot Center (Carson, CA), NOKIA Live at Grand Prairie (Grand Prairie, TX), NOKIA Theatre Los Angeles (in development), the Millennium Dome Arena (London - in development), and the National Arena (Berlin - in development). Carl Schuster, head of WPCE, told me in interviews for Super Chef of his plans to make WPCE a national catering company: when this contract goes through, it will be European, too.