DENVER — An army marches on its stomach, Napoleon Bonaparte once said.John Elway, the Denver Bronco's general manager and executive vice president of football operations, must feel the same way about a certain orange-clad team.
The dining room at Broncos headquarters at Dove Valley doesn't have white tablecloths, uniformed waiters or fancy wine lists — hey, it's basically a cafeteria.
But the food lineup resembles a menu in a high-end restaurant: Skuna Bay salmon with a lemon-caper reduction, bison bolognese over bucatini pasta, sweet potato gnocchi with sage-infused brown butter and walnuts, grilled asparagus with heirloom tomatoes, Parmesan-crusted potatoes.
And those were just the offerings on a recent Tuesday, when most of the players were taking the day off, save for a few who had wrapped up a weight-room session.
When the Broncos invested $8 million earlier this year to expand their headquarters — the Paul D. Bowlen Memorial Centre — they included a totally reimagined kitchen and dining room. That area, with a combined 6,245 square feet of space, is professional-grade.
It has a culinary team to match, which replaces a catering company the Broncos had long used.
The kitchen crew is headed by Justin Domsch, the executive chef. Bryan Snyder is director of team nutrition. The latter played basketball at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs before heading to the University of Northern Colorado to study dietetics, the science of nutrition and the regulation of diet.
"Probably only four or five teams in the NFL have a dining facility and nutrition set-up like we have," says Snyder, who during the regular season must keep a 53-man roster and the practice squad happy. "We've had lots of positive feedback, especially among the well-traveled veterans who have been around three or four different teams."
11-month season
The Broncos training table is pretty much a year-round operation.