After Elizabeth City State women’s basketball’s season ended Tuesday afternoon with a 50-39 loss to Claflin, Vikings junior point guard Kayiona Willis and her father Rickey were ready to leave CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore for their hotel. Then they found a flyer for Dave and Fran’s Seafood and Soul Food Cafe.
“We were on our way out, but we had to make sure we came up here to check it out,” Rickey said. “It looked so good on the flyer.”
Added Kayiona: “I was intrigued by it. I said to him, ‘We have to stop by.’”
They did not regret their decision. Kayiona ordered a fried chicken plate with macaroni and cheese and collard greens — and loved it.
“It is very well seasoned, and it is cooked perfectly,” she said. “They did a good job. I know good cooking when I taste it.”
Dave and Fran’s Seafood and Soul Food Cafe is a popular concession stand inside CFG Bank Arena established specifically for the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Baltimore this week. And the owner is David Cook, a man as closely associated with the games as the teams that play them.
For 19 of the past 20 tournaments that were held, Cook, 74, has been a constant presence. The only year he missed was 2023 when the arena was undergoing renovations.
“There’s a phrase, ‘CIAA for life,’ and that’s kind of the moniker that I’ve taken on, too,” he said. “I believe that because it’s a great conference. I didn’t have the experience of being on-campus like a lot of people did at HBCUs, and it’s just the tradition and the community with these schools. I just enjoy in some small way being a part of it and contributing to it and being in the middle of it.”
Asked to imagine a CIAA Tournament without Cook, league commissioner Jacqie McWilliams Parker replied, “I can’t and I don’t think our fans can. … Our fans would know that he wasn’t there. They would ask, ‘Why isn’t Mr. Cook here?’ I think he’s an important part of the puzzle even though you don’t see him all the time.”
Cook’s journey to Baltimore began in Charlotte, North Carolina. He joined the Marine Corps in 1968, was discharged in 1974 as a sergeant, graduated from Pepperdine in 1978 and earned a law degree from North Carolina Central in 1981.
Clik here to view.
But with two children, Cook postponed a career in law to launch a sports merchandise company called Americana Sports. Then a friend involved in the purchase of a new NFL franchise in Charlotte asked Cook to help feed workers building the football stadium there.
“I was going through a divorce at the time and didn’t know anything about food, but that’s just my nature,” he said. “I wanted to try to make it work, and we did. It was scary because we had to open up at 6 every morning and have hot coffee and breakfast ready and lunch for about 600 workers a day working on-site. It was a daunting task.”
When the stadium opened in 1996 to house the Carolina Panthers, Cook was awarded two barbecue stands and eight carts to feed fans. Then a company in New York that was in charge of food service at the Family Circle Cup tennis tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina, approached him about selling barbecue.
Since then, Cook — whose wife Fran tends to concentrate on the catering business of their company — has operated concession stands at 24 PGA Championships, 17 PGA Tour events, nine U.S. Opens, five Ryder Cups in the United States, and five U.S. Open tennis tournaments in Flushing, New York.
“As far as food is concerned, I’ve probably done more than most people with more experience have done,” he said. “You’ve got big companies out there, billion-dollar companies that have done a lot of big events, but they don’t have the resume that I have.”
Considering his roots in Charlotte, Cook was a simple choice to be a vendor at the CIAA Tournament. McWilliams Parker has known Cook for 13 years and said she does not leave the tournament without her favorite meal from his stand.
“If I can just get a piece of fried fish and some collard greens,” McWilliams Parker said with a laugh. “He can cook some other stuff, but that’s what I look forward to during the tournament.”
When the games moved to Baltimore after the 2019-20 season, Cook thought CFG Bank Arena would find other vendors. But after making a presentation, Cook was pleasantly surprised to learn that his application had been accepted.
“When we signed the deal with the CIAA Tournament a few years ago, we wanted the tournament to feel at home in Baltimore,” Frank Remesch, senior vice president and general manager of CFG Bank Arena, said via text. “What better way to embrace the monumental moment than to reach out to one of their long-term beloved vendors. Having Mr. Cook in Baltimore serving his traditional Southern specialties brought the warmth of home cooking to the event.”
Oleonta and Billy Stanfield, of Baltimore, dined on fried fish plates with macaroni and cheese and collard greens, and Oleonta Stanfield compared the food favorably with the food her husband’s family in North Carolina usually whips up.
Clik here to view.
“It’s something with the flavors and the seasoning,” Oleonta said, adding that she and her husband attended the Bowie State women’s 64-61 loss to Winston-Salem State in Tuesday’s first-round action to watch their son play trombone in the Bulldogs’ Symphony of Soul band. “There’s nothing like down-home-cooked soul food. You could tell it was from the heart.”
Even though Rickey and Kayiona Willis had never met Cook before, the two men bonded quickly because of their shared membership in the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
“I was just blown over to see a friend,” Rickey Willis said. “It feels like I’m running into a big brother or an uncle, someone kind and loving who will bring you in and show you around.”
The CIAA Tournament will remain in Baltimore through at least next year, but its future is up in the air. No matter where the tournament goes, Cook said he plans to be there as long as the organizers will have him.
“It’s just like a reunion for me because I get to see a lot of fraternity brothers, neighbors, and people that I’ve known for years,” he said. “You see each other once a year, and it is one big party.”
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