Sep. 2--This is big league food. Within six months, Connecticut's two casinos will be serving upwards of 23 million meals annually. 

Combined, Foxwoods Resort and Mohegan Sun casinos expect to carve 1.5 million pounds of prime rib next year. 

Mohegan Sun will have 66 kitchens when its $1.1 billion Sunburst expansion is completed. Executive Chef Michael Luboff, who came from the Atlantic City Hilton in 1999, says the casino will be putting out more than 222,000 meals each week, including employee dinners and the restaurants that will rent space in the casino. 

"I'm not sure who else does that kind of volume," he said. "Maybe Disney or the major Las Vegas properties." 

At Foxwoods, Michael Barlow, the executive director of food and beverage, says the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe's casino is already dishing out about 210,000 covers -- or meals -- each week. 

That includes about 5,000 employee meals each day. Each casino serves its workers a hot meal daily plus unlimited beverages, salads, soups and treats. 

For visitors, there are all-you-can-eat buffets at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, food courts, delis, Italian, steak, and Asian restaurants, plus myriad other eateries. The casinos are an eataholic's worst nightmare. 

"We're in the entertainment business, but food is part of the entertainment," says Luboff. 

"It's unbelievable what we do here," says Barlow, from Foxwoods. "When you consider something like the buffet, where we can do 7,000 covers a day, remember you've got a dishwasher in back doing all the pots and pans. Can you imagine how many pots and pans there are to feed 7,000 people?" The menus are staggering, and so are the purchase orders. 

At Mohegan Sun, when the 1,200-room luxury hotel and convention center opens next spring, the casino expects to be brewing 100,000 pounds of coffee annually. Luboff, and Director of Purchasing Michael Randazzo, offered these numbers for annual consumption too. 

-- Bacon: The casino now serves about 75,000 pounds, and expects to jump to 225,000 pounds. 

-- Lobster meat: About 60,000 pounds is now used, and that is expected to increase to 90,000 pounds. They'll use about 35,000 pounds of shrimp, too. 

-- Pork and poultry: The current 1 million pounds will swell to 1.5 million pounds. 

-- Butter: The casino expects to double its consumption from 57,600 pounds to 115,200 pounds. That's 460,800 sticks. 

Foxwoods has equally staggering numbers. 

It typically steams more than 200,200 pounds of rice each year and simmers almost 110,000 gallons of clam chowder. It slices almost 164,000 pounds of turkey annually and pours more than 14,000 gallons of salad dressing. 

Prime rib is a hot commodity at each casino. Vegetables and potatoes are too. Combined, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun will buy more than 3 million pounds of French fries and frozen vegetables next year. 

"We're in the volume business," Luboff says. "We've got 66 areas where food preparation takes place. We've got dozen of kettles and dozens of braziers, and God knows how many ovens." 

Currently, there are 25 food outlets at Mohegan Sun, including the food court and lounges. After Sunburst, the casino will have 53 eateries, including eight leased by outside tenants. 

Among those eating options will be everything from Big Bubba's BBQ to Michael Jordan's Steakhouse, to Rain, Mohegan Sun's new high-end restaurant. 

There will also be fast food at the casino's new 10,000-seat sports and entertainment arena, and an additional food court and buffet. 

Visitors will be able to get everything from dim sum, sushi and Asian noodle soup to a cone of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The casino will have a culinary staff of almost 900 and 250 support, or stewarding employees. 

At Foxwoods, the casino isn't expanding right now, but it is sprucing up the existing facility and adding some different amenities. Two new nightclubs are scheduled to open later this year and new museum exhibition space, on the casino's main concourse, is also being readied. 

They've also recently completed major renovations to the Great Cedar Hotel, opened a new slot machine casino, and refurbished their smoke-free Slots Down Under and food court. 

Foxwoods has a total of about 1,100 people employed in culinary and stewarding, servicing its 26 restaurants and food concessions and seven lounges. 

It has two production kitchens, a bakeshop, butcher shop and one of the largest cook-chill systems in the country. 

Each casino has massive warehousing space and trained purchasing departments, which keep products stocked, particularly perishable food items. 

"We all work as a team, purchasing, receiving and warehousing," says Luboff. 

"Whether we need salt or shrimp, they make sure we have it." 

"We try to ensure quality throughout the whole operation," says Barlow. 

"Whether it's planning a menu of selecting a product." 

Both casinos buy a good deal of their foodstuffs from Connecticut vendors. 

"If we can get it here, we do," says Luboff. "I just bought 1,500 pounds off the dock in Stonington today." 

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(c) 2001, The Day, New London, Conn. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.