Courtside luxury, produced to the minute.
For Coqodaq’s return to the US Open — and the debut of its first-ever crispy chicken sandwich — I produced the brand’s campaign shoot: one day, one court, eight scenes, and a champagne-and-caviar fantasy delivered across campaign, social, and e-comm.
A tennis-club fantasy on a public court.
Coqodaq — the Michelin-group fried-chicken restaurant behind the US Open’s viral orange box — needed campaign photography that looked the way the brand eats: white tablecloths, champagne service, caviar-topped nuggets, tennis whites. The location that could play the part was a public court on a Manhattan pier, with no vehicle access and strict protection rules.
I produced the shoot end to end: location, court booking and site logistics, call sheet, crew and talent, prop consolidation, food logistics with the executive chef, and a run-of-day that put eight scenes through a single court between crew call and a 3:30 hard out.
Crew call to hard out, five and a half hours.
“At your service” — a tennis star and her ball boy.
One story, eight scenes: walking onto the court, blocking the sun with a nugget box, dining courtside under a cloche, sandwiches balanced on a racket, food in the air. Every setup built the same world — the luxury of Coqodaq, brought to the game — while quietly covering the shot list three teams were waiting on.
A court you couldn’t touch
Nothing — gear, crates, rolling racks — could touch the raw court without approval, and every stand foot wore a tennis ball. Location protection was a line item, not an afterthought.
Props from three pipelines
Rental houses, in-house pieces, and the restaurant’s own service — champagne, cloches, silver trays, check presenters — consolidated onto a pier with no vehicle access. Everything hand-carried down the walkway.
Food as the talent
Executive chef James Lee styled on set — sandwich builds, nuggets, fries, and caviar staged in waves against the August sun, so every frame got food at its freshest.
One day, three campaigns’ worth of assets.
The shot list was built to feed every channel at once: brand campaign stills for the US Open activation, a social suite sized for the season, and stylized product photography for the UberEats and DoorDash storefronts — captured as its own scene inside the same day, on the same set.
The schedule gave each scene a thirty-minute window and gave the photographer the best light for the frames that mattered most — hero food mid-morning, dining and action through midday, talent beats to close.
The images went national.
The campaign fed the brand’s biggest moment of the year — a US Open where Coqodaq roughly doubled its sales, moving nearly 200,000 nuggets and over 16,000 of the new crispy chicken sandwich.
Forbes
Campaign photography led Forbes’ coverage of the crispy chicken sandwich’s US Open debut.
Salon
The Truffle Golden Nuggets frame ran as lead art in Salon’s national feature on gourmet stadium dining.
Robb Report
The Golden Set on court — featured as the tournament’s luxury-food moment.
Brand & commerce channels
Social, site, and the UberEats / DoorDash storefronts — all served from the same day’s capture.
Twelve people, one court, one perfect day.
Photography by Kelsey Cherry; imagery courtesy of Coqodaq and Gracious Hospitality Management. Produced for Coqodaq’s 2025 US Open campaign. Press placements credited as originally published.
Producing a brand moment on a tight window?
From concept to courtside — I build the schedule, the crew, and the contingencies that make one perfect day possible.
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