As Commanders’ time in Landover winds down, ‘Tailgate Ted’ grills on

It was three hours before the Washington Commanders would kick off. But Ted Abela had been up even earlier, since 5:30 a.m., packing ingredients and supplies into his beaten-up burgundy Ford cargo van, customized to fit the gear and food needed to feed at least 150 people.

Just after 10 a.m., Abela, better known by fellow fans as “Tailgate Ted,” already had to jerry-rig his fryer to make sure he could double-fry his wings. He was helping man three propane-fueled grills in the Gold Lot at Northwest Stadium, all with a big cigar hanging out of his mouth.

He had nine items on the menu for his Hail BBQ Crew, the volunteers and hungry fans who join his ambitious effort, all of whom promised to donate at least $20 to dig in. They got a taste of an almost entirely Seattle- and Washington-state-themed menu, including teriyaki chicken and the cream cheese-slathered, Seattle-style hot dog, honoring the Commanders’ opponent, the Seattle Seahawks.

Abela and his crew are among hundreds of people who, for several weeks each fall and winter, stake out a comfortable spot around this patch of Landover pavement. These fans, like many others, are fretting about the Commanders’ move back to Washington and the possibility the new stadium will not have space to tailgate and how that might transform the community they’ve built.

What started out for Abela as a pack of Bubba burgers and bratwursts has become an almost weeklong production, all for a few hours of gabbing with old friends and new, hosting out-of-town visitors and plenty of eating and drinking, even if what they’ve seen on the field hasn’t always been pretty.

“Washington fans are very resilient,” Abela, 47, said. “Tailgating is about coming together with your brothers and sisters in burgundy and gold that you don’t see all the time — that you may only see eight times a year at games — and sharing a meal or beverage with them.

“You talk to any person that tailgates, and each of them to a person will say the team may have lost but our tailgate is undefeated.”

The ritual

Abela, who lives in D.C., has been a season ticket holder since 2001 and started tailgating around then. His first taste of Washington football and tailgate culture was at the team’s old (and future) home at RFK Stadium with his father.

“I thought my dad was the most popular person in the world because we were walking around RFK Stadium and the parking lots and these people were just handing us food,” Abela said. “I thought, ‘How did he know all these people?’”

He was hooked.

Abela, who works in IT sales, has no formal background in cooking. But the Filipino American said he took to cooking and its culture early in his life when he would spend time with his grandmother making lumpia, a fried spring roll.

“When you’re making lumpia, you are folding and wrapping everything intricately and it’s gotta be a nice tight wrap or else that thing is going to explode once it hits the fryer,” Abela said. “But it’s more so just spending the time with the people that are there with you while you’re doing it.”

Not long after 2001, Abela got restless and began challenging himself to create thematic menus for Washington’s opponents. He spends more time than he cares to admit during football season bouncing among Restaurant Depot, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Costco in search of ingredients and inspiration.

It hasn’t been easy for Abela to devote countless hours feeding hundreds of friends and strangers. Even if he admits that he only has himself to blame for menus dotted with exotic ingredients he special orders, such as alligator (Jacksonville Jaguars) and boudin sausage (New Orleans Saints).

But he knows how important this ritual has been to him and his community.

“There are some people that are in my Hail BBQ Crew that were in my wedding. There are some people that I consider closer than blood,” Abela said. “We may all have different religions that we support or different political alliances, but when it comes to game day, all that matters is supporting the Washington Commanders.”

For a good cause

One of Abela’s biggest motivators in recent seasons has been the charitable causes that the Hail BBQ Crew has supported through donations, which also cover the cost of ingredients and supplies.

The Hail BBQ Crew raised $15,000 for the Capital Area Food Bank last season, Abela said. He wanted to support those affected by federal government cuts and job losses.

The cost of living across the capital region and the cost of tickets to Commanders games have been top of mind. He was a bit stressed because he’s short-staffed because some longtime volunteers had their season ticket prices raised 20%, Abela said.

His small but dedicated crew of six volunteers was making do as the crowd swelled past 11 a.m.

Jeff and Christine Brooks are in their second year on the Hail BBQ team. They helped set up the tables, foil trays and burners at 9 a.m. after making the drive from their home in Montclair, Virginia.

Jeff has been a lifelong fan of the team, but Christine, a native of Frankfurt, Germany, is still trying to understand tailgates because soccer games there don’t have anything like this.

“I’ve been here 38 years, and I’m still learning. I still don’t get it. But I like it,” Christine said.

What comes next

The time ticked past noon, and Abela and his team began to break down the tables and canopies to fit them in the cargo van. They needed to make it to their seats in time for the 1 p.m. kickoff.

Devoted nearby tailgaters popped by the cargo van to tell Abela how much they’ve enjoyed seeing him host at games over the years.

Tarni Pannell and Tina Laguna were parked a few spots down with chicken skewers, scallops and shrimp for their friends and family. They can’t imagine Commanders games without tailgates. They were concerned by the rumors that the ritual may look drastically different in D.C.

“[Tailgating] is everything,” Pannell said. “You meet other fans, even your rivals; it’s still a friendly thing.”

“So this whole thing with the new stadium and no tailgating, they’re taking such a huge part of the culture away,” Laguna said.

Abela hasn’t thought much about what games will look like without tailgates. He’s not too worried because he knows he and fans will adapt.

But he also concedes that, probably not long after the team moves, he’ll hang up his “Tailgate Ted” embroidered chef’s shirt and the back brace he uses to stay on his feet for hours.

He went to the driver’s seat of his cargo van, took off his tailgate gear and donned a customized “TAILGATE TED” No. 77 burgundy Washington jersey.

Abela needed to get to his seats in Section 103 but asked a tailgate neighbor if he had a beer for the walk over. “What kind?” the man asked.

After a long morning with five coffees and smoke in his eyes, Abela was ready to watch the game and could think of only one word to reply.

“Cold.”

Have a tip for our Prince George’s County reporters? Tell us here.