SAN FRANCISCO – Rona couldn’t help but mentally roll her eyes during her third date with Kelenna Azubuike.
During that evening’s get-together at her LA apartment in 2019, she had offered the former Warriors guard some of her leftover cornbread. He gladly accepted, then told her exactly what he thought.
“This is the best cornbread I’ve ever had,” Azubuike recalled saying in earnest. “You should really do something with this.”
Rona was skeptical.
Kelenna had already told her he adored the spaghetti she’d made for the two of them, so laying on the compliments for her cornbread felt a smidge excessive.
“I thought he was full of it,” Rona remembered. “We were just dating, so I thought he was just trying to be nice.”
Kelenna was being dead serious.
“The world needs to experience this,” Kelenna said. “We can’t hog this and keep this to ourselves. We need to share this with the world.”
A few years later, after the two had become husband and wife, the couple did just that with her cornbread passion. It has become a business – Kelenna’s Famous Gourmet Cornbread – with a product now sold around Chase Center and even in a boba tea shop in Hercules.
It comes in six varieties – blueberry white chocolate, caramel, banana walnut, roasted garlic and herb, fiesta and ube salted egg – but all share one common characteristic. Unlike many kinds of cornbread, which are crumbly and a mess to eat, the Azubuikes’ offering leans toward being more cakelike.
Rona will never reveal the exact details of her recipe, but has made it no secret that it was born out of an annoyance at how difficult it is to eat other versions of her favorite food.
“She’s a problem solver, and she was always a cornbread connoisseur, and she craved cornbread, so she would drive miles and miles to find good cornbread,” Kelenna told the Bay Area News Group recently. “She decided, ‘I can do something about this, let me try to whip something up,’ so she went in the kitchen and made her own recipe.”
Kelenna Azubuike and his wife, Rona, pose with a piece of Kelenna's Famous Gourmet Cornbread at Chase Center. (Photo courtesy of Golden State Warriors)
In recent years, Rona began to experiment with different flavors, wishing to expand the cornbread palate beyond the traditional plain and the slightly less traditional jalapeño.
But even as she began to invent new flavors, Rona did not see it becoming a full-blown business.
“He had this vision,” Rona said. “Because for me, I just wanted to eat it. I just love cornbread. I didn’t know it was going to go this far.”
And after privately enjoying her cornbread amongst themselves, the Azubuikes decided to launch their own business in February of 2024.
Soon enough, the Azubuikes’ cornbread began popping up at vendors around Chase Center, where Kelenna now calls Warriors games for NBC Sports Bay Area. In 2025, a ShareTea in Hercules reached out about expanding the cornbread sales beyond the Warriors’ home arena.
“They’d been saying they don’t really have any food,” Kelenna said. “It would be interesting to have something in there for when people get hungry, and it’s not just the boba drinks.”
Though Kelenna is still better known for his playing career with the Warriors and now his work as a color commentator alongside Bob Fitzgerald, the family’s cornbread line has allowed him to express another side of his personality.
“Everybody has different passions for the different things they’re into,” Kelenna said. “Obviously, basketball has been wonderful for me and my life, and being a commentator has been amazing, and I never take it for granted. … But then I’m also passionate about food. I love food, and I love cornbread. Getting to see people partake in something that we created and my wife cooked up in the kitchen … it’s so cool to see their reaction.”
The flavor roster at Chase Center sits at six, but Rona and Kelenna expect that number to grow. They work with Chase Center’s chefs to create new types of food with the cornbread recipe.
Cornbread waffles and chicken? Sure. A blondie where cornbread is the main attraction? They’ve found a way to do it.
“We go around the table, and figure out what everyone feels, what they liked about it, and what else it could use,” Chase Center executive chef Michael Rintacutan said. “The initial things we thought about the cornbread is that it’s not traditional, and has a cakey moisture, so immediately we thought of desserts.”
As the business grows, Rona is still getting used to seeing her culinary work being sold at an NBA arena.
“I thought it was just enough for me, but having it here is just beyond my wildest imagination,” Rona said.
What started as an afterthought on an early date has now become an integral part of the Azubuikes’ lives. Where it goes next is something neither of them is in a rush to find out.
For them, just having other people become cornbread connoisseurs is enough for now.
“I’m sure that there will be other opportunities that will present themselves,” Kelenna said. “Right now, we’re just kind of living in the moment, and we just want Dub Nation and whoever comes to Chase Center to enjoy the experience.”
Kelenna Azubuike walks with a piece of Kelenna's Famous Gourmet Cornbread at Chase Center alongside a fan. (Photo courtesy of Golden State Warriors)