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Foodservice at today's Major League Baseball stadiums is a hit with fans who can dine on a lineup that includes such untraditional ballpark fare as sea scallops and fettucine Alfredo.
Restaurants USA, September 1996
By David Belman
This year, ballpark contract feeders are updating century-old classics and putting new dishes on the roster. The hot dog still reigns supreme, but nachos have chased popcorn to the minors, pizzas are hot pinch hitters, and signature sausages look like a home run in 1996. To keep their batting averages high, ballpark foodservice managers from San Diego to Boston are learning the new rules of the game.
Pitching a new lineup
Ballpark business has changed quite a bit since Patrick Redden started working at Chicago's Comiskey Park in 1959. Now at his second ballpark with the Chicago White Sox, Redden, the foodservice general manager for Buffalo, New York-based Sportservice Corp., says he has seen a lot of changes in the game - the foodservice game, that is.
Forget that hot dogs cost 25 cents and beer 35 cents during his first season. The biggest change Redden has seen is in menu items. "We've gone from selling hot dogs and beers. . . to selling chicken sandwiches and Caesar salad," he says. "And we sell more items than I ever imagined possible. Today, we sell bottled water. At one time, I wouldn't have thought you could give away bottled water."
A big part of Comiskey's menu expansion can be traced to 1991, when the new Comiskey Park replaced the aging 80-year-old stadium. "The old Comiskey was 1910 vintage," says Charlie Henningsen, who closed Sportservice's operations at the old stadium in Chicago and opened up the new Comiskey Park. "In those [old] ballparks, you were restricted by the amount of basic utilities - electricity and gas - available to support modern foodservice concepts. Equipment has come a long way. Most of the old ballparks can't support the necessary physical plant."
Henningsen, now foodservice general manager for Sportservice operations at Cleveland's Jacobs Field, points to that facility as an example of what the new parks can do. The old ballpark offered fewer than 30 items at the concession stands. This year, Sportservice offers 87 items on Cleveland's concession menu. "Today," says Henningsen, "we have a bakery that sells cookies and brownies and cinnamon rolls. We have pizza stands that offer fresh-dough pizza. We offer barbecued ribs and Caesar salad. Basically, ballpark fare has changed from night to day."
Playing in a different league
Although new stadiums have had a big impact on the definition of ballpark food, a new philosophy and more demanding fans are also helping to rewrite the rules of the game. Years ago, ballpark food was seen more as part of the sport than as part of the foodservice industry. But today, with new amenity-laden facilities, more women and families in the stands, and higher-priced tickets, ballpark feeders have found themselves playing in a different league.
"The fan has really changed," says Kenneth Smith, concession manager for ARAMARK operations at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. "They're more educated about what kind of food they want. And they're more brand conscious. When I started 24 years ago, they just wanted a beer. Now they want a specific kind of beer."
"Guests have become more demanding about what they look for when they eat out," says Henningsen. "And the addition of more women into the audience has really changed things. You used to be able to hand a guy a hot dog and he would be satisfied."
Michael Thompson, president of Sportservice, says, "The changes in the fan have really impacted our business more than anything else. Today's fan is clearly more demanding and clearly more critical than ever before. And the new ballparks have brought more women and families to the games, which has really affected our offerings."
Beyond attracting a more demanding fan to the ballparks, the new stadiums attract businesses to the surrounding areas. Some of those businesses are restaurants, and that creates competition that was never there before. "Ten years ago," says Henningsen, "we didn't look at outside restaurants as competition. Today, we do."
To compete at this level, contract feeders had to start looking at their operations as critically as any independent restaurateur. And while the volume and the movement of the product might be different in a ballpark than in a 40-seat restaurant, there are many similarities.
"We deal with all the factors that any restaurant deals with," says Tim Lawler, a regional vice president for ARAMARK based at Coors Field in Denver. "This is still foodservice, and the name of the game is taking care of the guest who comes to your place of business."
Henningsen concurs. "As far as menu selection and recipes, this is the same as any foodservice business. We have a chef and kitchen staff that is attuned to the local marketplace, and we work to develop a local menu. We've also gotten away from the old mentality of having a captive audience. We don't treat people as fans anymore. We treat them as guests."
Calling the plays
To take care of those "guests," new stadiums have culinary staffs - something absent from the older stadiums. At Coors Field, an eight-person culinary staff is responsible for menu development, recipe development and operation of 36 permanent concession stands, five vending commissaries, five club-level concession stands and two kitchens that service in-seat waitservice dining. Their biggest challenge is keeping both the traditionalists and the nontraditionalists happy. On opening day, in addition to serving up 35,000 hot dogs and sausages, ARAMARK also served up 500 orders of Rocky Mountain Oysters (deep-fried bulls' testicles).
At The Ballpark in Arlington, two chefs head up a culinary team responsible for foodservice at 52 concession stands, 20 to 36 portable concession carts, 118 corporate suites, three picnic areas, Casey's Corner Pub and the Diamond Club, a private restaurant for season-ticket holders.
Beyond the traditional fare, Rangers fans at The Ballpark can order authentic Texas barbecue, chicken-fried steak sandwiches or chicken fajitas. At the Diamond Club, lunch guests dine on "Spinach Salad With Shiitake Mushrooms and Sweet Cider Vinaigrette" and "Cured Ham on Walnut Bread." The dinner lineup features "Grilled Swordfish With Fennel and Leek Compote" and an "Achiote-Basted Veal Chop."
All-American eats
Even with the addition of new menu items and new foodservice venues in ballparks, some things will never change. Baseball is a game of tradition, and that extends to the food.
At Jacobs Field, Henningsen says traditional fare still outsells nontraditional items two-to-one. At Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, home to the Florida Marlins, 80 percent of the sales are still from traditional food products. And at Comiskey Park, after 37 years in the business, Patrick Redden can say definitively that some food items will always be popular.
"We still sell one hot dog to every three people that come to the ballpark," Redden says. "Beer, you sell 1.1 to almost every person that comes here. And it's almost always the same, every year. Peanuts in the shell are still popular. And if you took them out of the shell, they wouldn't be as popular. The reason people like nuts in the shell is because it's something to do while you're watching the game - and that'll never change."
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