Walking around the environs of Adelphia Coliseum last Sunday morning before the home opener against the Kansas City Chiefs was an intoxicating experience, and it wasn’t thanks to pre-game Bloody Marys. Believe it or not, it was the food. It was FANTASTIC! One tantalizing display after another: racks of ribs, juicy steaks, plump chicken breasts, jumbo shrimp on skewers, gumbo and gazpacho, bagels and lox, fat Dagwood sandwiches on kaiser rolls, sliced homegrown tomatoes, and Silver Queen corn on the cob dripping with butter.
Then we walked into Adelphia Coliseum. The typical stadium concession fare inside paled in comparison to the tailgating spreads outside. But how bad—or good—was it? That depends largely on your expectations.
What is it about sporting events and movies that automatically makes the audience load up on food? It’s not as if either is so physically demanding that we need to fuel up beforehand. We are spectators, not participants. Nor does either last so terribly long that we can’t pass the entire two to four hours without some sustenance. People have been known to go an entire six hours between lunch and dinner.
Yet enter a cinema multiplex or a stadium, and the first thing most people do is head directly to the concession stands, were they’ll blithely pay an outrageous amount of money for the most inexpensively produced food imaginable. How much do you think that $5 bucket of popcorn costs at the movie theater? Including the cost of product, signage, and labor, I’d guess about 70 cents. Not a bad profit margin.
And then there’s the type of food served. How many people, with the exception of fraternity house residents, have hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn for dinner on a regular basis? Yet what are the best-selling items in sports arenas? Hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn.
When people go to a sporting event, they are basically entering a tacit agreement with the proprietor to purchase mediocre, nutritionally suspect food at much-inflated prices. At Adelphia Coliseum, you’ll find the usual suspects at the usual cost—preposterous, but not out of line with any other ballpark, arena, or stadium in God-bless-America.
At Adelphia Coliseum, Fan Fare does not refer to the annual invasion by 20,000 country music fans—though, under a slightly different spelling, it will next year—but to the dozens of concession stands located every 25 feet or so on every concourse of Titanville. They’re outnumbered only by bathrooms and beer stands, which seem to be at a 1-to-1 ratio. That’s a good thing.
At Fan Fare stands, fans will find the fare at these prices: foot-long hot dog, $4; jumbo hot dog, $3; Johnsonville bratwurst, $4; super nacho, $4; nachos with cheese, $3; popcorn tub, $3; jumbo pretzel, $3; peanuts, $3; chips, $2; Crackerjacks, $3; large souvenir beer, $6; super souvenir soda, $5; large soda, $4; regular soda, $3; Gatorade, $3; bottled water, $3; coffee, $5; small coffee, $2.
All of these products come from Volume Services America, a food-service contractor that also provides concessions at nine other NFL Stadiums, including ones in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Jacksonville, and New Orleans, as well as at many, many Major League Baseball parks. According to John Shelton, general manager of VSA, the fare is pretty much the same from one place to another.
And how does the fare fare here? Not bad, actually; not great, but not bad. Shelton contends food is only as good as the quality of the product, and VSA, he says, buys quality products: all-beef hot dogs, Johnsonville bratwurst, and certified Angus beef for the Bubba Burger, the new hamburger it’s testing this year. Priced at $4, the Bubba Burger is probably one of the better deals at the Fan Fare stands—more substantial than the foot-long dog and pretty tasty to boot. I would argue that the condiment stands, located directly behind every food stand, need to be beefed up. There’s just one type of mustard available—the bright yellow kind—and the bratwurst could use the spicy brown variety. There is also sauerkraut and relish, but no pickle chips or jalapeño peppers.
The popcorn tub is enormous—suitable for sharing among parties of four—so its price-volume ratio is pretty good, working out to just 75 cents per person. Bottled water for $3 is pretty ridiculous, especially since it’s not even the designer variety. Likewise, $6 for a beer almost amounts to extortion, considering that NFL fan rules and regulations require that everyone over the age of 21 drink at least one beer per game, especially when kickoff temperature is 98 degrees and the entire game is played in full sun. By Metro law, beer cannot be sold before noon on Sunday, thus the lines begin forming at about 11:45 a.m.
There are a few alternatives to Fan Fare: KFC Express, Captain D’s, and Papa John’s Pizza. They offer abridged—though pricier—versions of their regular menus. For instance, KFC has Hot Wings, Crispy Strips, Honey BBQ Crunch, and Triple Crunch Zinger; Captain D’s has bite-sized shrimp, chicken strips, fries, and jalapeño cheese bites. Papa John’s has cheese and pepperoni slices. If you frequent any of these places outside of Adelphia, you know what to expect, and you’ll get it.
I thought I knew what to expect from Logan’s Landing—my visits to their Roadhouse restaurants have been positive—but it was the worst dining experience of the day. VSA’s most popular concessionaire, Logan’s has two large areas on the main concourse, located in the openings at either end zone, with good views of the stadium and JumboTrons. There are many tables set in the area, equipped with umbrellas to protect patrons from the weather. So far, so good.
I was so looking forward to the giant turkey legs, reasonably priced at $5. What a terrible disappointment. The one I sampled tasted like it had just been released from lengthy captivity in the back of a freezer. Two bites, and I was through, and I couldn’t even pass it off to the three manly men sharing my table. The Hot Wings were hot neither in temperature nor in spice, but instead dry and shriveled, plopped atop a pile of extremely stale nacho chips. The $6 cheeseburger was OK, but VSA’s Bubba Burger was comparable in flavor and $2 cheaper. The seasoned fries were pretty good, though lukewarm. The BBQ sandwich was an abomination. If dire circumstances have ever forced you to eat Sweet Sue’s canned barbecue, you have an idea of the flavor; the texture was worse, so mushy we wondered if it had been put through a blender. Penalty flags for Logan’s at Adelphia.
The first Fan Fare stand we visited had a sign on it indicating it was being run by a Shelbyville middle school to benefit its girls’ soccer team. As it turns out, every concession and merchandise stand in Adelphia—with the exception of Logan’s—is staffed and operated by a nonprofit group under a national program run by VSA. (Papa John’s does provide the pizza makers, while KFC and Captain D’s provide supervisors to ensure quality control, but otherwise the nonprofit groups run those eateries’ stands.) Cindy Henneberger, group coordinator for VSA, says advertisements ran the first year in local publications to solicit groups, but that the program currently has a waiting list of about 50 groups. In return for operating the stands, the groups receive 8 percent of net proceeds, which can run anywhere from $350 to $2,500 per event. Of course, in return for the donation, VSA essentially gets free manpower for its concession stands. Sounds to me like everybody wins.
Mis-steak
Whoops. Last week I reported that Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, located at 2525 West End Ave., would open Sept. 12, which was the information I received in the original release. A subsequent release noted an opening date of Sept. 21, which is the actual date.
Fleming’s is in the same property as P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, which opened Sept. 4 and has been packing them in ever since. P.F. Chang’s was founded by Peter Fleming, and I remarked last week that the restaurant had no relation to Fleming’s Steakhouse. Wrong! They were founded by one and the same man! What an amazing coincidence—that two of the entrepreneur’s restaurants would be opening in the same month, in the same building. Now, that’s what I call synergy.
