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Progressive Field offers buffet seats to die-hard (not dieting hard) fans
By Lisa Abraham
Beacon Journal food writer
Published on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008
Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and a hot dog, nachos, waffle fries, popcorn, more nachos, some ice cream, a cheeseburger, more ice cream, some onion rings and maybe, if I have room, even some more ice cream.
Cleveland Indians fans, welcome to the all-you-can-eat seats.
In this phenomenon spreading across baseball parks this summer, for one price you get a ticket to the game and all the ballpark fare your stomach can handle.
''When people think of baseball, they think of food, more than any other sport,'' said Curtis Danburg, director of communication for the Tribe.
Until this season, the all-you-can-eat seats at Progressive Field have been reserved for those with season ticket packages in the club seating area of the stadium.
This year, all-you-can-eat club seats have been opened up to the general public for individual purchase. At $110 a ticket, the seats aren't cheap and it's a challenge to eat your money's worth, figuring the price of the seat is about $60 for a weekend game.
But on Aug. 11, another section of more budget-friendly all-you-can-eat seats is expected to open in the upper deck, with a price tag that probably will be between $50 and $60, Danburg said.
Plans aren't final, but Danburg said the seats will include hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn and soft drinks, not the full buffet of the Club Lounge that comes with the club seats.
To check out these all-you-can-eat seats, I knew I would have to take along someone with a bigger appetite than mine. I quickly dismissed my husband as a candidate. Despite his 6-foot-3 frame, I can usually pack away more food than he can and I knew that excessive amounts of ballpark fare would be lost on him.
No, this was a job for someone with a true zest for eating, someone with hollow legs and an iron stomach. This was a job for a teenager.
My 15-year-old nephew Ryan Abraham was the first to offer assistance. Back when the idea of checking out the seats was still just an idea, he unselfishly volunteered to go with me and help out should I need him. So it seemed the privilege should be his, if his gastric system was up to the challenge.
Because, at 15, he leads a much more adventurous life than his aunt, he explained on the drive to the stadium that he already had the opportunity to sit in the club seats last summer, when his dad acquired a pair of tickets.
Oh, there would be food, lots of food, he assured me and my husband. (You didn't really think hubby wouldn't get to go, did you?)
The trick was to get there early, right when the gates open. Otherwise, the buffet gets really crowded and the lines for food get long, he cautioned.
Executive Chef James Major already had tipped me off to that. Major, who works for Delaware North Cos., which provides the food service at Progressive Field, said there are 2,100 club seats at the field, all of which come with access to the all-you-can-eat food.
Each game, Major said, he knows within about 100 fans how many he will be serving. Usually it's somewhere between 1,600 and the full 2,100.
Major prepares a menu based in part on what team is in town. If it's Texas, he'll put barbecue on the menu. For the Yankees, it will be Italian.
What, then, was he planning for the recent homestand against the Minnesota Twins? A casserole?
Major assured me that while Minnesota didn't spark an obvious theme, the menu would be satisfying. There are always two carved meats and a pasta station, and for games that start at 1:05 p.m., some brunch options as well.
And if it was raining, they'd be prepared. In bad weather, club seat fans come inside the lounge to watch the game on big-screen televisions, where they tend to eat even more.
We got in line at 11:14 a.m. and waited the longest 16 minutes in baseball fan history for the gates to open. On the ride up in the elevator, the attendant asked us whether we were hungry. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we had brought our appetites, I told him.
At the entrance to the Club Lounge, we were given wristbands to show that we were entitled to the bounty that lay ahead. The attendant joked that I didn't bring a tote bag — suggesting that perhaps some of the all-inclusive peanuts find their way home with fans. I turned my shoulder to reveal the bag hanging off my other arm and he laughed.
Mind you, I grew up in the Mahoning Valley, where the larger the purse meant the more cookies you could bring home from a wedding reception. But the idea of bringing home stadium food actually had not occurred to me.
It had, however, occurred to my nephew, who said his sister had suggested he take a cooler to bring her home a lemon ice, a seventh-inning favorite.
Now before I raise the blood pressure of dietitians, physicians and anyone else with concerns about excessive food consumption, let me just say that the kind of overeating promoted by the phrase ''all-you-can-eat'' is unhealthful and should only be done on the rare occasions when 1) you are fortunate enough to score tickets or 2) the situation calls for extreme eating to get to the bottom of a story. And even then, realize that what you are indulging in is full of fat and generally bad for your heart, weight and cholesterol level.
But with journalistic integrity on our side, we plowed ahead.
First the carving stations: baked ham and Cajun-spiced turkey breast, served with honey mustard sauce. Not too unhealthful. Then, breakfast pastries, Danish and muffins, followed by a large display of fruit. Around the corner, build-your-own yogurt parfaits with more fruit, granola and yogurt — another healthful choice.
Next was a pasta station, this day offering penne in an Alfredo sauce with peas and ham.
Along the opposite wall, several kinds of pizza, cold pasta salad, and another salad of cucumbers and grape tomatoes. There was a build-your-own nachos bar, and a grill offering hot dogs, burgers, bratwurst, onion rings, waffle fries and Caesar salads.
By the time we made our rounds, we were carrying so many plates, it was a balancing act just to get drinks and find a table. All-you-can-eat includes unlimited soft drinks, but not beer or other alcoholic beverages. I barely had started my food when my nephew was finishing his first plate — turkey, ham, pasta and Caesar salad. ''Well, I'm going for pizza,'' he proclaimed. It was 11:56 a.m.
He came back with a slice of pizza and a dish of nachos, eating them simultaneously, two-fisted fashion. I watched with amazement. My husband went off for fruit and a muffin, and I continued on my original plate.
''What's next?'' I asked at 12:06 p.m. ''I think a hot dog, maybe,'' my nephew said, heading off into the food fray.
By this time, the buffet was getting crowded and I was grateful for the advice to come early.
My husband had started on his own nachos when my nephew returned with a hot dog and another bowl of Caesar salad.
''Can you eat much more?'' I asked as he ate his third helping. Yes, he assured me, he could eat more now, and would have room for even more later after he ''emptied out a little.''
By 12:17 p.m., he was off again. ''I don't know, I might just look around,'' he said, and returned with a plate piled with waffle fries and onion rings. By the end of his fourths, he was stalling. A lone onion ring remained on his plate, which I ate.
Outside, we found our seats, passing the ice cream station along the way.
After about 20 minutes of pregame festivities, I turned to my nephew: ''What are you thinking about?''
''I'm thinking about ice cream,'' he said. My husband had reached his limit and waved us off. We returned with dishes of Pierre's — Moose Tracks for me, Superman for him.
We finished just in time to stand for the national anthem, sung by the Curves Choir, from the women's gym chain. (As if I needed the hint.)
Through the course of the game, my nephew plowed through popcorn, peanuts, a soft pretzel and four soft drinks.
I can tell you that the portions of many foods are smaller in the all-you-can-eat seats. A dish of nachos is about half the size of the $5 portion sold at the concession stands. The peanuts and popcorn were even smaller, parceled out in 12-oz. plastic cups.
This isn't a bad thing. I imagine it cuts down on waste. But it makes for a difficult item-by-item comparison when I attempted to tally up what his food bill would have been had we purchased it a la carte.
But here's the rough calculation based on the retail price of the food at the concession stands:
Hot dog, $4.25; nachos, $5; ice cream, $4; peanuts, $4; hot pretzel, $3.50; pizza, $4.50; waffle fries, $4.25; and four soft drinks at $4 each, for a grand total of $46. When I factored in the cost of carved turkey, ham, pasta, salad and onion rings, which weren't available on the concession stand menus, I think it's safe to suggest the Indians organization lost money on his seat.
Much to our disappointment, the lemon ice never came. Even more disappointing was that the buffet was closing by the seventh inning, leaving us with just peanuts and popcorn at a time when a slice of pizza would have hit the spot.
The chances of my going again to the all-you-can-eat seats are pretty slim, but if I do, I'll be using my tote bag to save a little something for the seventh inning, when the food gets scarce.
Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, you also get to watch a baseball game.
Lisa A. Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or labraham@thebeaconjournal.com.
Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and a hot dog, nachos, waffle fries, popcorn, more nachos, some ice cream, a cheeseburger, more ice cream, some onion rings and maybe, if I have room, even some more ice cream.
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