Inside the factory where the most imaginative ballpark foods come to life

PHILADELPHIA -- Steve Dolan turned his computer around and smiled.

There were graphs and charts and all kinds of data sets on the screen. Like something you might see from a financial advisor or some risk-averse manager or on some math test from back in high school that you're inevitably about to fail.

But then the names, next to the numbers, all come into focus.

The Hatfield Phootlong Dog.

Bull's BBQ Sampler Platter.

The Schwarbomb Sundae.

Analytical decks showing if a donut chicken sandwich sold well in Citizens Bank Park.

If a Fenway Lobstah Poutine dish served in a boat would do better than not served in one.

Whether peanut butter cups should be scattered on a pulled pork sandwich in Kansas City.

"Yes, the whole idea of that one was, 'Hmm, is that gonna taste good?'" Alicia Wozniki, VP of Design and Development at Aramark Sports and Entertainment, told me. "And then it did."

This was the data science -- yes, data science -- behind the eye-popping, heartburn-inducing, ridiculously-delicious food scene that's exploded in ballparks over the last 20 years. Just a part of the process, and the place, where all the gastronomic ingenuity happens.

"No knock to the hot dog, but not everything is about hot dogs and nachos," Chef Rich Grab, Director of Culinary Innovation at Aramark, said. "We want to bring some elevation to these dishes. Our fans are coming in with a new level of expectation."

This is 2400 Market Street, Philadelphia: The building where your wildest baseball food dreams become reality.

The Preseason Meetings

You probably have a vision of what baseball food meetings in the offseason look like at Aramark headquarters.

*"Let's stick M&M's on top of a rotisserie chicken with maple syrup!"*

*"Can we make Skittles fall from the sky when there's a rainbow over the stadium?"*

*"Chocolate pizza!"*

*"Brisket donuts!" (that one's actually real).*

Just Aramark officials and team chefs -- Aramark is responsible for the food in eight ballparks -- trying to outdo and one-up one another. Something zanier, crazier, more flavorful.

Well, it's not totally like that, but it sort of is.

"We try to bring a lot of options to our clients and our field teams, but also be really responsive to what they're doing organically," Wozniki said. "Some clubs, it's like, 'OK, c'mon,' you need to bring it out. Other teams, you're like, 'OK, a little too much.'"

"It can start really, really wild and crazy," Rachel Herpich, Director of Customer Experience and Design, told me. "And then sometimes things have to be edited to actually make it work because the name of the game isn't the most outrageous item. It's how far can we push the boundary, but have it still taste good and be of value to the guest, right?"

In a lot of these meetings, discussions are based on what did well or didn't do well the season before. Should we sell the chicken tenders next to the right-field concession instead of the left-field? San Franciscans are eating lots of birria -- how can we get it into a ballpark item?

"We look into the entire portfolio, and kind of drill down into some of the regional areas on things that work and don't work," Dolan, Director of Data Analytics, said. "We build that on top of each other, year over year, to find out what the trends are. What's specific to a region? What's the overall trend within baseball?"

Teams, of course, want food items that aren't so outlandish they won't sell in their ballpark. But, then again, that also can work. If they are outlandish, they get that super-viral factor on social media. Fans will come to the ballpark just to say, "I ordered one," and post the photo on Instagram.

Dolan talks about the pierogi-topped hot dog -- PNC Park's 2024 Renegado Dog -- as an example of combining regional trends with ballpark fare.

"It was a viral sensation," Dolan said. "A foot-long dog with pierogi and brisket on it. From a numbers perspective, we saw it immediately. First homestand, people were purchasing it and from a velocity number, it just shot through the roof."

The 9-9-9 Challenge was something happening organically in stadiums over the last couple years, so Aramark launched its own (albeit much smaller version) in Citizens Bank Park in 2025.

"Yes, obviously, with the tweak of making it digestible and safe from a compliance standpoint," Herpich smiled.

One, a bit more in the insane realm, came from Kansas City in 2022: A creation that stemmed directly from one of these meetings between the executive team chef and Aramark.

"A pulled pork sandwich with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on top of it," Wozniki laughed. "Obviously, barbecue is huge there. We said, 'OK, we're seeing this trend of, and it wasn't even baseball-specific, of uncommon pairings.' So, take something that's really popular in your market and put a twist on it. We called it "Dare to Pair." Our chef in Kansas City brought that to us and said, 'Let's do this.' And fans liked it. And people were trying it just because they wanted to see if it tasted good."

But how do teams know if a pulled pork sandwich with peanut butter cups on it is actually going to work? Why would it work? Is it tested?

For that, you need to enter the Aramark laboratory.

The Test Kitchen

Chef Rich, who got his training at the high-end Starr Restaurant Group, recalls the moment at Aramark when he realized he was no longer creating food for customers coming to the high-end Starr Restaurant Group.

"I met Rachel [Herpich] and she's like, 'I need you to make a purple pancake,'" Rich said. "And I was beside myself because I was always like, you know, a classically trained person. You didn't add that kind of stuff to food."

But Grab has embraced the ideas and data coming out the marketing department to create some Frankenstein-ian masterpieces. Purple pancakes for the NFL, caviar chicken nuggets for the U.S. Open and the recent Philadelphia All-Star Game items. He uses his extensive culinary background and told me he visits the nearby Reading Terminal to get inspiration from roast pork stores, Amish bakeries and pastrami delis.

"It's both fun and challenging," Rich said. "We do think through this whole process, we don't necessarily have kitchens in these [ballpark] spaces. We only have, like, a fryer or a warmer or, you know, not a full commercial kitchen. So, on the culinary end, we really need to strategize and think like how we're able to execute this at a high level."

Chefs from various ballparks will come into the office or just be heavily involved when a new dish is being created in Aramark's test kitchen. The two teams will workshop ingredients, see what's best, decide how it can be created in bulk and develop how it'll be presented to customers.

"We have a test kitchen and an innovation kitchen that we've built out," Rich explained. "We can do a lot of the testing and concept development."

Chef Rich gives an example of how the creative process works with a 2026 signature dish in Boston.

"Chef Ron at Fenway Park -- he was just really thinking through, 'What's the best way to pay homage to the lobster roll up in Fenway?'" Rich said. "And we have two of our partners: Cavendish french fries and Luke's Lobster. How do we incorporate both of them into something fun and a little bit whimsical?

"So he added the clam chowder, which is obviously another nod to the New England fan base. It's being served in a lobster boat in concessions. It's great flavors. It kind of tastes like a lobster roll on a french fry, so to speak. And it's striking when you see people walking around the concourses with these massive lobster boat poutines."

Chefs from Aramark and the teams will obviously try the foods after they make them. How could they resist?

But there's an even bigger pool of eaters that can be used as test subjects right within Aramark's walls: The 2,500 employees that make up the Philly headquarter offices.

Who doesn't want a glazed donut fried chicken sandwich for lunch?

The Taste Testers

Wozniki briefly mentions it during a tour of the cafes and eating stations at Aramark.

"This area here is usually a pop-up of something new that they're testing," she said. "It's like, 'Today's thing is this,' and they might have a person there taking your opinions. There's usually something there."

Whether it's something in a ballpark, football stadium or concert venue, Aramark chefs will test their raw creations on Aramark employees during lunchtime. It's a perfect pool of real people giving their immediate feedback before the dishes get distributed out to the masses.

"Yeah, we always have some sort of rotating concept," Grab said. "They give some really great candid feedback, which is always interesting to get, and it helps prove a concept."

Chef Rich remembered his plant-based burger idea not faring too well with employees at HQ, but Herpich does remember one getting a ton of positive feedback from employees.

"We developed the banana dog for the Savannah Bananas," Herpich said. "I think that was one where you could feel the energy of like, this is going to land, this is going to be a success. It's baseball, you think of a hot dog. And then you think Savannah Bananas, what could be better than a banana dog?"

She has a point.

"There’s something special about being among the first to taste, refine and help shape these dishes before they make their way to the fans," Herpich, who's tested many items during her years at Aramark, said.

Her personal favorite? An October milkshake that looks almost too intimidating to take down.

"The postseason allows us to get creative in a different way and create menu items that match the excitement and atmosphere of October baseball," she told me. "Some of my favorites for the postseason have been a Pumpkin Spice Affogato and the Souvenir Apple Cider Donut Shake."

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More than ever, baseball, these days, is not just about watching what's happening on the field.

It's about hanging out on a warm summer night with friends, exploring new corners of the stadium concourse, tipping back a few libations and diving into that particular region's food scene. Fans expect that food to be creative and, many times, to look, and taste, like something you might more readily find inside Willy Wonka's workshop.

The team at Aramark seems to get that.

"Baseball is an experience," Chef Rich said. "It's not just a game you come and watch by inning. It's an all-day event you bring your friends and family to. We want to mix and match -- obviously highlight the city -- and create some real chef-driven items that aren't so traditional."

"Many times, a client will say to us, 'Our product on the field isn't good enough, how can we discount food or beverage to bring people in?'" Wozniki told me. "I don't personally think a cheaper hot dog is gonna make me come, but if you have a really cool souvenir or some over-the-top experience -- a new concept or social space -- those kinds of things will make people want to go."

In a sport that features gargantuan 500-foot feats called home runs and blazing 100-mph fastballs, some of the weirdest, most cartoonish characters in American history and frequently used terms like duck snort or TOOTBLAN, it's fitting to have foods that enter into that unusual, off-the-wall realm.

It makes sense, at times, to lean into the nonsense.