Each MLB Stadium's 2022 Offering, Worst To Best

Even though the season got off to a slightly delayed start thanks to the MLB lockout, baseball is back for the first almost-full season we've had in three years, and fans are flocking to stadiums across the country see their favorite teams. This means that stadium concessions, are also back in their full pre-pandemic glory, with each park trying to outdo each other to see who can offer the most over-the-top eats for fans who want more excitement than peanuts and Cracker Jack (or even Cracker Jill) have to offer.

While each stadium is fielding an entire lineup of new foods and bringing back fan favorites like hot dogs and helmet nachos, for the purpose of these rankings, we're determining what each team's most intriguing new option may be, and then ranking these items in order from the ones we're least excited about to the ones that have already got us planning our next road trip.

Year after year, the Phillies are pretty solid performers in the NL East, and Citizen's Bank Park is a decent stadium. When it comes to concessions, though, they're a top-tier park — in fact, last year, their cheesesteak won the MLB Food Fight for baseball's best concessions item. This year's biggest innovation, however, was quite a disappointment.

Aramark, the concessions provider for the Phillies (and eight other teams), is sponsoring a promo for the 2022 season called "Dare to Pair," something they say is meant to highlight "unlikely, yet delicious, food combinations," per BusinessWire. While some of these items live up to the billing, and others at least manage to tick the "unusual" box, Citizens Bank Park got stuck with a real dud: the PBJ Burger, available at the concessions stand called Boardwalk Eats. Yes, it's a burger topped with peanut butter. And jelly. Plus bacon and American cheese. Not the oddest burger topping combo, but far from the tastiest. At least they went with jalapeño jelly instead of grape or strawberry, but even that faint hint of heat can do little to redeem this burger. Somehow it manages to be both a hot mess and also boring at the same time.

Okay, we're starting to develop a theme here: Aramark + stadium food + unusual food pairings = yuck. Next on deck: Fenway Park, which, along with Wrigley, is the last of the truly old-school ballparks. Their concessions tend to be more serviceable than standout. The Boston Herald notes that one of their biggest innovations for the 2022 season is a Fenway Frank sprinkled with Cheetos dust, which is fine, but hardly innovative, as even Applebee's jumped on the Cheetos bandwagon last year. Far more creative, although not nearly so appetizing, is the "Dare to Pair" offering: Fluffernutter Fries.

The fluffernutter is basically a PBJ, only with Marshmallow Fluff (a product of Boston suburb Somerville) in place of the jelly. As for the fries, they're made from sweet potatoes topped with peanut sauce, chopped peanuts, and cilantro, so kind of a Thai-style thing going on. But then things go south with the addition of Marshmallow Fluff. Sorry, Somerville, we love the stuff when it stays in its lane, which is on top of an ice cream sundae. On fries, though, we're not sold, but we never were big fans of that Thanksgiving yam casserole. The final "nope" in the coffin comes from the price tag: these fries sell for $14.50, according to the Eagle-Tribune, which is a bit too steep for something you'd try just to say you did.

Coors Field has several claims to fame. Not only is it the best park in the MLB if you want to see some long bombs hit (per the Bleacher Report,) but it's also the birthplace of Blue Moon. For our purposes here, though, the most important thing you need to know about the Colorado Rockies' home field is that it, too, has concessions provided by Aramark. Yep, another daring pairing coming right up — and, go figure, this one involves peanut butter, too. As far as we know, that wasn't one of Aramark's stipulations, but for some reason, this ingredient figures in over half of this year's highlighted offerings.

According to BusinessWire, the Coors Field chefs decided to go with a retro theme, paying homage to the long-deceased King of Rock'N'Roll with a shake that bears his name. The Elvis Shake, while it neither rattles nor rolls, may make you wobble. It's a mildly boozy one, made with ice cream spiked with crème de banane and flavored with candied bacon and peanut butter sauce. To top it all off, there's even a sprinkling of Cracker Jack. While this snack doesn't have any particular Elvis associations, it's been linked with the sport of baseball for over a century. Altogether, the flavors in the shake work well enough, but "eat like Elvis" has never been our motto since everyone knows how that worked out for him.

Did you know that the Cincinnati Reds are MLB's oldest team? They are the oldest professional baseball team, having started in 1869 as the Red Stockings. It's fitting, then, that they play in the Great American Ball Park, a venue that ranks among the nation's top sports venues. (It wasn't named for its greatness, though, as Great American is the name of the insurance company currently holding the naming rights.) As you might expect, GABP is no slouch in the concessions department — and no, they're not catered by Aramark, either. They introduced several new items for the 2022 season, according to WLWT5. These include a hot honey chicken sandwich, mac and cheese and pulled pork in a waffle cone, and a strawberry sundae on top of a bundt cake. However, the items we're most excited about are boozy little cubes called BLOX.

While the only square-shaped alcoholic edibles we were familiar with to date were the infamous Jell-O shots, BLOX would seem to be a healthier version of that frat house favorite. They're alcohol-infused, fruit-flavored ice cubes! While that may sound kind of messy, you don't just get a cup of boozy ice. Instead, they come with a beverage. You can get either lime or strawberry BLOX with black cherry seltzer, or for a higher octane option, strawberry BLOX paired with prosecco.

At Yankee Stadium concession stands, you're spoiled for choice. Well, you'd expect no less in NYC, as plain old peanuts and popcorn aren't going to cut it in one of the world's top food destinations. This season, the stadium got new vendors, including Manhattan food cart legends The Halal Guys and Streetbird, a stand featuring chef Marcus Samuelsson's gourmet fried chicken creations, according to the MLB website. Other new menu items include such upscale fare as lemon-herb rotisserie chicken and a burger with goat cheese and balsamic fig spread. Our favorite new offering, though, is another booze-free beverage — kudos to the Dodgers and Yankees for offering non-boring drink options for designated drivers, under-21s, and anyone else abstaining from alcohol.

Grand Slam Shakes may be bucking the boozy ice cream drink trend, but what they lack in alcohol, they make up for in flavor. The 2022 lineup includes the baseball-themed Bronx Bomber with fun-size Baby Ruth bars, peanut butter cups, and Cracker Jack. La Dulce Vida is made with tres leches cupcakes and churros. Sunny Skies has rainbow cake and funfetti crumbs. And Little Italy is garnished with mini cannolis. However, the most OTT (and most New York) shake is another Marcus Samuelsson creation, the Blue, White & Gold with its fresh blueberries, cheesecake, graham cracker crumbs, whipped cream, and gold glitter. Best of all, each Grand Slam Shake comes with a cool souvenir cup!

Popcorn is typically not the most exciting of concessions. It's not so much a classic ballpark food as it is a one-size-fits-all generic entertainment snack. That being said, it's all about the presentation — and also the flavors. Popcorn on its own is, well, really rather dull, even with plenty of butter and salt. Flavored popcorn, however, can be fun. Popcorn in wild flavors, served up in an old-timey arcade? Now we're talking!

Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, underwent a whole bunch of upgrades in the off-season. One of the most notable was the addition of the Bullpen Boardwalk, a family fun zone with baseball activities such as batting cages and classic arcade games like Skee-Ball, according to SFBay. They also serve street fair-type foods like Frito pies, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, Slushies (both boozy and virgin varieties), and a wide range of popcorn varieties. Some of the ones on offer include green apple, ghost pepper, and a mysterious flavor called "spookie fruit" that our diligent research reveals is most likely grape.

According to Spectrum St. Louis, The Cardinals are also sticking with the classics when it comes to new ballpark foods at Busch Stadium this year, but there's nothing wrong with that. Their latest offerings include a favorite sandwich in St. Louis and Chicago – Italian beef topped with provolone, peppers, onions, and giardiniera. They've also added meatballs in your choice of marinara or barbecue sauce and fresh-made gourmet flavored popcorn and frozen drinks in souvenir glasses. The new menu item we like best, though, could be described as Midwestern-meets-Tex-Mex: St. Louis BBQ Nachos.

These nachos are made with the typical tortilla chips, but instead of chicken, taco beef, or chorizo, they're topped with smoked pulled pork and barbecue sauce. They get a little heat from a jalapeño cheese sauce and come with the option to add some dry barbecue spice, as well. Not a particularly groundbreaking dish, but a good solid offering and something you're likely to order more than once.

In years past, Guaranteed Rate Field was known for serving some crazy concessions. In 2017 they had a 16-inch sandwich topped with mac and cheese and brisket, while 2018's offerings included a 3-pound, 5,000-calorie ice cream sundae served in a full-sized batting helmet. Their 2022 offerings aren't nearly as extreme -– whether this is because the White Sox are expected to be a more competitive team, or because of the post-COVID inflationary economy, we can't say for sure. Still, while Guaranteed Rate's menu may be lacking anything off the wall this year, they do the basics really well. In fact, by one metric, their concessions currently rank top with baseball fans.

Oddly enough, the best new item at Guaranteed Rate Field's concessions stands this year is inspired by a product born at another ballpark: Blue Moon beer, which, as we mentioned above, was created at Coors Field. The Blue Moon Brats, however, seem more like a Midwestern thing. According to Twitter foodie Shane Riordan, they're made from beer-soaked bratwurst (a favorite at tailgate parties throughout the Great Lakes region), but the whimsical touch that takes these sausages over the top is burnt orange mustard that stands in for the Blue Moon's orange slice garnish. Here's an idea for next year, White Sox: how about Corona dogs with lime mustard? That could work, too.

Back in the earlier part of this century, The Seattle Mariners -– then owned by Nintendo –- offered perhaps the most exciting concessions experience in all Major League Baseball. It's not that the food was so special, but you could order it from your seat using your Nintendo DS! Well, Nintendo no longer owns the team (and they've also discontinued the DS line), and there's nothing that exciting about ordering with your phone since you can do this in stadiums not sponsored by cell phone providers. Still, T-Mobile Park has some pretty decent new concessions this year, per The Seattle Times. The hot dogs and nachos are noteworthy, not because they're anything extraordinary in and of themselves, but because they're now just $3! Not something you'd expect in one of America's priciest cities, but cheap ballpark eats are a trend we'd love to see catch on elsewhere.

At a somewhat higher price point is our pick for the best new 2022 item available at T-Mobile Park: the Aloha Slider with Kalua pork, Hawaii's answer to pulled pork barbecue. There's also another Aloha Slider featuring that all-time Hawaiian favorite, Spam. Both sandwiches come from a Seattle restaurant called Marination and are available a la carte for $10.50. For $15, you can get them as part of a Luau Plate, where they're paired with macaroni salad and other Hawaiian sides.

Angel Stadium spells "fun" from the moment you walk in, with its two ball cap-shaped awnings flanking an entrance arch lined with giant wooden bats. When your stadium's just up the road from the Happiest Place On Earth, you've got to stay on the ball, so to speak, even if you do have both Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout on the roster. The concessions offerings are also on trend, particularly some of this season's new offerings. According to Angels Win, they've added new gourmet dogs, Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, and birria street tacos. The most exciting new dish is something as visually striking as it is tasty: a Korean fried chicken sandwich.

The sandwich is made from a generous piece of crunchy fried chicken topped with gochujang sauce, garlic aioli, and citrus coleslaw, and on the side, you get fries plus a cup of kimchi. The real selling point here, however, is the coal-black sesame-topped bun. This eye-catching detail is bound to make this one of the most Instagrammable sandwiches of the baseball season.

What did they come up with for this season at the home of the former Indians-turned-Guardians? Nothing all that new and shocking, although the seven new items they've introduced are pretty solid offerings. Among them are nachos with plant protein, chicken and waffles, a footlong chili dog, a burger topped with guacamole, salsa, and nacho cheese sauce (or "FUNacho" sauce, as they're insisting on calling it), a mac and cheese bowl, and a waffle cone stuffed with mac and cheese and pulled pork. (Hey, they stole that last one from the Cincinnati Reds! Or possibly vice-versa, or maybe it's just an Ohio thing.)

However, our favorite of the Guardians' new items is something that couldn't be more Cleveland if it tried: the Southside Slope Sandwich. This monster-sized sandwich has been a menu staple at Fat Head's Brewery for years and once ended up on Maxim's list of America's top sandwiches. The behemoth bun is stuffed with kielbasa and cheese and topped with fried pierogi, truly a match made in the Midwest even if the Southside Slope did originate in Pittsburgh (which might as well be the Midwest despite technically being in Pennsylvania). Fat Head's even gilds the lily with onions and horseradish sauce, and we're right there for it down to the last bite.

While the Gopher State is surprisingly diverse, with growing numbers of Somali, Hmong, and Eastern European residents, they do not have a significant contingent from Down Under. Still, Minnesota can boast one of the nation's few authentic Australian restaurants that's nothing like the Crocodile Dundee-themed Outback chain. Instead of bloomin' onions, kookaburra wings, and shrimp on the barbie, Bub's Gourmet Aussie Pies offers confections such as chocolate-coconut-dipped lamingtons and airy meringue pavlovas as well as their eponymous pies.

So what is an Aussie pie, anyway? It's a savory meat pie that's somewhat similar to a pasty with a flakier crust. Bub's Gourmet Aussie Pies, which opened in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, in 2020, are selling their pies at Minnesota Twins games for the first time this year. Among the tasty pies on offer at their Target Field stand are chicken with wild rice and a beef-and-onion sloppy joe.

Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, is going all-in on Michigan-inspired options this season, which is something we love. In an increasingly generic world, it's lovely to see baseball teams, stadiums, and concessions reflecting their region's unique charms. One of the items they'll have in abundance in 2022 is pasties, a specialty of the Mitten State's Upper Peninsula (a bit that, oddly enough, sits up on top of Wisconsin like a hat and is only connected to the rest of the state by a bridge). One we like is the Coney Pasty, a meat pie stuffed with hot dog slices covered in Detroit-style coney sauce. It was, in fact, a strong contender for Comerica's best new food of 2022 but was barely nudged out by something else that's even more Detroit, if possible: Gyro Nachos.

The Detroit area, as it happens, is home to a thriving Middle Eastern community whose history dates back to when Henry Ford recruited Lebanese and Yemeni workers for his Dearborn auto plant. Today, this long-established community may make Detroit the Middle Eastern food capital of the U.S., so it's only fitting that the Tigers gave ballpark nachos their unique spin. Instead of tortilla chips, these gyro nachos are made with pita chips, while the toppings include lettuce, tomatoes, onions, gyro meat, and tzatziki. Innovative, delicious, and Detroit-as-can-be, we hope these gyro nachos are a permanent addition to Comerica's lineup.

The Pittsburgh Pirates may not be much of a contender this season (or last season, or the last ...), but they still have a lot going for them. For one thing, PNC Park is a magnificent stadium and is currently the highest-ranked stadium in MLB, according to social media reviews (only the NFL's Lambeau Field holds a higher rating). For another, they came out on top with the whole Aramark Dare to Pair deal. While many of the other Aramark parks ranked low on this list because they dared to venture into territory bordering on the inedible (not to mention an over-reliance on peanut butter), the chefs at PNC Park came up with the pretty genius idea of giving some local favorites a fusion twist. Hence, the Burgh Katsu.

If you misread the slide title, you might be expecting a breaded, fried burger, which might not be so bad. (Idea for next year, Aramark chefs?) Instead, the katsu-fied meat here is ham, which is a meat that's at its absolute best when fried. The katsu comes sauced with hoisin aioli and topped with cucumber kimchi, but our favorite part is the oh-so-Pittsburgh pierogi garnish!

There is probably no more classic ballpark food in baseball than the hotdog. Even the most uninspired tube steak is a feast when the sun comes out, and there's new grass on the field (with apologies, plus a little fanpersoning, to John Fogerty). In the great state of Arizona, even the humble hot dog is anything but ordinary. Arizona, after all, gave us the Sonoran dog, a tube steak that could give even the classic Chicago dog a run for its money as the world's most fabulous frank.

At Chase Field, however, the Diamondbacks have come up with a new contender that, if it sticks around, may well earn a place in the Hot Dog Hall of Fame. This season, they're offering the Arizona Diamondbacks Dog, a fantastic creation that tales the standard wiener on a bun and smothers it in chorizo, roasted corn, green chile queso, pico de gallo, and something called venom sauce. What more could you ask for than a couple of these dogs, maybe a beer or two, and a win for your team, be it the Diamondbacks or the visitors?