While Fenway Park is a mecca of sorts for baseball fans, it’s hardly a religious experience for food lovers.

Sure, you can’t really go wrong with classic grandstand snacks like popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jack. But some standard concession fare is both pricey and disappointing. Those with even just a few trips to Fenway under their belts have surely encountered the worst of it: the pale, floppy fries, the franks and dry burger patties set in parched, partly smushed buns and wrapped in foil to die slowly under heat lamps. All the condiments in the 02215 zip code can’t resuscitate this stuff.

That’s why Sox fans who are also foodies should bear in mind that this season, some of the highest quality food in and around Fenway comes from Maine-based vendors. While this may sound like home-state boosterism, it’s also true.

Specifically, from the Eventide Fenway restaurant on Boylston Street, a three-minute walk from the park; and Luke’s Lobster concession booths, located both inside the park on the first-base concourse and adjacent to Fenway on Jersey Street. Between the quality of their ingredients – many sourced from Maine – and the care they take in preparing the food, Eventide and Luke’s are simply in a different league from Fenway’s standard concessionaires.

This isn’t food snobbery. It’s just that the value proposition in ballpark concession food is seriously lacking.

And going to a game at Fenway will cost you. According to the personal finance website Moneygeek, Fenway is the second-priciest ballpark in the country, costing a family of four an average of $215 for four tickets, parking and food and drink (Dodger Stadium is most expensive at $219).

As a lifelong Sox fan, and someone who can only afford a couple of trips to the park each season, I’d say their Fenway estimate seems on the low side, especially for food. One person could spend almost $40 alone on an Italian sausage and peppers sub and two beers. Moneygeek factors in $52 for food and drink for four, which would let that family buy just four Fenway Franks (the park’s smallest hot dog, and one of the cheapest food options at the park at $6.25 each), four regular fountain drinks (also $6.25 each), and one $2 Grillo’s pickle (which, depending on the family, they can fight over or split four ways).

For what you’re paying, Fenway concession food often proves lackluster for many fans (including this one!), not to mention the long lines that sometimes keep you waiting an inning or longer. I was fortunate enough to be at Fenway earlier this season for emerging star pitcher Tanner Houck’s complete game. Houck was hungry for a shutout win, and my friend and I were just plain hungry, because neither of us wanted to leave our seats for food while Tanner was dealing. Good thing for our growling stomachs it was the shortest Major League Baseball game since 2010, clocking in at just one hour, 49 minutes.

“Hadlock Field has better hot dogs than Fenway Park, no question in my mind,” said retired Portland Press Herald sports writer Mike Lowe, who has attended ball games at both parks for decades. “I find the buns are usually fresher, and the buns are dry at Fenway. To me, a good hot dog bun makes the hot dog.”

Even worse, Lowe said, is Fenway’s pizza, which is made by Sal’s Pizza, a local chain with a store location right across from the park.

“It’s a little tiny place, and it’s really good there,” Lowe said. “I don’t know what’s lost in translation between Sal’s and (their food in) the park, but honestly, it was among the worst pizzas I’ve ever had at a game. We got it the other night, and it looked really unappetizing, just not cooked very well, and that’s the second time I’ve had pizza like that from Fenway. The guy sitting next to me was a Phillies fan, and when I held the slice of pizza in my hand, he goes, ‘You know, if you were in Philadelphia, we wouldn’t let you eat that.’ ”

SAVVY FOOD CHOICES

Freshness doesn’t spring to mind when you tuck into a Fenway burger, either. “The patties have been sitting around for a while,” Lowe said. “They’re making the patties and then storing them someplace, putting them in the foil pack and handing them to you.”

To be fair, the logistics of feeding thousands of people in just a few hours, as Fenway concessionaires need to do, almost necessarily limit how good the food can be. Maybe that’s why Sal’s pizza at the shop is so much better than in the park.

But the quality of ingredients is another major factor. “The fries are probably coming out of bags from Sysco” at Fenway, said Andrew Taylor, chef and co-owner at Big Tree Hospitality, which owns Eventide Fenway. “And I’m sure the burger meat is frozen pucks from (Performance Food Group) or Sysco or wherever. So not the highest quality, I don’t think.”

By contrast, a burger at Eventide Fenway (or the Portland location, for that matter) starts with beef sourced from Peppermint Fields Farm in Fryeburg, which is ground into a blend of round, chuck, brisket and flap cuts. “A lot of care and love goes into that beef,” Taylor said.

Plenty of forethought goes into Eventide’s house-baked burger buns, too. “They’re a little dense and really great vessels for rendered beef fat to sop into a little bit. We steam those and then griddle them to order,” Taylor said.

Eventide chefs also render aged beef fat to make the gochujang and tallow mayo that they spread on the burger buns, which they top with pickled red onion and shredded lettuce. “It’s the real deal, versus the overpriced burger you’ll probably get at your basic stall in the stadium,” Taylor said.

Compared with generic concession-stand French fries that are often both bland and limp, Eventide uses potatoes from Green Thumb Farms in Fryeburg that they twice-fry for extra crispness. “It’s a medium-starch potato, and they make really incredible fries,” Taylor said, noting that Duckfat also uses Green Thumb potatoes. “They hold their shape when handled right and par-fried properly, and they get shatteringly crisp.”

The Eventide burger is $17, and the fries are $5, compared with a basic burger and fries combo at Fenway for $12.50. But believe me, that extra money is well spent: The Eventide burger and fries are literally and figuratively not even in the same ballpark.

Other, more “premium” burgers at Fenway – like the park’s New England Maple Bacon Burger – cost more, but satisfaction is hardly guaranteed. Veteran NESN sportscaster and Maine native Tom Caron called the Maple Bacon Burger “phenomenal,” but a reviewer on the Red Sox fan site Over the Monster wrote in 2023 that he found it “dry, mealy, and with nothing on the burger itself to make me look past it. My severely high expectations quickly crashed and burned, kind of like the burger itself.”

Then there are chicken tenders and fries ($13.50 at Fenway) that grow desiccated as they languish under heat lamps. Contrast that sad meal with Eventide’s Hot Chicken Bun ($13), served on a house-baked steamed bun with chunks of chicken thigh that are coated in potato and rice flours, twice-fried and tossed in hot sauce. Eventide sourced its chicken from Common Wealth Poultry Co. in Gardiner until that business closed earlier this year. For now, they’re using birds from the highly regarded Pennsylvania-based Bell & Evans, but they are looking for another local purveyor.

Fenway regulars who know the difference in food quality hit up Eventide often. Caron said he and his wife, Kelley, meet with friends at Eventide Fenway throughout the season. “Eventide is kind of our go-to place,” he said. “It’s a great spot.”

Eventide Fenway opened in 2017, as the Big Tree group saw an opportunity to put a pared-down version of their wildly successful Portland restaurant in Fenway’s growing residential neighborhood. “We get a huge influx of people before and after games,” Taylor said. “If you go to a Sox game, you’re making a day or an event of it. Some of the savvier people are like, ‘Let’s go have a nice meal before, and not pay for the overpriced food at the park.’ And it’s smart.”

LUKE’S REPLACES YANKEE

“Fenway is such a treat,” said Luke Holden, founder and CEO of Luke’s Lobster. “The chance to go catch a game in that stadium is what I would call an ‘everyday celebration,’ and that is absolutely what a lobster roll is. So to kind of piggy-back one everyday celebration on top of another is a unique, special opportunity.”

Luke’s Lobster became Fenway’s official lobster roll this season, taking over the concession from Boston-based Yankee Lobster. Based on the name alone, it’s amazing Yankee ever got a Fenway contract in the first place.

“That was an abomination,” laughed Caron. “I have no idea if it was any good, because I would never go to a place called Yankee Lobster. Like, what are we even doing?”

Holden said his company saw great potential in selling their lobster rolls at Fenway, one of New England’s most popular tourist attractions. “Fenway gets a lot of visitors,” Holden said. “And when you’re visiting New England, one thing you’d like is a super-high-quality lobster roll.”

Luke’s partnered with Aramark, the massive food service company that handles most of the concessions at Fenway (and lots of other ballparks nationwide). Aramark employees run Luke’s concession booths, but Holden said his company’s Boston-based leadership team coached the Fenway staffers on Luke’s best operating and service practices.

“When we were down there at Fenway just recently, and they were making and serving perfect lobster rolls,” Holden said. “It’s definitely not the most complicated thing, but it takes some training. The leadership team did a good job bringing the (concession booth) teammates along, and they’ve taken ownership of it.”

At Fenway, Luke’s offers its classic lobster roll ($38) and a Jonah crab roll ($18), along with clam chowder and lobster bisque ($8.75 each), all using fresh, sustainably caught local seafood. It may sound expensive, but Luke’s classic roll is actually cheaper than many other lobster rolls around Boston, which sell for more than $40.

Caron said Luke’s Lobster and the Highroller Lobster Co. are two of his favorite places for lobster rolls in Maine. “So now having Luke’s – and authentic Maine lobster – right in the ballpark is really cool,” he said, noting that the NESN broadcast booth often orders Luke’s lobster rolls especially for Sox legend and NESN analyst Jim Rice, who absolutely loves them.

MASSIVE COOKIES AND MESSY SAUSAGE SUBS

Beyond the basics like hot dogs, burgers, fried chicken tenders and pizza, you can find some relatively appealing food at Fenway if you know where to look.

“Ballparks (nationwide) have done a good job over the years of elevating their game,” Caron said. “They’ve come a long way. It used to be hot dogs and overdone burgers. And now the selection they have is incredible. Fenway’s got some cool options. There’s some healthier things you can find too.”

There are indeed lighter items like a Kale Caesar Wrap, fruit and garden salads, and vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options peppered around the park. Fenway also sells heavier meals and treats like burrito bowls, cheesesteaks, Cuban sandwiches and massive one-pound chocolate chip cookies.

“That cookie is the size of my first apartment in the West End in Portland,” Caron said.

The Italian sausage sub is Lowe’s first choice at Fenway. “I like the flavor of the meat, and they put enough onions and peppers on it to the point where the sub can’t handle it,” he said. “Makes it a little messy, but I like that.”

After covering ballgames for 40 years, Lowe knows how to get the most from concession food. He said the best Italian sausage rolls he has eaten at Fenway had just finished cooking. Lowe asks the concession worker specifically for the sausage they just made, and avoids the ones that have been sitting under heat lamps, wrapped in foil.

Same with hot dogs. Lowe prefers to buy them from the hawkers roaming the stands, who assemble the dog in front of you, because the buns fare better than do the prewrapped franks sitting under heat lamps at the concession stand. “The rolls are in his (warming case) and are being steamed while he’s walking through the stands, so they’re a little softer,” Lowe said.

But not everyone is prepared to game out the timing and locations of their concessions purchases. So if top-quality food is a priority for you, your best bet at Fenway this year may be to stick with Maine vendors for the bulk of your meal. That way, regardless of what happens with the Sox on the field, you’ve ensured yourself a win.

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