@CharlesSollars Hi Charles, it's ballpark policy to cease all concessions at the end of the 7th inning. Our apologies for any confusion.
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 6, 2016
I went to a day baseball game yesterday because well the tickets were cheap and what else was I going to do at 1pm on a Wednesday. I bought a ticket to the all you can section at Chase field from my favorite third party ticket site Stubhub.
I bought my tickets with a credit I received from Stubhub back during the football season for some Chiefs tickets that the seller never provided to me. The ticket was like $24 bucks with fees but I only had a few bucks of real cash in my seat.
I could see by the seating map that the Dbacks had taken the crappier club seats by the foul pole and added food to make them feel like a better deal. I have sat at many stadiums in all you can eat sections and the Dbacks section was the worse one yet to date and that includes minor league teams. The section is three sections in the club level by the foul pole. So, your are a ways away from the field and the majority of the action. The area is a nice wide area and not crowded like some all you can eat sections. There is a buffet serving area where they had two steamer trays of cheap hotdogs, popcorn, peanuts and two flavors of lays (original and bbq). There was a fridge with mini bottles of water and several pepsi soda fountains with small cups. When I say cheap hotdogs I mean those small $.98 a package dogs you gets on sale fourth of July weekend. A quick trip hotdog is a 100x better dog than the ones in this section. Upgrading the hot dog in this section to a Nathan’s dog or some kind of brat or sausage would be a good idea. Nachos which are cheap would be another good idea.
The offering is not horrible but it is the worst selection of food I have ever experienced in a section like this at any level of pro baseball. If you look at the Springfield Cardinals Red Bird Roost section at the AA park the hotdogs are better, there are nachos, salad, popcorn, some kind of sweet and a ton of toppings for your dogs, chips, and nachos. It has been awhile since I was in Springfield but I think there was even a second type of food other than hot dogs. If you look at the big birds in Saint Louis the all you can eat sections include Bud products, hot dogs, sausages, peppers, nachos, soda, chips, and in some sections even BBQ, not bbq chips but BBQ.
The Dbacks in typical Dback fashion do the very least possible to say they have something and then wonder why people don’t show up to support the home team. The lack luster offerings were not a huge concern to me since I paid only a few bucks for my ticket but the cherry on top of the cheapskate pie came when I went back up to get a drink at the bottom of the 7th inning to discover that not only was all the food gone but they had turned off the soda fountains. I can understand not severing hot food all the way to the end of the game but turing off the soda fountain that takes zero employees to run is just a cheap dick move. I say this because soda is basically free these days and the Dbacks didn’t even bother to tell you that they were cutting the drinks in the 7th before they did it. There was not a sign that said fill up before the 7th because we are cheap and are shutting this all down. There wasn’t an usher that came by and said hey you four people in this whole section if you want a refill go get it now. Nope they just let all of us walk up push our cups to the fountain and get nothing. I did this and went to another fountain and nothing. I watched a lady at another do the same and look at me like is yours broken too.
@CharlesSollars Hi Charles, it’s ballpark policy to cease all concessions at the end of the 7th inning. Our apologies for any confusion.
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks)
The fact that they charge extra for these seats and then can’t bother to tell you you only get 6 innings of 8oz soda just rubbed me the wrong way so I tweeted the team account on twitter and I received a reply that it is the teams policy that they stop all concessions at the 7th inning. So, I guess I was to go through the team policy manual before buying tickets.
When they say end of the 7th they mean as soon as the ball hits the guys glove because players were still running off the field when went for my refill.
The Dbacks say they need a new stadium but what I really think they need is someone in charge that actually knows what the hell they are doing. If you want to be cheap and cut off the drinks in the free section in the 7th then by all means its your party go for but put up a sign that lets the people sitting there know what rules you are playing by instead of letting ten people get up from their seats to discover a broken soda machine. All you are doing is pissing people off and leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths right before they leave the game.
A soda fountain takes all of two seconds to shut down, telling the people in the section takes two minutes, printing a sign for each soda machine that will hang up all year takes a minute, but nope you can’t be bothered to do that because why? You are saving a penny but missing out on thousands by pissing people off.
There are a ton of options for your entertainment dollar in Phoenix and so far you are only pushing me to spend my dollars someplace else.
In review I give this section ** out of *****
I would say if you can pick these seats up on the cheap on stubhub then by all means get them fill up four extra sodas for the kids and yourself in the 5th and hope that sucker doesn’t go extra innings. I would not recommend buying these seats at face value from the team. In my opinion there is little to no value in these seats do to the lack of options and the quality of options that they do provide for the 2/3 of a game they provide them.
You would be better off buying an outfield seat and a drink and taking the light rail down to pizza people’s pub after the game. All you can eat seats should feel like you are stealing not like you are getting held up, but what do I know I only go to a ton of baseball games all over the country and actually pay for my seats so why listen to me Dbacks