Peanuts and Cracker Jacks were the pinnacle of ballpark cuisine when "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was written in 1908.
But for today's Giants fans, Oracle Park is "as much a foodie destination as a baseball destination," said Giants CEO Larry Baer.
Baer spoke at the Giants' media open house, an annual pre-season tradition whose main feature is the invitation for reporters and photographers to marvel at — and taste — many of the ballpark's new and classic food offerings. Journalists rarely pass up an opportunity to eat free food, but this year's sampling was extra newsworthy: the Giants have a new concession partner, with a deal signed just one month before the start of the season.
"Don't worry," Baer told the gathering of hungry media. "We've got everything coming back. Crab sandwiches. Orlando's Cha Cha Bowl — still here. Garlic fries — not going anywhere."
The classic Giants dishes will be prepared and served by many of the same cooks and concession clerks, now working for a new employer. Aramark, which already handles concessions at the Oakland Coliseum, is taking over food and beverage service at Oracle Park, under the new brand name Diamond 58 — named for 1958, the first season the Giants played in San Francisco after their move from New York.
The new concession partnership will come with more grab-and-go food options — a welcome convenience for some fans, now that the pitch clock has made baseball games 24 minutes shorter on average. It also includes new restaurant-branded foods like Fuku spicy fried chicken — available in sandwich form, or as a basket of chicken tenders served with Chick-fil-A-style waffle fries.
And we can't mention waffles without talking about the new "waffle mitt sundae" — an ice cream dessert served in a miniature Giants batting helmet on a bed of orange and black sprinkles. It's topped with a tiny baseball glove made of Oreo-laden waffle batter, cooked on a bespoke glove-shaped waffle iron. Reporters were really lining up for that one.
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Also on display at the media open house were Giants staples like the garlic fries (still great), Tony's Slice House pepperoni pizza (grab some extra napkins), and the Baby Bull tri-tip steak sandwich (careful, the horseradish will sneak up on you).
But in this year's sampling lineup, one food was conspicuously absent: traditional hot dogs. Instead, Diamond 58 offered up its plant-based sausage, a modern vegan take on the ballpark classic, adorned with pickled veggies and the perfect amount of mustard. Of course, plant-based sausages are nothing new: by some accounts, they date back to 1916 — not long after their meat-based counterparts were first sold at New York Giants baseball games in the spring of 1905 (at least according to one popular legend).
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Of course, the 1905 baseball season was significant for another reason: it was the year the Giants won the World Series for the very first time. Their opponents? The Philadelphia Athletics — the team we now know as the Oakland A's. The Giants beat them 4 games to 1. While there's no proof the introduction of hot dogs at the ballpark that year had anything to do with the Giants' decisive victory — there's also no proof it didn't. Let's just say eating well at the game has always been a Giants thing.
