Salt Hank’s at this year’s U.S. Open.
In 2009, at a brand-new ballpark in Queens, stadium concessions quietly went from an afterthought to a strategy. Danny Meyer, a Mets season-ticket holder, brought Shake Shack, Blue Smoke, and a handful of his other Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants into Citi Field the year it opened, and the ballpark got treated as a genuine culinary event. That template—bring in real restaurateurs and chefs, build an actual food program—spread from there: David Chang’s Fuku, Christina Tosi’s Milk Bar, celebrity-chef partnerships at nearly every major arena in the country.
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