The longest food lines at Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park

Two things blossom in the spring: flowers, and food lines at the ballpark.

No matter how dismal the early season standings, weekend Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park have been selling out with regularity after the team's World Series berth last year.

That means a potential 40,000 people, and 40,000 hungry mouths. And this year, there's less time to feed them. A new and relentless pitch clock now drives each inning to rapid completion, with games nearly a half-hour shorter.

The result? Lines. Lines and more lines.

We know, because we stopped by the stadium during a sold-out game on Saturday, May 5, to monitor how long everyone waited for food — a game that was extra-rushed because many fans got snagged in traffic from the nearby 76ers playoff game, according to Kevin Tedesco, general manager of ballpark food vendor Aramark.

Some of those lines meant nearly two-inning waits for a cheesesteak or a burger. Some moved much faster than you’d think.

We tallied both, to tell you which food you can get without missing much of the game. We also asked the best and worst times to sprint out for a hot dog.

Turns out, from the moment you scan your ticket at Citizens Bank, Aramark knows you’re there. They know you’ll probably be glued to your seat when Bryce Harper bats at the bottom of the first. And that you’ll get up for a cheesesteak when he's done.

They’ve calculated how fast you get your Crabfries from Chickie's and Pete's, and how many pies an hour they need to bake at Manco and Manco.

Taste test:We tried the new food at the Phillies ballpark, including a Charlie Manuel cheesesteak

They tally how many people will want a cheesesteak from Tony Luke's, how many from Campo's and how many from the new Uncle Charlie's. And then they buy the bread for each. Different bread, from different bakeries.

When the gates open, it's showtime: It's as if they’d invited the entire population of Dover or Atlantic City over for dinner. And sometimes, you all want the same thing.

We polled every food line at Citizens Bank Park to ask Phillies fans (and one Red Sox fan) the same questions. How long did it take you to get your food? And… was it worth it?

Here's the skinny on ballpark food lines in 2023 at Citizens Bank Park.

The best time is always before the game, said Aramark's Tedesco. That's also when you might find Phillies legend Charlie Manuel talking to fans at namesake Uncle Charlie's Steaks, and 1980s home-run king Greg Luzinski serving his own barbecue at Bull's BBQ.

"It's amazing how quiet it can be sometimes before the first pitch," Tedesco said.

This quiet period can last through the first inning. Really, it depends on Bryce Harper.

"At the bottom of the first, when the Phils bat for the first time — and Bryce Harper is usually the third batter of the game — the concourse is empty," Tedesco said.

But when Harper leaves the field, watch out: The stands empty, and the food lines fill. But as for the absolute worst times to pick up food?

"The biggest hits are usually at the end of the third inning, and then end of the fifth," Tedesco said.

Unsurprisingly, the most famous food names have some of the longest lines. So does the busy corridor at Ashburn Alley behind center field. And Chickie's and Pete's will always look like it's the longest line.

But the longest lines don't necessarily mean the longest waits for food. It's…. complicated.

Food that's customized to order, the way it is at Uncle Charlie's Steaks, will take longer per customer. The same is true for spots with larger menus that can't just queue up the food and place it in a box.

So who's got the actual longest wait for food? On our visit, the worst lines were at 1883 Burger Co and Uncle Charlie's Cheesesteaks. Each boasted 40-minute lines at peak times, about two innings apiece.

1883 and Charlie's are right off Ashburn Alley, Tedesco said, and they’re both new. So lots of people try them. This means lines.

"It's like the two new roller coasters at Six Flags," he said.

Length of food line: 40-45 minutes at peak

Uncle Charlie's is named after a Phillies icon, former team manager Charlie Manuel. In March, we called the cheesesteak it serves one of the better renditions one could expect in a ballpark: Liscio's roll, medium-chop ribeye, Cooper sharp cheese.

By the seventh inning, however, you could pretty much just walk up and order. But during early innings, the line was relentless. At the bottom of the fourth inning, we caught Bob Logullo of Newark, Delaware — sporting a Phillies cap and a Harley Davidson jacket — at the end of a two-inning wait during which they missed every single run the Phillies scored.

Was it worth it? The youngest member of Logullo's party took a big, goopy, Cooper sharp-slathered bite.

"Yup," he said.

Length of food line: 40 minutes at peak on main concourse, 20-30 minutes at second-floor location, section 207

If you want yourself a big ol’ shortrib-ribeye burger, prepare to wait for it. Though lines at 1883 didn't look as long as at some more established spots, customers reported waits as long as 40 minutes on the main concourse during the second inning.

A couple innings later, we caught a rushed-looking woman who looked down at her watch while decamping with chicken tenders. "I got in line at 7:56," she announced, with admirable precision, "and it's now 8:30."

Length of food lines: 30 minutes at peak

Jersey and Pennsylvania chain PJ Whelihan's, tucked into the stacked crowds of Ashburn Alley, has a wealth of options: chicken, wraps, cheesesteak egg rolls, nachos.

Rebecca Filipos of Allentown said she picked it as her source for chicken fingers because the lines looked shorter than the other Ashburn Alley spots. Nope! During the early-inning rush, the line was "nearly two innings" she said.

Length of food lines: Around 30 minutes at the end of the first inning

Shake Shack's better-burger fast food has inspired slavish devotion since the chain's beginnings as a Manhattan hot dog stand. But y’all are way too devoted if you’re waiting 30 minutes for it.

If you’re a Shake Shack fan, download the MLB Ballpark app and order your burgers in advance using your phone.

Length of food lines: At peak, 25 minutes for Tony Luke's, 30 minutes for Campo's

Tony Luke's and Campo's are the twin towers of classic cheesesteaks in Citizen's Bank Park, placed tantalizingly close to each other. Both do about the same amount of business, Tedesco said, and both also had a similar length of line during the third inning.

A cheesesteak at either will cost you an inning and some change. Outside Campo's, a young man in a Bryce Harper jersey who identified himself as Will Hershey from Hershey, Pennsylvania (no relation, he swears) waited 30 minutes for his cheesesteak and fries. Was it worth it?

He paused, and bit into a french fry.

"Not for the fries," he said.

Length of food line: 4-30 minutes in Ashburn Alley, 20 minutes at both upstairs locations

The yearning for seasoned Crabfries from Chickie's and Pete's is apparently a force of nature, like the moon's gravity on the tides. The line in early innings is epic, snaking across the main concourse all the way to the Uncle Charlie's cheesesteak stand.

But you know what? It might be the fastest line in the ballpark.

Bushy-bearded Jonathan McDavid — clad in a Red Sox jersey and deeply suspicious of reporters in Philadelphia asking questions — drove in from Boston and had never heard of Crabfries. But he saw the line and figured they must be good. He’d waited 20 minutes, he said, from the far end of the concourse to the end of the stanchions, with dozens still in front of him. Less than 10 minutes later, he was loaded, paid and out.

The line for Crabfries shuffled at the speed of slow zombies in Dawn of the Dead, or passengers boarding a plane. The Chickie's operation is a hot-lamped self-serve assembly line that Henry Ford might envy, an eternal conveyor belt of fry baskets and chicken.

Self-serve has its hazards, of course. By the seventh inning, customers have spilled so many french fries it looks like an Idaho crime scene: The floor is tiled with mashed-potato shoeprints.

But by then we could leave with Crabfries within 4 minutes despite tens of customers in front of us.The upstairs Chickie's stalls are not arranged the same way, and not as fast. Much shorter lines can still lead to 20-minute waits.

Food lines: 10-15 minutes, tops

Manco & Manco is a Jersey Shore mainstay, and now the same thing at Phillies home games. The line looked daunting every time we checked. But every time we wandered by, customers also told us they’d waited only about 10 minutes.

The key, said Tedesco, is constant throughput.

Four circular rotoflex ovens, the same ones they use in Ocean City. Dough balls sent in from Manco. And 12-inch pizzas optimized for the size of the human lap, small enough to let cooks place two pies side by side in the oven.

Before you even order, your pie is cooking. By the time you pay, it's probably waiting. Sean Young, from Hershey, said he's been getting this pizza "since they were called Max and Manco's." He got his pies within 15 minutes of posting up.

"It woulda been 10," he said. "But we waited for the pepperoni."

Ice cream. Aside from the packed ice cream corner near the many children firing balls at each other in The Yard, mobile ice cream stalls tended to be mostly untenanted.

The many hot dog and pretzel or popcorn stands also sported lines well below the 10-minute mark, with a couple of exceptions. The mobile hot dog stand by the third base gate on the main concourse had 15-minute waits in the second inning. So did the hot dogs at the big, red Coca-Cola Corner in the Left Field Plaza.

The grab-and-go chicken at Colbie's Southern-Kissed Chicken (section 120) were about 10 minutes. So were the chicken and doughnuts at Federal Donuts (Section 140) on our visit, even during early innings.

This was also mostly true of Aramark stalls without a recognizable brand name: Franklin Square Pizza Exchange? At your service.

Bull's BBQ, with two parallel lines in the Left Field Plaza, moved like a steamroller, with less than 10 minutes to hot-plate ribs.

Less stoked about pork? Greens & Grains, a Jersey-based outfit serving up pretty decent vegan take on chicken parm behind section 125 on the main concourse, was a perma-short line.

During some innings, the bathroom lines get so long they should hand out Springsteen tickets at the end.

But not all of them. Take the stairs on either side of Ashburn Alley to the otherwise unoccupied rooftop level. There, looking abandoned, nearly lonely, stands a majestic sign: the universal symbol for relief.

Matthew Korfhage is a Philadelphia-based reporter for USA Today Network. Got a story idea? Email him at [email protected].