April 06--For Chris Salm, CEO of Gilbert's Craft Sausages, selling sausages in the main concourse of Wrigley Field for the first time this season will be both serious business and deeply personal.
Salm and his business partner, Eric Romberg, hope many thousands of Chicago Cubs fans enjoy their wares -- like the Caprese Chicken Sausage or the Aloha Chicken Sausage -- enough to seek them out in the grocery stores. It's a short-term play with long-range hopes of introducing more people to the 6-year-old Gilbert's brand, boosting sales and eventually expanding into more metropolitan markets.
It's also just really cool, say the two longtime Cubs fans.
"It's been a dream of ours since day one," said Salm, 35, of Glen Ellyn. "We never pursued it because it seemed so unrealistic."
As baseball returns to Chicago's North and South side ballparks, hope is in full bloom -- and not just for the Cubs and White Sox. Food companies selling their products for the first time within Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field are doing so with hopes of growing their business. It's not so much about the sales within the ballpark as it is reaching tens of thousands of new customers every home game.
Vendors like Gilbert's partner with the companies running the concessions operations within the respective parks. Chicago-based Levy Restaurant Group handles food concessions at Wrigley. Both Levy and Delaware Sportservice Management work with many of the local food businesses at U.S. Cellular Field.
Now in its 35th year of operation, Berwyn-based Buona Beef's Italian beef and meatball sandwiches will be sold at both ballparks for the first time this season.
Various promotions will accompany Buona Beef in both ballparks. At Wrigley, there will be a special Anthony Rizzo-themed Italian beef sandwich served at select games, said principal Joe Buonavolanto Jr. And when the Cubs score in the bottom of the sixth inning of home games, fans at the game can take their ticket stubs in to any of the 17 locations in the Chicago area for a free sandwich.
At the Cell, there will actually be Italian beef races -- a three-way competition between Juicy, Sweet Hot, and Cheesy -- that will be enacted by costumed competitors during Saturday home games. The race will be held electronically on the score board during other home games. Fans will be given coupons upon admission; if their Italian beef wins, they get a free sandwich.
Buona Beef, which makes about $80 million in annual sales, has plans to add about four or five restaurants per year in the coming years, Buonavolanto said. The ballpark presence will help it get there.
"It's to expand our brand in the Chicago area and to visitors to Chicago who are at the games," said Buonavolanto, 53.
So far, the ballpark presence has worked out well for Beggars Pizza, which is entering its third season at the Cell and recently concluded its first season at Soldier Field. The pizza chain's sales were about $45 million last year, an increase of about 15 percent from two years ago when it inked the deal with the Sox, said Larry Garetto, CEO of the Blue Island-based company.
New this year, Beggars will have a full-on pizza pub near Section 163 in left center field, Garetto said. Beggars pizza -- the only pizza served in U.S. Cellular -- is served at about eight or nine concession stands, and the pub will provide more of a sit-down atmosphere where people can meet, he said.
As with Gilbert's and Buona Beef, the goal is to raise the brand's visibility, said Garetto, 61. When the team on the field plays better, there are more people in attendance to eat pizza, he said.
"I'm sure when the White Sox have a better team, sales go up. We're 2-0 so far," he said, laughing, referring to the team's early win-loss record. "That's what we're all hoping for, right?"
