Philly Plain Dealer

The economy is in shambles, tariffs have been imposed, and the Phillies are very good; which means tickets are expensive. It’s understood that concessions at professional sports games, everywhere except Atlanta, will be marked up and much more expensive than anywhere else. So, here’s a friendly reminder that you can bring your own food into Citizens Bank Park for Phillies home games.

Here’s how you do it, pack your food into a 1 gallon see-through Ziploc bag or one of the larger see-through plastic bags that they’ve been pushing on us for years. Step two, show up to the ballpark and show the bag when entering the ballpark. Step three, eat for free at the Phillies game. 

You can bring Wawa sandwiches, bags of chips, chocolate, and snacks of all types, plus you can bring unopened non-alcoholic beverages. This way your $17 sandwich at the park becomes a $5 sandwich you made for yourself at home. The $10 you were going to spend on a soft drink can now stay in your pocket, if you pack a bottle of water or a soda. 

I went to the second and third games of the Phillies opening home series against the Rockies. Game two, I was in the 300 level surrounded by Ziploc bags and Wawa hoagies. I brought in four water bottles and four bags of chips in two Ziplocs for my nephews, my brother, and I. The third game – myself and some friends brought six bags of chips in a Ziploc bag and were the only people in the 100 level who brought in food. 

My reasoning for bringing my own food to the game was two-fold, obviously economically it’s a much better choice than buying a $20 bucket of crab fries and $17 beer. However, my second reason is the pitch-clock. Phillies games move much faster in 2025 than they did in 2015. Getting out of your seat to wait in line to purchase an expensive snack could cause me to miss a Bryce Harper at-bat or an entire inning and a half of baseball. 

Bringing your own food into the game could save you a nice chunk of change. Are you mad that the Phillies took away dollar dog day? Bring in your own hot dogs. One gallon Ziploc bags could be your savings hack for the Summer if you attend enough Phillies baseball games.

The fact that you’re allowed to bring food into Citizens Bank Park is not well advertised, likely because the Phillies want you to buy their concessions. Google’s AI linked to Reddit threads that most people wouldn’t trust and the Phillies website is opaque on the matter, so we wanted to make sure you know that you can bring your own food to the game.

If you get turned away while bringing food to Citizens Bank Park, please fill out this contact form and we will make a huge deal about it.