The Saddest Slice of Pizza in All of Chicago

Oh hi! I’m Jiggly. And it’s a Tuesday.

Well, it was honestly closer than I thought it would be and I’m a bit more disappointed than I probably thought I’d be, but the Fire are out of the Leagues Cup. So I guess I can go back to not caring about it. There are still some things that I did care about this week, so you’re going to hear about them now.

A Stranger In My Own Home

Going into the game, my dad and I were trying to put together a plan for how we would approach this game. Not only was this the first sellout (or near-sellout if you actually looked out at the seats) in forever, it was also going to probably be one of the biggest opposing crowds SeatGeek Stadium (or, “The Geem”) had ever seen. We were going to leave early if things went bad quickly on the pitch, we’d try to stick together for most of the game. We ended up behind Section 8 in our old spots from back in the day when I was so short that I stood on the bottom rung of the metal barriers to watch that last pre-Basti sellout. When the Fire lost to Real Salt Lake on penalties in the Eastern Conference Finals. I remember everything leading up to that game, being at that game, feeling like my favorite team, the one I’d always fight with the kids at school about, was finally making it in the city. That they were good enough to beat all of those teams my classmates always preferred: Cruz Azul, Chivas, and Club América.

We got to the lot as it opened at 4 PM and the line was already wrapping around, out onto Harlem. Luckily we’d taken the Archer route, coming in from the west side of 71st, so we didn’t have too much trouble waiting in that mess that had already been created. But the moment we got in, again it was around when the lot opened, I could see in the back by the practice fields and behind the hotel that it was already packed with América supporters and that we were about to get pointed that way. I immediately had to yell out that we were with the Fire supporters and after some difficulties, we were able to get to what was usually designated the Section 8/Sector Latino area during other games at The Geem. The way we were being parked was confusing. We were joined by the legendary Mad Javier, who was already there prepping the truck to make tacos and negotiating with the parking attendants to allow Fire supporters a place to be. To give him the space to actually distribute the tacos and allow people space to hang out and eat them. Out, in the still-empty east lot, we spotted a sign of things to come. Some dude had dragged out an entire shopping rack of jerseys, mostly América and, presumably, Messi jerseys. He was joined by at least five other people that I saw dragging around carts trying to sell. We were in it already.

As time went on, some more of our guys came along. Some of the usuals, like the Fanbulance and the Barn Burners, came along (the latter bringing along our newly acquired Trans Pride flag), and some of the press box elite even came down. Apparently, they were told to show up even earlier than the lots opening to avoid the logjam at what appeared to be the only available entrance to the lots. Conversations came and went as the crowd grew and people were able to finally get in and join the very cramped tailgate and I’d had enough to drink, so I headed off for one of the porta-potties. The thing about the layout of this parking lot that day is that they had a row of porta-potties over by the big group of América fans that I’d mentioned earlier near the hotel and then another all the way over in front of the main entrance of the stadium. Why didn't they put one near the main group of Fire supporters? Who knows. But that walk over showed me a lot about what that night would be. Only a few cars past the Fanbulance, the vibe immediately changed. It was already a sea of yellow, azul y amarillo, outside of The Geem. I walked all the way over to avoid standing line with opposing fans and there I was, still in line with opposing fans. I had at least a little conversation with some of them, wondering where all the Blanco jerseys were and trying to figure out if Pavel Pardo ever played for another Liga MX team (I was wrong, I thought he played for Pumas for a bit). But however friendly the vibe was, I knew I was no longer a part of the home crowd.

The story of the game has already been told, so I don’t really need to talk about the story of the game. It was a loss. We can blame Kacper Przybyłko all we want, but at the end of the day, that’s on everyone. It’s a team performance. You win as a team, you lose as a team. And on a beautiful Friday night, it wasn’t enough on the pitch. But it wasn’t enough off the pitch either. Much of the early going was mostly spent trying to make sure that the Harlem End was free of any América supporters trying to start something. I ended up sitting next to… We’ll just say “my uncle” at the top of the End for the first half. Behind us, we could hear security throughout the game scrambling to keep people from getting too close to the section. There was fencing on the railing in the stairs surrounding the Fire fans, a treatment normally reserved for visiting fans in European countries where violence is expected. As I went to do my usual trip to visit the press box, this time visiting our very own Tim and OnTapSportsNet’s Joe Chatz instead of Adnan (who was at Lolla to see Declan McKenna), the concourse was absolutely packed. I barely was able to squeeze my way up to the Skydeck, using some shortcuts I remembered back from when I used to sit in “Section 80” up there. But as we chatted about the game, all I could see was the mass of azul y amarillo down below. I knew that we were going to see this, but it’s just so surreal.

My dad made it to our spot in the second half, taking my seat. Throughout the game, they were randomly playing some song I didn’t recognize at different points throughout the game. As it turns out, some people have pointed out that this was done during goal kicks in hopes that it would drown out any attempt at “The Chant”, which is really just one mouth sound combined with another homophobic slur in Spanish. Maybe that’s the reason I didn’t hear it, but by the end of the game, some others definitely did. I hadn’t seen the Harlem End that full since there were two capo stands, so there were definitely some there who weren’t “regulars”. This was apparent with the multiple cups I saw being tossed around from the End and into the End. There’s also video of beer cups being tossed out at the América keeper along with whoever was holding the camera shouting the aforementioned slur. But it’s not like América fans were angels. In fact, they were a bit more visible and had a much bigger effect on the game as their pelting of Carlos Teran with beer cups in the final moments ended the game a couple of minutes before it probably should’ve. I’ve heard that there may have been some much more targeted slurs thrown at him, as well.

This game only proved my point that this entire tournament was stupid and only matters in terms of money. The Fire got their big cash-grab game and while they performed surprisingly well against a much better opponent while missing two of their best players, good performances without the result mean nothing in a single-elimination tournament. The fanbase was belittled and made to look bad by those who don’t belong in our section. Outside the stadium, a family of Fire fans were (allegedly) assaulted. It just looks bad. And while some were able to get the feeling back of a full Harlem End, I think a lot of people know that it was a mirage, one where we saw a horrible reflection of some of the worst in sports fandom. Just so that MLS could try to capitalize on the popularity of another league in their own local markets.

Now, the Fire are set to go about two weeks without playing a single game. In the middle of the season, they’re taking a whole vacation. In the middle of an amazing run, a stretch of games where they were actually building momentum, they are halted. I’ve said before that the Fire’s MLS season is usually very easily scripted. They start off with a big question mark. For a moment, they seem to get it together before quickly spiraling. They have a random big win in the middle of a much more mediocre segment going into the heart of the season. Then, around the end of July and into August, they show signs of hope. This is supposed to be the part of the season where the Fire climb back. While they usually fall back and fail again, the tournament essentially cuts out the team’s regular “Summer Bounce”. But that momentum is gone. Our advantage is gone. All because some rich dudes wanted to be richer.

The Saddest Slice of Pizza in All of Chicago

I know I just finished off the last topic with something really depressing, but I feel like I really need to talk about this. That’s because it’s stupid enough that no other respectable media outlet will talk about it, but important enough that it needs to be mentioned. I promise you, this is much more fun than it sounds.

The story begins sometime in June when the legendary Footy Scran Twitter account (I’m not using the other name) put the Chicago Fire’s concessions into the spotlight again. They had previously called out our legendary Ice Cream Nachos and while they were seemingly disgusted at the idea that ice cream could go well with cinnamon “crisps”, we knew they were wrong. This time, however, there wasn’t much to defend. It was what I think is a sausage pizza. It’s such a depressing image. My dad raised me with the words “Pizza is pizza and pizza is good”, but that can only take you so far. I’ve had my share of terrible pizza, most notably at a tailgate for an Indy Eleven game where I could’ve sworn they didn’t even have a crust, they just plopped some melted cheese on top of the cardboard thing you get a frozen pizza on top of and then somehow microwaved the whole thing (sorry for the stray, guys, you’re such great people, the pizza just sucked). The thing I’ve learned is that while there may be places where pizza sucks, it is hard to find a bad pizza in the City of Chicago and its surrounding areas. You have to go out of your way to find it. While the price has gone up a bit due to inflation, I still walk once a week to my local pizza place to get a cheap “slice” of cheese pizza (which is basically a quarter of a whole pizza) and it’s still so good. I was going to bring this up in an article that would end up falling apart, but I still felt like it was something that annoyed me.

Then, last week shortly after the column went up, Footy Scran tweeted out another Chicago Fire concessions product: A Chicago-Style Hot Dog. I will be completely honest with all of you, I’m not a fan of Chicago-style. In fact, for a long time, after I was banned from using ketchup, I ate my hot dogs with nothing on them until I finally got myself used to mustard just a few years ago. Yes, I had my first beer before I finally opened my heart to mustard. But that’s not the point. The point is that this “hot dog” appeared to be a pickle in a bun with a meat tube hiding nearby. $2 Hot Dog Night was an incredibly important fixture in the development of the culture surrounding the Fire and to see what the pricier options for a hot dog look like is horrifying. I may not like them, but I know what a Chicago-style dog should look like and that is not it.

For reasons I’ll get into in a second, many of you may not even know about what the options at Soldier Field are like. I think most of us just sorta assume it’s the traditional stadium food, beer and soda, then ice cream nachos are the specialty. But you’d be surprised at what weird stuff is there. At the Montréal game, I ended up sitting up in the club section watching those early goals alongside my friend Nick, who had discovered the weirdest thing he’d ever seen at a stadium: “Pizza Box Nachos”. We asked about it and honestly, I don’t really remember what the person said because I didn’t think I’d be eating it. Nick got it and was handed a full-size pizza box. We walked back over to where we’d be sitting to watch the game and when he opened the box we found… Just some normal fully loaded nachos. There was some mysterious meat on it, some pico de gallo. At some point, he offered me some and there was literally nothing special about them. It felt like it was a rip-off. I mean, it was an entire pizza box and there was still only enough nachos in there to the point that it would’ve fit comfortably into a normal container of nachos. Like, skip the box and just call it fully loaded nachos! And I probably should’ve been paying attention to the lady who was telling us about what meat it was because my insides were annihilated that night. Or maybe it was because I’d also ended up having pizza because we were pushed into the stadium for the tornado warning before any of us were able to eat at the tailgate. Either way, it was painful.

The biggest insult from all of this isn’t that the food sucks or that it’s really horribly advertised. It’s that it’s so damn expensive. The number one thing mentioned in each of those Footy Scran tweets was “That’s way too much for something like that!” That skinny-ass, anemic-looking slice of pizza? $12. The pickle sandwich with extra steps? $10. Just a normal pretzel is $7. I don’t have all the prices in front of me (as it is currently 1:30 in the morning as I’m writing this section), but I’m pretty sure popcorn is somewhere around $6 and that’s about the price of a beer. It’s the reason why no one ever wants to buy anything in the stadium. That’s why “stadium food pricing” is a phrase that people use. And it is such a slap in the face to fans.

You can tell a lot about how a team feels about their fans by what they have in their concessions and how they price it. If any of you have played any of the Madden games with a functioning franchise mode, you may have been like me and messed with the pricing in there to try to suck money out of a fanbase right before you move the team out of D.C. and into Milwaukee. No? Just me? Well, my point is that, outside of tickets, concessions prices are the most direct line from a sports team to its fans. When you’ve got good food and affordable prices, fans are happy with the way things are. Even if things out on the pitch aren’t going well, at least you’ve got some food in you and you’re having fun out here. But when concession options are expensive and bland, you now have some pissed-off fans who already have to watch a man kick a ball from the halfway line and score to end your team’s hopes for a midseason turnaround. With rising ticket prices, those high costs make things even worse for a normal family of casual fans who just want to have a fun night out. You’ve got a family of four that already has to pay for all four of those tickets, has to pay for parking, and now has to contend with stadium food. Maybe one of the parents is like my mom and they snuck in some snacks, but with heightened security that’s not likely. At some point, one of the kids is going to demand to get a soda, the other wants a pretzel, and Mom is gonna need a beer to deal with all of this. You get to a point where you’re paying for a whole extra ticket, possibly two if you are just a casual fan and don’t know that Javier literally just hands out tacos before the game so you’ve had to buy some pizza and chicken tenders. All of it adds up and whoever it is that’s paying for the family to go to these games is going to say “That’s it, we can’t keep going. Might as well stay home and try to watch it on TV,” (at which point they will find that they still have to pay extra for the MLS Season Pass subscription on Apple TV+).

How does someone solve this mess? Well, as much as I hate to hand it to them, Atlanta United seems to have done it. Not them specifically, but the whole organization. Back in 2018, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank decided to change stadium concession practices by implementing a “Fan First Menu Pricing” initiative. The idea is that everything in the stadium should cost about as much as it does outside of the stadium in order to encourage fans to arrive earlier and get them to buy more. Soda and water is $2, same as a pretzel. Pizza is $3 and an entire chicken tender basket with fries is just $6. And while we may only feel it in our hearts nowadays, it is $2 hot dog night in Atlanta every night. To, I guess Mr. Krabs, this seems like a very stupid thing. You make the thing cheaper, so therefore you make less money, right? Well, the thing about supply and demand that people don’t notice is that there’s a lot of times where companies arbitrarily raise prices with absolutely no regard for the “free market” and end up lowering their profits when less people spend. Especially in a stadium, where the stadium pricing is effectively a monopoly to those inside of the stadium, unbeholden to the “free market”. According to a New York Times article from the time, revenue actually went up at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They even received praise from the Association of Luxury Suite Directors, a coalition of sports business operators and stadium managers around North America and a bit of Europe, for the innovative pricing, alongside their much more efficient kitchen and transaction processes that lowered wait times for fans.

Lower prices work. That’s the point.

My next point is that the team really needs to get better pizza. I know damn well that there was a period of time where Giordano’s (my personal favorite stuffed crust place, I know I’m basic) was a Fire sponsor, but somehow we’ve only ever gotten Connie’s Pizza inside the stadium. After all of the terrible Connie’s that I’ve had at Fire games, I don’t think I could ever eat it outside of a situation where it is my only pizza option. Like, why couldn’t they get someone like Home Run Inn, who are probably the best chain/frozen brand of thin crust pizza in the Chicago area? They’re local, it’s pretty damn okay, and it wouldn’t be that hard of an ask to link up with them to supply a sports venue. They were literally named after a sports event! Hell, ask the White Sox how they got Beggars’ Pizza to supply them, a Chicago area fixture that a lot of people appreciate. And it’s not just the pizza that needs to get figured out. I said earlier about how I had to eat dinner in the stadium for the Montréal game and that wasn’t the first time. I’ve had to get food inside before and it’s just not good enough. Not just the pizza that tasted just as sad as it looked, but the chicken tenders were pretty much nothing when I had them last season. I also just want to be clear that I’d never blame the workers, it’s the resources that they are given. They are given the bad pizza and all they can do is put it in an oven and hope it’s okay. If they were given better pizza, better chicken, then they would have better pizza and better chicken. But right now, there is better pizza at my old high school’s football games. And cheaper, too! But somehow not as cheap as a pizza at a Falcons game.

Look, I have been sitting here yelling about pizza for probably way too long, but it all comes back to the same refrain that I drill into everyone about the Fire’s signings: This is Chicago. How does Chicago not have good-quality pizza? How can Chicago suck at making Chicago-style hot dogs? Why does Chicago suck at serving good chicken? Why is Chicago putting sad nachos in a pizza box and acting like it’s some new and exciting food? Chicago is a city made up of so many different cultures and cultures that are known for their amazing food. Food that is almost perfectly designed to be stadium food. Maybe hoping for the Fire to represent the city properly on the pitch is a dream that is a long way away, but why can’t we at least represent the city in our concessions with some proper Chicago food? Something needs to change.

… Oh, but keep the ice cream nachos, though. That’s the one thing you got right. And the pretzels are pretty solid, just way too expensive still.

Miscellaneous Notes

Uncle Naeher. The USWNT fell out of the World Cup, as expected by haters like me. But shoutout to Alyssa Naeher for doing everything in her power to try to prove me wrong, including a 120-minute shutout and smashing a PK in the shootout. I may be a USWNT hater, but that’s only cause I’m club over country. Love seeing Red Stars succeed.

Munchkin. I think I actually hate Messi now, which is wild. It’s just like I’m watching someone walk into what was supposed to be a roleplay heavy TTRPG with a completely broken min-maxed character and now no one is having fun except for that person.

Downshift. Kawasaki Frontale have gone from being the most dominant and feared side in Japanese soccer to a completely average club. They went from four titles in five years from 2017-2021, with just five combined losses across 2020 and 2021, to fumbling the title last season and now sitting 7th, 12 points out of the top spot. This week they lost to Gamba Osaka, a team that was holding up the entire table for half the season.

Folding Chairs. If you wanna hit someone with a folding chair, don’t be tempted to use the wide blunt end. That spreads the energy. Instead, go for the smaller surface area around the edges, which focuses all the force into the point of impact. Much more effective.

The Demon of Soup. I’ve come around on the new HoloLive En generation. Mostly cause I found out Nerissa Ravenwood is from the Midwest, which is some much-needed representation in the space.

I love you.

And I’ll see you next week.