Turner Field's "Burgerizza" Hits New Low For Ballpark Food Concoctions

We thought (hoped) the ballpark food craze jumped the shark with the ice cream sandwich burger last season. We were, sadly, wrong.

Turner Field is serving a “Burgerizza.” It’s, get this, a bacon cheeseburger using pizza as the crust.  They should probably promote it with a photo of the Washington Post’s version made with Digiornos over the actual one.

Zany food combinations can work well. Two seemingly disparate things get paired together. What shouldn’t work does, very well. Peanut butter, for instance, goes very well with hamburgers. Even better if you throw in something spicy.

The “Burgerizza” is in no way zany or original. This is combining two incredibly similar foods. Pizza is bread, cheese, and salty meat. Maybe you throw in some vegetables and a tomato-based sauce. A cheeseburger is bread, cheese, and salty meat. Maybe you throw in some vegetables and a tomato-based sauce.

Believe it or not, the two foods’ similarity has been noticed before. Burger King created a pizza burger. Betty Crocker has a recipe for a pizza burger. The aforementioned Digiorno has a cheeseburger pizza. Dominos has a cheeseburger pizza as well, which at least innovated by adding mayonnaise and barbecue sauce (yuck)?

The Burgerizza’s only innovation appears to be putting the pizza as the crust, cheese side up. That’s self-evidently dumb. It necessitates both a fork and knife to eat, negating any semblance of value as both a sandwich and a ballpark food. Kansas City’s rally nachos are at least convenient.

This was a cynical attempt to go viral by the Braves and their food purveyors and an uncreative one.

Atlanta residents should by all means get their glutton on. Consume excessive calories. Inflict unnecessary bowel torment on themselves. Do so with food that is actually worth it. Don’t pay $26 at a ballpark for three underwhelmed bites and a lame Instagram.

Or, if you are hell bent on doing that, at least go for the ambitious and more cost effective options like the “Punisher” ($18) with chicken-fried rib meat and onion rings, the tater-tot waffles ($16), or the sausage sundae ($9).

The “Burgerizza” is a fitting sendoff to the City of Atlanta by the Braves, leaving next season because their essentially free baseball stadium, which opened in 1997, is no longer fancy enough.