All-You-Can-Eat!

[mets2k]

losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com

You were always able to go to the Hometown Buffet in Burbank on a midsummer night and have a Dodgers game pop up on the dining room monitors.

So why not go to a Dodgers game and fall into an all-you-can-eat buffet? Makes perfect sense, and, starting this season, fans in select seats at Dodger Stadium will be able to go one-price chomping.

The club recently announced the unimaginatively-named All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion -- formerly known as the Right Field Pavilion -- where tickets will come with an endless supply of staple ballpark fare.

Non-stop hot dogs -- and, folks, here we're talking Dodger Dogs! -- peanuts, popcorn, nachos, soda ... and leave your wallet home.

For a flat fee -- $35 in advance, $40 at the door -- families of fans will be able to dig in, at both regular concession stands and through buffet-style help-yourself lines.

As Marty Greenspun, the Dodgers' chief operating officer and executive vice president explained the offered convenience, "Instead of paying cash, fans ask for whatever they want, and they get it."

Greenspun was quick to add that chants of "We want a hit!" are excluded from the guarantee.

Food service will begin 90 minutes before gametime, and end two hours after the opening pitch. Which is too bad: "Dine for Nine" would have been a cool slogan for this program.

This seems to be a terrific deal. For an in-advance $27 surcharge, when compared to the a la carte Left Field Pavilion seats, fans will be able to fill up on a variety of entrees that range in price from $3 to $5.25.

While applauding those five-tools players, you will be enjoying a five-course meal (do popcorn and peanuts qualify as separate courses?). Lines will move fast, without the need to mess with currency.

The All-You-Can-Eat Pavilion will have other features, such as separate stands to hawk the menu items excluded from the prix-fixe menu -- for instance, ice cream and candy.

However, there won't be seats that expand as the game, and your belt, unwinds. Not that the club considers the promotion to be dietetically incorrect.

"We're offering a fan amenity," Greenspun said of the largest-scale implementation of a program that has been tested, to enthusiastic response, elsewhere around the Majors. "Fans can elect to choose it or not choose it. We are offering basic ballpark fare that most fans enjoy."

OK. But, in the spirit of it all, we still think anyone named Jenny Craig should be let in for free.