Review by Wes Holtzclaw, Stadium Journey Correspondent
The home of the Atlanta Braves, Turner Field, is located in Atlanta, GA at 755 Hank Aaron Dr. SW., right beside the Olympic Park of 1996 Olympic Games. Turner Field was built in 1996 and officially opened in 1997.
FANFARE Score: 32
Food & Beverage: 5
Once inside the stadium you notice several restaurants: Smokehouse BBQ, Johnny Bravo Diner, A Taste of the Majors and The Braves Chop House, which has three levels and for the top two you must be 21 to enter. There are also several places to get your classic food and beverage items throughout the stadium. There aren’t many places like Turner Field where you can get a grilled chicken quesadilla, shrimp basket, and a BBQ plate that includes ribs and turkey legs.
Atmosphere: 5
The Braves organization is the longest continuously running franchise in baseball history and you can feel the history when you walk into the stadium. Statues of Braves greats Warren Spahn, Phil Niekro and “Hammerin” Hank Aaron join a statue of Georgia native Ty Cobb throughout the main entrance.
Neighborhood: 3
There is not much around the stadium as far as food goes, but I did find a couple of great places to eat about a mile and half away. There is an Italian eatery called Grant Central Pizza located at 451 Cherokee Ave SE. They serve the best pizza and calzones in the state of Georgia. They use only fresh ingredients in everything they make and their homemade marinara sauce is especially good. They have a full bar and serve mainly specialty beers including Blue Moon, Samuel Adams, Fat Tire and other Lagers. Prices on the food: $1.50 a slice for pizza, $10-$16 for a whole pizza and $6 for a calzone. Beer prices: $4 on most and $7 on Fat Tire.
Grant Central Pizza
Right across the street from Grant Central Pizza is Dakota Blue located at 454 Cherokee Avenue. Dakota Blue is a Mexican/American style restaurant. They serve all kinds of burritos, quesadillas and nachos, as well as burgers and all kinds of sandwiches. Many feel their Cuban sandwich is the best. Prices on the food: $4.50-$6.25 per burrito, $5.50-$6.50 per quesadilla, sandwiches $5.50-$7.50 and burgers are $6-$7. They serve a variety of beer and mixed drinks including margaritas and bloody marys. Beer and mixed drink prices: beers are $4 and mixed drinks are $4-$6.50.
Dakota Blue
Fans: 5
Braves’ fans are awesome. They were very knowledgeable about the game of baseball.
Access: 5
Parking costs range from $5 to $12 with the $12 parking getting you right across the street from the stadium. Parking seemed very reasonable, especially up close to the stadium. The main parking lot is where old Fulton Co. Stadium use to stand with a marker that shows exactly where Hank Aaron’s homerun No. 715 landed.
Return on Investment: 4
I would not go much higher on the prices of the tickets or food.
Extra Points: 5
If the kids need a break there is the Cartoon Network play zone and there are TVs scattered throughout the stadium.
Final Thoughts:
Turner Field ranks high on the list of places to take your family to watch a ballgame. Even though Turner Field has an old-time feel when you walk up, once you enter the stadium you can tell it is a state of the art facility. I have sat in just about all the sections of the stadium and there is not a bad seat in the house. I did not run into that dreaded “drunk” that felt like he knew everything in any part of the stadium. I feel that is very important when going to a game with young children. This is a great place to enjoy the classic baseball experience. Take the guys or take your family; either way you’ll have a fantastic time.
Inside Turner Field
If you think Braves fans are knowledgeable about the game of baseball…you sir, must not be.
As a Native Met fan living in Atlanta, I go to Turner 6-10 times a summer.
I would give their fans a 2/5. After buying the $$ tickets behind the Mets dugout, I consistently find myself seated by people on blind dates asking getting to know you quesions, families that are more concerned about cotton candy than baseball and fans with very little baseball intelligence.
I will say that the environment as a Mets fan is not as hostile as you would think on enemy territory, but it’s also sad to see fans leave a 1-run game in the 8th to “beat traffic”.
If you’re a passionate baseball snob, these fans will make you crawl in your skin.
I actually really like everything else about the park. The inexpensive tickets are a double edge sword, because it allows people into the “high priced” seats who don’t need to be in those seats. In other words, I cannot pay any amount of money to get away from the “casual fan”.
Spending more money to get away from casual fans seems like the complete opposite of common sense. Everyone knows that true fans don’t mind sitting in the cheap seats, while Casual fans usually won’t go to the games very often unless they have nice seats.
I’ve been there a few times and it’s a reasonable place to see a ballgame. Great views; the seats are comfortable; the fans are subdued.
I lived in NYC for 15 years used to go to Shea about ten times a season. In the left field seats, in the loge level, it was pretty routine to sit where there would be a grown man constantly screaming “Maddux is a faggot!” or something along those lines. At Turner, you can take your eight year old to a ballgame and not have to deal with that kind of creepy bullshit masquerading as “passion”.
The author’s bias toward his favorite team and ballpark shines through in this review.
As a fan of a visiting team, Turner Field was a nice place to take in a ball game, but there was absolutely nothing special about it, especially when compared to other modern ballparks such as Camden Yards or Coors Field. It was rather bland, dull and uninteresting. You get the feeling that they could have done so much more with the place.
I second the comments above in regard to the general apathy of Braves fans – during my visit, the fans of the visiting team were just as loud if not louder than the Braves fans. They were not “awesome” by any stretch of the imagination. And there isn’t much history in the park, despite the author’s mention of “the longest continuously running franchise in baseball history” (and much of that history was spent in other cities, so how is that relevant to this ballpark?). A few statues don’t make a great atmosphere. The food was good from my experience, though a few vendors near my section ran out of water on a hot summer day. And 5 extra points for a Cartoon Network play zone? Please, come on.
It’s a nice place, but it is certainly nowhere near the top major league ballpark.
I would like the 5 minutes back of my life I wasted to read this.
I live in Atlanta. The stadium/experience described in this article is pure fiction.
While I have only been to 11 different MLB parks the experience at a Braves game ranks near the bottom in every categoty compared to other parks.
What is the purpose of this site if they are going to let homers put on rose colored glasses and write a “review” of the ball park where they live?
I guess most of the people that have left comments so far do not have families that they take to the ballpark. I went to old Fulton Co. stadium when it was around and Turner Field is an excellent improvement. I used this review to see if it would be helpful, which I believe that is what this site is all about, and I have to say it was spot on.
I sat in seats in the outfield and they felt like I was right on the field. The Braves fans that were around me were very passionate and knowledgeable about the game as I got into several discussions with a few around me that were season ticket holders. I am sure there are fans that go to the game just to go, but I know the author was not able to talk to each and every fan that was there.
The cool thing to me was that I was able to send my teenage girl with our youngest child to the Cartoon Network play area and it allowed us to enjoy the rest of the game instead of dealing with restless children after the 6th inning.
I applaud this site for its reviews because this is exactly what I was look for as a baseball experience in an opponents stadium. The pizza place he talks about was to die for, thanks again.