Charlie Manuel steps up to the plate for the 2023 Phillies season with cheesesteaks

Ten seasons after he last managed the Phillies, Charlie Manuel will get his name in lights again at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies and Aramark on Monday unveiled the food lineup for the 2023 home season, which begins Thursday. The headliner is Uncle Charlie’s Steaks, selling made-to-order cheesesteaks with Herr’s kettle chips on the side.

Greens & Grains, a Jersey Shore-based plant-based eatery, will open a stand devoted to an entirely vegan menu behind home plate and next to Shake Shack.

The ballpark fare also will include twice-fried chicken tenders from Federal Donuts and three more locations of Manco & Manco’s Pizza, which was a runaway hit in Ashburn Alley in its debut last season.

Every winter, Aramark executives recap the Phillies’ season. “We’re always thinking, ‘What next?’” said Kevin Tedesco, Aramark’s general manager at the ballpark. Looking back at the Phillies’ World Series run, he said, fans went wild when Manuel showed up at the ballpark.

Thinking of Bull’s BBQ, the popular stand bearing the name of retired slugger Greg “The Bull” Luzinski, Aramark enlisted Manuel, who was on board immediately, Tedesco said. (Last year, Aramark brought in a stand from Colbie’s Chicken, owned in part by retired Phillies player Ryan Howard.)

Though Aramark and various vendors have sold cheesesteaks before, stadium executive chef Vonnie Negron said the Uncle Charlie’s sandwich was rebuilt entirely. He and his team settled on diced onions and are offering a Cooper Sharp sauce or Cheez Whiz on a seeded roll from Liscio’s Bakery, also a first.

Manuel, 79, now a senior adviser to the team and occasional hitting coach, is expected to make appearances at Uncle Charlie’s, which will be at Section 109.

Nicole Jacoby and Lambros Psounos have seven locations of Greens & Grains, which they founded in 2014 out of Psounos’ family’s Greek restaurant as a company that sold cleanses and juice to Jersey Shore coffee shops and yoga studios. At its brick-and-mortar debut in Ventnor in 2015, the menu expanded to include bowls and sandwiches.

Before the pandemic, the couple had a Greens & Grains stand in the concourse of the Comcast Center as well as a takeout shop on Sansom Street near Rittenhouse Square. Greens & Grains’ stand, located at Section 125, will offer its vegan gyros; “chicken Parm” pesto panini, made with house-made marinara and cashew pesto; and a ballpark-style vegan hot dog.

Pass & Stow, the stadium’s sports bar, has added what it’s calling Mexican street popcorn, tossed with tajin spice, lime, and cotija cheese and served in a souvenir helmet, as well as South Philly disco fries, which are topped with roast pork, melted sharp Provolone, broccoli rabe, and roasted red peppers.

P.J. Whelihan’s in Ashburn Alley has added cheesesteak egg rolls, served with sriracha ketchup.

The Phillies also have rebranded grill stands at Sections 109 and 207 as 1883 Burger Co., honoring the year of the team’s founding. The menu there will include burgers, chicken tenders, jumbo Phillies franks, and boardwalk fries.

Aramark also will offer limited-time items at the stadiums it serves in a program called Seasons Inning Stretch. The first offering at Citizens Bank Park will be a jerk chicken sandwich on a brioche roll with pickle slaw and fried plantains at Section 143.

An area near the foul pole in left field, formerly Boardwalk Eats, will be branded as Coca-Cola Corner and will showcase seven local restaurants that will feature a menu item paired with a Coke beverage. Five percent of all purchases of these items will benefit Philabundance, which helps fight food insecurity. The names of the restaurants have not yet been disclosed.