These two guys did a fantastic job.
The two beer boys at Citi Field say there’s no secret to why they’ve become legendary after nearly 100 years at the Mets’ stadium. Like Dwight Gooden’s Uncle Charlie, it’s all about how you sell it.
“When you do 10,000 events, you don’t have to practice,” said Raymond Aceta, who, along with co-worker Bobby Lee, has been selling beer and food to Mets fans since the mid-1970s — two decades before current star first baseman Pete Alonso was born.
“Get your hot dogs here! Coney Island chicken! Ice-cold beer! Anyone hungry?” is Acheta’s standard selling point.
Instead, Lee delivers his classic line: “Hey, let’s have a cold beer! Let’s have an ice cold beer!” as he drags a heavy cooler through the concourse-level seats to the right of home plate.
“I’m a VTI (Vendor Training Institute) graduate,” jokes Lee, adding that a concession stand salesman’s success ultimately comes down to his voice. The Flushing native has a New Yorker-esque roar.
Their track record is incredible: Acheta and Lee are third-generation stadium vendors, each having started in the business at age 15, and their calls are as familiar to Mets die-hards as the roar of the No. 7 train and the never-ending chant of “Let’s go Mets.”
The Washington Post spoke with vendors before Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and got a glimpse into the combined 99-year history of Citi Field and its predecessor, Shea Stadium, filled with ups, downs and hardships.
Aseta and his concession stand colleagues met for pregame pep rallies, just like the Amazings fans did, to discuss how many fans were in the stands that night, where to focus merchandising and how they could improve on the numbers from the previous homestand.
Also like the Mets, vendors working for the food company Aramark follow a strict ranking system in which the most senior vendors can sell whatever they want: beer, candy or hot dogs.
Acheta, entrenched as a No. 9, always opts for all three. For every game, he lugs his heavy wheeled cart up to section 405 of the stadium’s sixth-floor pavilion, where the crowd is quiet but always hungry.
And Acheta, an Old Mill Basin native who sold beer at baseball games before he was even allowed to drink, has earned his upper-class serenity. He’s worked through the ’70s depression, a World Series championship, stadium changes, a global pandemic and plenty of rowdy crowds.
“There are some good stories,” Acheta said, which is an understatement to say the least.
“I was selling beer at Shea’s one time and I had a beer bucket over my head. A foul ball came flying and I was actually able to catch the foul ball in the bucket. That doesn’t happen very often! I went back down and said, ‘Oh man, look at that!’ And the next thing I knew, I saw a fan’s hand grab the ball and throw it outside.”
It’s in the blood
Acheta began his five-decade career as a 15-year-old when legendary pitcher Tom Seaver played his penultimate season with the Mets before leaving the team for nine years, but his interest in the sport began much younger.
Working at the concession stand is something of a family affair for the Achetas. “Our story began in 1921,” said Acheta, whose grandfather started as a groundskeeper at the Polo Grounds, then home to the New York Giants, and whose father worked at the concession stand until the Manhattan stadium closed in 1963. His grandfather retired, but his father soon moved to Shea Stadium.
“My dad would take me down to the stadium to teach me a few tricks,” Acheta recalls.
A side hustle to help pay for his education at New York University’s School of Dentistry had a major impact on his life. At a young age, Acheta realized that becoming a doctor wasn’t the path for him, but a fellow vendor helped him discover his true passion: being a special education teacher.
He worked 12 months out of the year at a school for the developmentally disabled in Brooklyn. – He still attends dozens of home games to sell “Coney Island Chicken.” – It’s a holdover from the New York Dodgers era, he says, when vendors would use quirky phrases to draw curious crowds to sell Nathan’s hot dogs.
That connection may be hard for some to understand. Bobby Lee said he doesn’t understand it, even though he worked as a concession stand for 50 years, much of it spent with his friend Acheta.
Like Acheta, Lee is a third-generation salesman whose grandfather worked for the Yankees and whose father worked at the Polo Grounds. He vividly remembers his first day working at Shea Stadium in 1974, at age 15, at a Jets football game, selling Sundew orange drinks for $0.35.
He has been doing this job for 50 years and has two other jobs. – First as a mail carrier, then as a New York City firefighter. – And somehow we made the journey to Kansas City, Missouri, with a commitment that would put even the most dramatic super commuter to shame.
“The Mets basically have 12 home games a year, with five to 10 games in total. When the schedule comes out every January, I check out the best airfare and work my magic. I look at my phone and I see all my flights booked for the year,” Lee said, bragging that in his 22 years of commuting two-and-a-half hours, he has only missed one game because of a flight delay.
Memorable Mets players
For Li, the tedious journey is worth it because he cherishes the “friendship” he has with his fellow traders and the relationships he has built with regular customers over decades.
Lee recalled that during one game during his 15 years selling cotton candy, a young woman approached him and asked to take her photograph. Though surprised, Lee agreed to the request and asked her why she was taking the photo.
“Every Sunday my dad would come to the games and he would buy cotton candy from you,” the young woman told Lee.
“People contact me all the time. If I miss a few games, people come up to me and ask, ‘What are you doing? Is something wrong? Are you OK?'”
Many of Lee’s fond memories are synonymous with the Mets, and his time working in the stands also provided a respite from his time with the FDNY.
The retired firefighter was one of hundreds who rushed to the devastated areas after the Twin Towers collapsed, and described the experience as “unimaginable” and “pretty brutal.”
Baseball games across the country were canceled for five days, but the Mets reignited their season with an emotional game that featured Marc Anthony performing the national anthem, Liza Minnelli singing “New York, New York” and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani being honored with a standing ovation.
“It’s pretty tough,” Lee said. “Every anniversary there’s always something going on at the stadium and I always come home from a ceremony in the city, so it’s always a bit tough.”
This hero retired in 2002 and moved to Missouri soon after, but he still returns several times each year, and the trips provide a good excuse to reconnect with his FDNY buddies.
When asked about his family’s memories from his time as a vendor, Lee spoke of two things: watching Shea Stadium’s notoriously shaky upper deck shake violently during a World Series game, and being the first to react when a foul ball came flying into the stands and hit a young boy in the face.
“The best thing they’ve done for us is put up the nets so we don’t have to worry about hunkering down anymore,” Lee said.
A game changer for a changing game
Few people are better qualified than Aceto and Lee to talk about how baseball has evolved in New York City over the past 50 years.
Between them, they’ve seen dozens of roster changes, the drinking age raised to 21, the elimination of cash-on-delivery measures due to COVID-19 and, of course, the Mets move into an entirely new stadium in 2009.
For the couple, the move was bittersweet, as their fathers also sold beer at that very stand. “We hate to see the memories disappear,” Aceto aptly put.
But this massive change in the physical environment also led to an emotional shift, creating a more vibrant energy inside Citi Field.
One of the biggest and most subtle changes is the type of people who come to watch the Amazings play: With more interactive games for fans to participate in and more food, the venue now attracts a lot more people than the typical baseball fan.
“It’s not just a ball game anymore. There are a lot of opportunities to do different things at the stadium,” Aceto said. “It’s not just coming to the game, having a beer and watching the game.”
After more years than most people dream of, Aceto and Lee can probably lug around heavy beer bottles and carts for a few more years. – But both agree that retirement is approaching.
But what it will take for these two retired civil servants to quit working at Citi Field is a mystery.
“I always said I’d stay until we won the World Series, and of course they did, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll stay until the Subway Series,’ ‘I’ll stay until the new stadium is built,’ ‘I’ll stay until the All-Star Game,'” Lee said. “I’m still here!”
