Robert and Karen Cross, owners of 3C’s catering, joined Jamestown Tarp Skunks general manager Frank Fanning at Diethrick Park. 3C’s will return to the stadium as official concession operators for the 2020 season. P-J photo by Jay Young

Local baseball fans are not the only ones excited for the inaugural season of the newly-formed Jamestown Tarp Skunks.

After a brief hiatus, 3C’s Catering of Kennedy will return to Diethrick Park as the franchise’s official concessionaires for the upcoming season.

Owners Robert and Karen Cross previously provided hungry fans with ballpark favorites for 11 years with the Jamestown Jammers.

“We were the concessionaires here back with the original Jammers, before the team left for West Virginia,” Robert Cross said. “The new Jammers came in and they decided to do something else, so we walked away and we heard that there was a new team coming in. Actually the powers that be I guess, Greg Peterson and Russ Diethrick, had mentioned to us that they would like to see us come back in. So we started talking and came to an agreement, and we are back.”

As a baseball-loving family, Robert and Karen Cross have been encouraged by the energy that the new franchise has brought to the area.

“I think (general manager) Frank (Fanning) has a good energy to put toward it to kind of bring the energy back,” Karen Cross said. “We came into the stand being completely empty. The city was wonderful, they repainted everything and kind of give us a fresh, blank canvas to work with. So we’ve just been refurnishing and collecting what we needed.”

Starting with a blank slate offers its challenges and benefits. On Tuesday, the husband and wife tandem were busy taking measurements for new equipment to outfit the concession area.

“We’re taking measurements for some different things, we are headed to Erie to pick up some more equipment today,” Robert Cross said.

Fans can expect to enjoy all of their ballpark favorites this coming season, including popcorn, Sahlen’s hotdogs, cotton candy, hamburgers and some of 3C’s specialties.

“We bring a lot of the same homemade food. One of the things that was very popular back then, and we are going to bring them back, is our buffalo wing fries and nachos. Which is made in house, the buffalo sauce. Our ranch dressing that we did for dipping sauces and stuff for chicken fingers, that is all made in-house,” Robert Cross said.

New for this season will be changes to the tent party area.

“We’re now calling it the ‘Surfeit Club,’ which a surfeit is a group of skunks for anyone that doesn’t know that,” Robert Cross said. “We are also this year incorporating a small area down here (field level). We are going to call it the ‘Skunks Den.’ It is going to be for up to 25 people. Maybe a small corporation wants to bring their employees, and they only have five employees and their spouses and families, they only have 20-25 people. It is perfect for them. We’re going to do that a little more upscale, different options there, which is going to be fun, and again that is all going to be homemade.”

A third area for fans to enjoy will be a beer garden, which will be located at the third-base shed.

“We are working with Southern Tier (Brewing Company) and there is going to be a ballpark beer. Not really solely for the ballpark, but it is going to be kind of the beer of the ballpark,” Robert Cross said. “We’re going to have the third base shed as kind of a beer garden with many Southern Tier varieties down there, so that is something a little bit different.”

With the popular reception of the new Tarp Skunks brand, 3C’s is also pursuing some skunk-themed menu items that may debut this season.

Robert and Karen Cross are in the process of exploring options for new menu items that will fit in with the team’s mascot.

In addition to purchasing new equipment, 3C’s also expects that new concession signs will in place at the park once winter weather abates.