One of the food vendors at SAP Center that I enjoy at Sharks games is Pana Food Truck, an outfit based in Santa Cruz that serves up their arepas at the arena. My stepdaughter and I most recently sampled their wares about three weeks ago. It was her first time having them with me and I must have said something to her about their garlic sauce because the guy working the spot told us that they sell it by the bottle at their store.

I responded that this store is over in Santa Cruz, isn’t it? He said they were opening up over here in San Jose in a couple weeks. I asked where, and he said they were going to be part of the Downtown Food Hall, a kitchen staffed by numerous casual restaurants for the carryout/DoorDash era. I have eaten at all the places in their that I care to, except I haven’t tried the Japanese curry place. I’ve been there a bunch because it is extremely close to my abode, so this news that Pana was opening up there warmed my cockles considerably.

Alas, they have opened up now and we have a problem. I pay for food at the Shark Tank because my tickets come with $15 of credit toward food and drink per ticket. Otherwise I wouldn’t pay arena prices for food there. I’d eat at home or someplace else downtown and then go to the game. I think the arepas in the arena are in the $18-$22 range. I was curious how much they’d come down in a normal setting. Unfortunately, at the food hall the good ones are like $16.50-$17.50. I went in and selected an order for two arepas and a bottle of the sauce, and it came out to like $56 with tip.

It’s too much, man. These arepas are nice and use good ingredients, but not that good and/or exotic. There is expensive stuff in a super burrito these days and they are usually about $15 and also typically about three times as much food as one of these arepas.

If you ask me, these $16.50-$17.50 arepas should be $11.99-$12.99 or thereabouts. Lo and behold, on the website for Pana they are $12.75-$13.75, which I would consider acceptable.

I don’t know how these food halls operate and quite how much of a bite the building owner takes from the vendors, but the other stuff I’ve paid for in this place, I’ve actually paid for and not recoiled at the price and canceled an order about to be placed, as I did for these arepas I was excited about.

It’s bumming me out that these arepas are so close I can almost reach an arm out and touch them, and yet pricing is going to keep me from indulging.