• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

I bought chicken tenders from Just Chicken in x-sector yesterday and it was actually ok. The chips were nice, the chicken although nothing special was ok. It was a bit expensive but I knew that already. Nothing to complain about really.

A bit later on I decided to get some Nacho’s from near Wickerman and they were a bit rubbish, the cheese sauce wasn’t great, it was cold when imo it would have been nicer warmed up a bit, and the sour scream - they gave me far too much of it and it was really thick and basically ruined the whole thing. Ended up having a few nachos then threw the rest away as it was grim.

So a hit and miss experience with Aramark catering yesterday. Not going to make it a habit of buying food on park all the time but willing to see every now and then how things are.
 
Seeing on TS Instagram that Pizza Pasta is £21 for adults so I checked the buffet prices at Pizza Hut restaurant. For adult buffet package including drinks and ice cream it is £21 at weekends and £16 on weekdays, for buffet only (no drink or ice cream) it’s £17 weekends and £11 weekends
So at Alton Towers it’s the same as the Pizza Hut weekend price, just they no longer include ice cream at AT. So only slightly overpriced really, but the fact it is over £20 makes it feel very expensive.
 
jon81uk said:
Seeing on TS Instagram that Pizza Pasta is £21 for adults so I checked the buffet prices at Pizza Hut restaurant. For adult buffet package including drinks and ice cream it is £21 at weekends and £16 on weekdays, for buffet only (no drink or ice cream) it’s £17 weekends and £11 weekends
So at Alton Towers it’s the same as the Pizza Hut weekend price, just they no longer include ice cream at AT. So only slightly overpriced really, but the fact it is over £20 makes it feel very expensive.
Click to expand...
Unless there has been a marked improvement in the quality of Towers Pizza and Pasta, I would suggest that there is still a gulf in value for money.

What I don't like is that there isn't a 'value' option available on park. The cost to go to towers for tickets and parking is high enough, we are now suggesting that people realistically need £30+ to get a meal and drinks/ snacks. Although I do get that you can bring your own, realistically how many of the GP will do this for a day out? It would be nice to have a 'saver' option somewhere on park - maybe sandwiches/ toasties or the like.
 
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but Towers have removed a lot of gluten free substitute food (like gf bread option) from their menus due to changing food regulations. Has anyone who's been this weekend seen gluten free stuff on the menu?
 

Attachments

  • glutenfree.png
    glutenfree.png
    52.5 KB · Views: 64
jon81uk said:
Seeing on TS Instagram that Pizza Pasta is £21 for adults so I checked the buffet prices at Pizza Hut restaurant. For adult buffet package including drinks and ice cream it is £21 at weekends and £16 on weekdays, for buffet only (no drink or ice cream) it’s £17 weekends and £11 weekends
So at Alton Towers it’s the same as the Pizza Hut weekend price, just they no longer include ice cream at AT. So only slightly overpriced really, but the fact it is over £20 makes it feel very expensive.
Click to expand...

Pizza Pasta is no where near the quality of Pizza Hut, so arguably it is still hugely overpriced for what you are getting.
 
sock said:
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but Towers have removed a lot of gluten free substitute food (like gf bread option) from their menus due to changing food regulations. Has anyone who's been this weekend seen gluten free stuff on the menu?
Click to expand...
Yes this is correct, I spoke to a chef at Secret Garden this morning who confirmed that they've had to remove gluten-free items from the breakfast offering. She could only advise on which items of the breakfast buffet were naturally gluten-free (not much!). She also said that Pizza Pasta have stopped doing gluten free pizzas for the same reason. She was very sympathetic about the situation and did suggest I provide feedback to Aramark, I don't think the staff agree with the policy at all.

I didn't eat much on park but the vegan curry at Woodcutters is still on the menu as NGCI (non gluten containing ingredients). There were no other items at Woodcutters labelled as such, from memory I think this means they've removed the NGCI status of the BBQ chicken.

I did get fries at the new food outlet in FV, which were listed in the allergy guide as free of allergens with no cross-contamination risk mentioned, this should mean they are not cooked in oil used for anything gluten-containing.

Suffice to say that gluten-free meal options on park are now extremely limited and basically restricted to one meal that can't even be certified "gluten free".
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Yes this is correct, I spoke to a chef at Secret Garden this morning who confirmed that they've had to remove gluten-free items from the breakfast offering. She could only advise on which items of the breakfast buffet were naturally gluten-free (not much!). She also said that Pizza Pasta have stopped doing gluten free pizzas for the same reason. She was very sympathetic about the situation and did suggest I provide feedback to Aramark, I don't think the staff agree with the policy at all.

I didn't eat much on park but the vegan curry at Woodcutters is still on the menu as NGCI (non gluten containing ingredients). There were no other items at Woodcutters labelled as such, from memory I think this means they've removed the NGCI status of the BBQ chicken.

I did get fries at the new food outlet in FV, which were listed in the allergy guide as free of allergens with no cross-contamination risk mentioned, this should mean they are not cooked in oil used for anything gluten-containing.

Suffice to say that gluten-free meal options on park are now extremely limited and basically restricted to one meal that can't even be certified "gluten free".
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's really helpful. Hopefully they add new items soon, but for now I'm sure I'll surive on cereal bars haha.
 
Finding out what’s vegan is also tricky. Things aren’t labelled very well, and getting a look at the allergen book proved tricky yesterday. I have emailed the Aramark address given to me by Towers customer services - hopefully I’ll hear back. Have shared the same email with @NuttySquirrel to cover off gluten free too.

Just smacks a bit of they can’t be bothered. If “proper” Costa can manage it, I’m not sure why Aramark Costa can’t. One improvement was being able to get non dairy lattes - couldn’t do this at fireworks.
 
Alix said:
Finding out what’s vegan is also tricky. Things aren’t labelled very well, and getting a look at the allergen book proved tricky yesterday. I have emailed the Aramark address given to me by Towers customer services - hopefully I’ll hear back. Have shared the same email with @NuttySquirrel to cover off gluten free too.

Just smacks a bit of they can’t be bothered. If “proper” Costa can manage it, I’m not sure why Aramark Costa can’t. One improvement was being able to get non dairy lattes - couldn’t do this at fireworks.
Click to expand...
This is going to sound sarcastic - but it's not meant to. Aramark provide catering for hospitals, prisons and schools - all with some very specific and very important dietary requirements. They manage absolutely fine in those settings, why are they so bad at doing the bare minimum at towers?
 
Because the bare minimum costs!
And those hospitals etc have repeat customers...we, however, are gone tomorrow.
All the bad beer brewed in Blackburn in the early summer was sent to Blackpool...
"Saturday evening barrels", as they were known.
 
DistortAMG said:
Pizza Pasta is no where near the quality of Pizza Hut, so arguably it is still hugely overpriced for what you are getting.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Pizza Hut is awful (or was the last few times I’ve been. I don’t go now).

Pizza Pasta was fine last time I went (Run Alton Towers 5k).
 
AT86 said:
What is the new FSA guidance they are quoting, does anyone know?

Interested to understand if this reason for removing GF alternatives is valid, or just Aramark being lazy.
Click to expand...
This I am not sure on, but I'll try and find out (seeing as it's partly in my field of work). I don't believe any new regs have come in between the end of last season and the start of this season.

Either way, it comes across very poorly.
 
In my view they're walking a very fine line that's close to people just outright not bothering to buy food.

The lack of single items is really concerning, especially with longer opening hours on a weekend when people will most likely want to eat twice. Does that requirement to purchase a full meal just encourage people to leave earlier or bring their own lunches - completely removing the business reasoning for the later opening hours? Do people really want to be eating two full meals at a park, or would they just rather grab a few quick snacks on the way round? The changes to "meals only" removes a lot of those options.

The jump in price for some of those remaining snack items is nothing short of disgusting. £9.50(!) for a Rollover hotdog is insane, especially when they require next to no effort to make. That's a massive jump from an already high cost last year. Considering guests can directly compare the exact same product, which can be picked up in a petrol station on the way back home for a few quid really shows just what level of profiteering is going on with the product. £38 for a family of four just to eat a single hot dog each with no drink and no fries is madness - that's a quid off the cost of another adult entry on a weekend!

I get food prices have jumped, but start charging too much and guests will vote with their feet and not bother going, or just not spend anything other than the ticket price to get in. We know people are currently struggling to spend on leisure - if they're not getting good value from a day out, why would they spend it at Towers? It's concerning that they're potentially pricing out a large chunk of families, let's have a few sensible options!
 
Craig said:
In my view they're walking a very fine line that's close to people just outright not bothering to buy food.

The lack of single items is really concerning, especially with longer opening hours on a weekend when people will most likely want to eat twice. Does that requirement to purchase a full meal just encourage people to leave earlier or bring their own lunches - completely removing the business reasoning for the later opening hours? Do people really want to be eating two full meals at a park, or would they just rather grab a few quick snacks on the way round? The changes to "meals only" removes a lot of those options.

The jump in price for some of those remaining snack items is nothing short of disgusting. £9.50(!) for a Rollover hotdog is insane, especially when they require next to no effort to make. That's a massive jump from an already high cost last year. Considering guests can directly compare the exact same product, which can be picked up in a petrol station on the way back home for a few quid really shows just what level of profiteering is going on with the product. £38 for a family of four just to eat a single hot dog each with no drink and no fries is madness - that's a quid off the cost of another adult entry on a weekend!

I get food prices have jumped, but start charging too much and guests will vote with their feet and not bother going, or just not spend anything other than the ticket price to get in. We know people are currently struggling to spend on leisure - if they're not getting good value from a day out, why would they spend it at Towers? It's concerning that they're potentially pricing out a large chunk of families, let's have a few sensible options!
Click to expand...
Rollover hotdog that is identical, and a 500ml bottle of drink is £7.80 at my local football stadium. That's an equally captive-audience profit-driven enterprise as a theme park so in my mind it just shows AT/Merlin are shamelessly price gouging. For comparison, Liverpool FC sell a 9" hot dog and fries for £8.50 too.

A lot of people focus on the ride experience when they do interviews and so on with the park executives and rightly so. But I do feel that more focus should be on this aspect of things, they had last year to "practice" with a new supplier and should be building on it this year.

I saw £7.50 for a nemesis-themed doughnut on facebook for example too. £7.50. for. a. doughnut.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top