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Food and Beverage 2016

The woodcutters is top quality.

However at the courtyard BBQ, a bacon burger with lattice side, eating at show time made a nice treat! :)
 
It's a shame it's closing as we loved to eat our BBQ ribs while watching the show.

It would be cool if they did a buffet where you have all different kinds of food in the park, like they have for the Splash Landings restaurant (for the evening meal). I think the only buffet place they have in the park is the pizza place.
Having saying that it would also be nice to have a KFC, Maccy D's or Burger King. They have KFC at Thorpe, so I'm not too sure why it's not the same for Alton?

I haven't eaten at Woodcutters, yet for some reason so I'll give that a try this year.
 
ZeldaAlton said:
Having saying that it would also be nice to have a KFC, Maccy D's or Burger King. They have KFC at Thorpe, so I'm not too sure why it's not the same for Alton?
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They used to. BK is now, er, BK (Burger Kitchen). KFC is now, er FC.

The quality of the food has gone down, across most of the park, when they first opened and I visited Burger Kitchen I went apoplectic. They gave me three horrible tasting chicken (allegedly) strips and some cold fries which took an age to order in the equivalent of a paper suitcase, for the cost of a small mortgage.

I also entertained one small piece of chicken in the Fried Chicken place to equal distaste.

Having been utterly disgusted by this change, I took the recommendation of the Towers Street Food Critics Association and visited Mexican Cantina, which had THE MOST BEAUTIFUL wedges etc, only to return the following season to find they'd stopped doing THOSE as well.

Now, when I visit, I buy some fries maybe - that's it.

There's only one direction the quality of food has gone across park, and it ain't up.
 
ZeldaAlton said:
Having saying that it would also be nice to have a KFC, Maccy D's or Burger King. They have KFC at Thorpe, so I'm not too sure why it's not the same for Alton?
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Tussauds added branded outlets (McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut) to Alton Towers in around 1998. They seemed to be on a 10 year lease as in 2009 Merlin started converting them to being owned and operated locations instead of being leased. Pizza/Pasta buffet opened at Alton and Chessington and Fried Chicken Co at Chessington (FCC opened at Alton in 2010).
Merlin obviously didn't want to do Burgers at the time, so gave a short lease to Burger King (McDs probably wanted 10 years again) until Burger Kitchen opened in 2013.

But Tussauds didn't buy Thorpe Park until 1998, so everything is on different contracts compared to Alton and Chessington. Thorpe never had McDonalds its always been Burger King and KFC. Last year the Pizza Hut buffet closed and re-opened as Pizza/Pasta. I would expect Merlin to switch out BK and KFC when they can, but no-one seems to know how long they are leased for.

Now Merlin have made the Burger Kitchen, Pizza/Pasta and Fried Chicken Co brands accross Chessington, Alton, Thorpe, Legoland, Blackpool Tower and Warwick Castle, I don't expect them to ever bring back leased food and beverage options.


I had the Fried Chicken at Chessington a few years ago and it was fine, same as a burger at Burger Kitchen at Towers was fine. I know they are overpriced, but it was OK. We only go up for Fireworks now and usually have Pizza for lunch followed by a pasty in Mutiny Bay in the evening as this seems to be slightly more cost-effective.
 
TheMan said:
Having been utterly disgusted by this change, I took the recommendation of the Towers Street Food Critics Association and visited Mexican Cantina, which had THE MOST BEAUTIFUL wedges etc, only to return the following season to find they'd stopped doing THOSE as well.
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The demise of Mexican Cantina is one of the saddest things in recent years at Towers for me. Back in 2010/11 (ish, may have even been up to 2012) the menu was brilliant and full of variety. Nacho meals full of toppings, fajitas, burritos, tacos, chillis; you name it they served it. The quality was excellent as well. Then each year afterwards the menu got more and more limited right down to having just the one main meal option of a burrito. If it is going to be closed totally this year then even with the limited choice, it is the loss of one of the few outlets where you can get something other than a burger/meat of choice with chips.

I probably mention that about Mexican at least once a year, it really bugs me!

:)
 
You're not the only person who's bugged by what's happened to Mexican Cantina, Rob! It used to be my favourite place to eat on park. The menu was pretty decent, even up to 2013. I think it was in 2014 when they started serving only burritos, and I haven't been back there since. I usually end up going for Woodcutters, Towers St Bar & Grill or Explorers now, which are usually fine. However, this doesn't really address the problem of an increasing lack of variety at Towers. And as Tom quite rightly pointed out regarding All Day Dining, it's a bit unfair that the amount of places where it's available has been reduced, yet the price has gone up by just shy of 20%!
 
The thing about all day dining is people abused it, i tried it once, and you feel like you have to go over the top.

With various food places opening at different times, or closed it was pretty hard to find places to get a drink on different sides of the park.

I felt ill that night, was so so so full.

You only had to go on the merlin pass group on fb to see what people did, they were getting bottles of pop and all sorts and taking it out of the park.

What i tend to do now is have a choc bar or two, a few drinks, and have some food at wetherspoons on the way back.

The food quality at towers is poor..
 
I don't mind the food at Alton, it's above average compared to the other parks in the UK but when you've been spoilt by the food at Europa every park looks to have terrible food in comparison. Even Portaventura's food was average.

I do miss KFC but I don't mind Fried Chicken Co' and I like the Tavern Burgers so i'll be sad to see it go/closed as it was my go to lunch place. I've not tried the Burger Kitchens as I've heard bad reviews, but there's always Pizza Pasta where a 'meat pizza' is defined as 1 slice of peperoni and a piece of ham on the entire pizza.

There are much worse examples of park food though - Drayton, Flamingo Land, LWV to name a few. No park took the bad food award away from Camelot though. It was truly shocking food.
 
Spike said:
but there's always Pizza Pasta where a 'meat pizza' is defined as 1 slice of peperoni and a piece of ham on the entire pizza.
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The quality of the pizza can be varied but they are in line with Pizza Huts buffet of only offering two toppings on buffet pizzas. So they don't offer a meat feast pizza, its pepperoni only or ham and pineapple or beef and onion. I've always found there to be at least one piece of meat per slice. But the overall pizza quality is better on a pizza hut buffet, I think its the cheese.
 
Looks like Im stuck with Towers Street hotdogs now, followed by donuts o_O

Towers probably think because they have a new restaurant opening soon they need to shut other places and it will be fine
 
I have tried the Fried Chicken place once a few years ago and I was disappointed. The thing that bugs me is that you pay for overpriced replicated KFC/ Burger King etc. I would be happier to pay a little bit extra for the real deal.
Which is why l probably stuck to the Courtyard as its not trying to be something it's not.
I love Mexican and now I'm gutted I didn't give it a try when they served tacos.
Tbh I think when you stay at the hotel and have the breakfast a lot of people take food into the park. People will always do that with any buffet style places as they see that they've already paid for the food, so why not take some into the park.
It's sad to see that there's less to choose from. So if they had a buffet place with all kinds of food then it's some of the problem solved?
By the looks of it, the woodcutter is going to be the place to eat.
 
To me the only decent places on park to eat are woodcutters and courtyard. I have only eaten once at towers st bar and the service (or lack of it) and mediocre food have ensured i wont be hurrying back there any time soon.

I'm really hoping that the new rollercoaster restaurant lives up to the initial hype but i also don't think that just because they are opening a new restaurant means they can justify closing smaller food outlets.
Courtyard and cantina were both great little places that offered something between a full sit down meal or a smaller light lunch.
 
I'm a bit of a fussy eater so the only places I really go to at Theme Parks are the restaurants are the pizza and chicken places. I do like Fried Chicken Co and Pizza Pasta, the quality of food is acceptable to me and it tastes nice enough, but I much preferred KFC and Pizza Hut and it was a sad day when the latter left all the Merlin parks and the former left Towers and Chessie. As such I'm grateful that KFC is still at Thorpe for the time being, but was sad to hear that Pizza Hut went in 2014. Supposedly, the Pizza Hut at Thorpe was the profitable in the UK, not just at theme parks, all of the country.

So yeah, I can live with Pizza Pasta and Fried Chicken Co, but if you offered me KFC and Pizza Hut back at Towers and Chessie, I'd take that in a heart beat. Burger Kitchen however is terrible. It's a far cry from McDonalds and Burger King (especially the former) and I'd kill to have either one of them back.
 
bluesonichd said:
Looks like Im stuck with Towers Street hotdogs now, followed by donuts o_O
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Your wallet must love you. Those two items are the most ridiculously over priced items in the park. £6 for hotdog is daylight robbery and I think its the same price for doughnuts. I've always refused to purchase either of these items as you can get a full meal for that price elsewhere in the park.
 
Spike said:
Your wallet must love you. Those two items are the most ridiculously over priced items in the park. £6 for hotdog is daylight robbery and I think its the same price for doughnuts. I've always refused to purchase either of these items as you can get a full meal for that price elsewhere in the park.
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Trouble with a sit down meal tho is that eats into your ride time, least with a dog or donut you can stuff it on your gob while walking to the next ride :)
 
bluesonichd said:
Trouble with a sit down meal tho is that eats into your ride time, least with a dog or donut you can stuff it on your gob while walking to the next ride :)
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Who said anything about sitting down? I order my Woodcutters steak to go. :cool:
 
bluesonichd said:
Trouble with a sit down meal tho is that eats into your ride time, least with a dog or donut you can stuff it on your gob while walking to the next ride :)
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Dude, you're there like every 2 days. I don't think you need to worry about squeezing too many rides in to that degree!!! :D
 
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