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Food & Beverage 2014

Sorry, total newbie here. On topic - I understand that the major chains were removed from AT for poor hygiene ratings, but it now seems like a bit of a coup to over charge customers somewhat. I was really disheartened to visit AT last weekend and see that a hotdog with chips was £7. That is on parallel to cinemas these days. We ended up going to the Chicken place and it was really bad, food quality wise (the gravy tasted like carrots?) and extremely overpriced for what it was (£7ish for a lousy chicken burger, chips and drink.)
I have been to Thorpe Park and been to the Pizza Hut (9.99 all you can eat, £2 different to highstreet) and Desperados themed restaurant there (similar to Cantina I imagine).

Would AT ever welcome back any mainstream chain to the park? I can imagine they gain a lot from having own branded places but the food is unappealing and I saw more people at Alton Towers eating sandwiches whilst queuing than I have seen anywhere!
 
rlsta said:
Would AT ever welcome back any mainstream chain to the park? I can imagine they gain a lot from having own branded places but the food is unappealing and I saw more people at Alton Towers eating sandwiches whilst queuing than I have seen anywhere!
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Almost certainly not, for that precise reason. They stand to make significantly more money with their own outlets than they ever could with the external brands. The fact remains that at a theme park the majority of people buy food and they have no other choice than to buy from what's on offer. Unless the food gets diabolically bad, there is no way they will lose enough money to consider reverting back to how it was.
 
rlsta said:
I have been to Thorpe Park and been to the Pizza Hut (9.99 all you can eat, £2 different to highstreet) and Desperados themed restaurant there (similar to Cantina I imagine).
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The pizza buffet at Alton Towers is also £9.95 (less with an annual pass) and almost as good as Pizza Hut. Only reason Pizza Hut is £2 more than high street is Theme Parks includes drinks which are £2.30 on high street.
I would expect Thorpe to replace brands with Pizza/Pasta buffet, Fried Chicken Co and Burger Kitchen in the next year or two as Merlin know own brands can be more profitable.
The Mexican restaurants are pretty similar in all three Merlin theme parks now and there are many other brands they have rolled out over all four parks.
 
If you go on the AT website you can view the drinks list for yourself, but generally a pint without AP discount is £3.40
 
thank you gary i must be going blind i can see everything but the drinks prices. double checking they have them up for splash but not dragon bar makes sense
 
Some price hikes on F&B on Park are ridiculous - especially looking at Woodcutters. How can they justify some of the price hikes I will never know.

On the plus side, me and the missus won our meal in The Fried Chicken Company on Wednesday (26th - also mine and the missus 7th anniversary). Can tell people don't win that often as the staff were shocked when we won and one girl even came off another till just to come over to our till and looked in awe and said well done.
 
So 8 major food outlets closed on a bank holiday today including Wobble World Cafe.

Nearly every complaint I have had about the resort in the last 10 months both hotel and theme park has been Food and Beverage related. Can't believe one departments shoddy management has been allowed to affect a guests day so dramatically.
 
It's almost like they don't want guests money...
 
Ian said:
It's almost like they don't want guests money...
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Yet they are refurbing a restaurant that will never make any money (Towers family restaurant) as when it's lunch time people are not in that part of the park.
 
Re: Food & Beverage 2014

The reason behind the closures are apparently it's not a peak day. And yet we just enquired about hotel vacancy and they're fully booked
 
Either their idea of a peak day is what other parks consider a HUGE day or they need to ask themselves why the park is getting off peak numbers on a bank holiday Sunday... Maybe because the park is too expensive and poor quality when you get inside.
 
I think being off peak day is just an excuse and on a Sunday even if wasn't a bank hol, all outlets should be open.

as while the park not seemed overly busy they can't bring too bad based on their online offers compared to thorpe. At thorpe you can buy tickets for £24.99 if book two days in advanced and if book latter than that it's only £29.99 plus can get season ticket for just £48. Where as Alton if 7 days in advanced it's £46, if book between 7-2 days before is £43 and if booking within two days of visit is £48.

Big difference in pricing (on gate price is same at both) which indicates to me Alton is not struggling otherwise would be doing setting similar offers to Thorpe with pricing. I booked thorpe tickets for yesterday fri night and cost £29.99 if had booked Alton tickets would have been £48. Plus an annual pass at Alton is £120!

I think the f&b issues is all down to maximising margin rather than attendance dropping.
 
Maybe this is the end result of Merlin squeezing the profit margin as far as they can. They've finally reached the point where the general public have noticed and decided they aren't willing to pay that much?
 
Personally I reckon it's just bad management by F&B and no oversight by senior management. Towers departments tend o act independently with top bosses rarely having a bloody clue what's going on in their own park. If a department has an enthusiastic manager then it tends to be an area of the resort that's going well (see hotels during the David Steel time, or Ents now).

Merlin's management format leaves a lot to be desired and makes it hard for good managers to have an impact whilst letting poor decision making go un checked.
 
I posted this in the general topic a few days back, but ill also post it here

I have to say the one area of the park that is really letting Alton Towers down this season is the food and beverage (F&B) department.

Price
Firstly the prices at all outlets is getting far beyond a joke now, I mean £7.50 for a 3 piece meal in Fried Chicken (KFC its about £5)!

Closed!
Secondly the amount of outlets that seem to always be closed around park, not only does it look bad having a closed outlet, but also it surely must mean people spend less money. The following were closed yesterday (and on my other visits this season):
- Ben & Jerry's
- Refresh @ Ripsaw
- Waffles & Ices
- Wobble World Cafe
- Spinball Noodles (OK it may have been closed for a year or so now, but please take the signs down Alton Towers! For a normal guest it just looks like a closed outlet!)
- On top of that Towers family restaurant (and the two kiosks outside are closed till May),

Surely these outlets don't cost much to run, most of them have one or two staff, and the fridges/freezers will be running all the time anyway, I just don't see the logic with closing them. You would only need to sell a few Ben & Jerry's to cover the staff wages.

Deals
My final issue with F&B was yesterday, in corner coffee they now have a new deal on where you can buy a sandwich or panini, bag of crisps and hot or cold drink for a set price (around £6 I think). I then tried to get annual pass discount on it, but was told as it was already a deal I couldn't use annual pass, which is strange as last season I have had annual pass discount with similar deals. Yet you can get annual pass discount on the deals in Towers Trading (currently 2 drinks for £2.50).

So we went and asked at guest services and was told she would imagine we should get the discount, but we are best to ask at the box office. So we asked at the box office, the woman wasn't sure but thought we should do, but would ask someone else. The other person then said she didn't see why we shouldn't get the discount, but would ask a F&B manager. However she couldn't get hold of one so told us to come back later. We come back later and she still couldn't find out, but the staff in corner coffee told her they have been told not to give discount on deals.

We then went back at the end of the day and a different manager was there and told us that it will be in the annual pass terms and conditions, however it will be one of them things that chances are come back tomorrow and you will get the deal, and its just a bit of luck really.

So firstly why can't you get annual pass discount on a F&B offer yet you can in all the retail outlets? And why can you get discount on something like a burger meal or chicken meal, but not a sandwich meal? Surely they are both the same thing? And once again towers lack of communication mean we spoke to 4 different people and still never really got a proper answer to it, and no one manager from food and beverage could be found to answer it.

The worst thing is I bet I could go back tomorrow and get the discount, yet go back on Friday and you would probably be told no!
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Now that was on Tuesday, which is probably a offpeak day, however a weekend should certainly be more of a peak day to open food outlets. I don't think any of them outlets have even opened yet this season have they? They were all closed on opening weekend.

I don't see the point in closing them, they would cost next to nothing to open them with very few staff required,
- Ben & Jerry's - 1 staff member, and all the stock is probably already there in the freezer
- Refresh @ Ripsaw - 2 members of staff, same food sold in corner coffee.
- Waffles & Ices - 1 or 2 members of staff if both sides are open.
- Wobble World Cafe - 2 members of staff, all simple food to serve.
- Spinball Noodles - JUST TAKE THE BLOODY SIGN DOWN!!
 
I've fallen out of love with buying food at Towers now. Those of you who were with me during lunch at Opening Day Meet will know that that was my first time in the Fried Chicken Co, and despite not usually liking spicy food, the chicken burger was quite nice. I went again the other week and didn't find it very nice at all.

I'm one of those people who don't usually get very hungry at theme parks, and finding the food not particularly nice didn't help either. I think next time I'll just take a sandwich to eat whenever.
 
The entirety of Towers management need a P45, straight away, especially whoever is in overall charge of this shambles.
 
Well I would have loved to have spoken to a F&B manager last week when I was there, but the box office staff couldn't find a manager, despite looking three times!
 
There is a vacancy online for Head of Park Operations. Maybe this is an indicator of an interim period?
 
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