Manufactured on site food (like in pub's and restaurants) and non food (clothing and merchandise like in your local clothes shop or B&Q) is where the money is made, all incredibly high margin. It's just hard to get a business model that does it right.
There is little money in booze, fags, fuel, pre packed dried food and 3rd party concessions (selling someone else's product/brand on their behalf). Fast food is an intermediary, it's partly prepared and processed which means it's bought at a higher cost and sold at a lower cost but can scale up easily if you get enough volume. Fast food is the easy option, easy to prepare, easy to buy, easy to serve and simple all round. Merlin in general have managed to get the volume from it by offering little alternatives.
Proper sit down dining (doesn't even have to be posh) can be highly lucrative, in fact more lucrative, if the proposition is right. That would require quality venues, a good menu created by knowledgeable chefs, some skill and talent in the preparation (along with decent, rigid processes), the right service, a solid supply chain with good buyers and genuine ingenuity.
Basically, X marks the £££ spot if you put in the effort. So cheap burgers and chips from a vomit coloured CCL Burger Kitchen to be scoffed down whilst waiting in the Thirteen queue on a 10-4 day it is folks! Minimum effort, safe, medium returns.
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