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Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

But from what I heard the staff were not employed by Alton Towers?

My understanding was they where but I’m not going to say I am absolutely certain of it.

There is also a slight difference when you franchise a brand as that brand has potential to suffer if you appear to be lowering quality or hiking prices to high, so McD would have aligned the theme park outlets with their service station type offering.

Aramark are an unknown quantity for the majority of guests so the only brand at risk is Alton Towers, and for some reason Merlin don’t seem to be worried about that at the moment. Now whether there are contractual triggers that Merlin can use if the quality/ price starts to cause them serious issue is hard to say at the moment, but Merlin have shown no real evidence that they have any problem with the poor guest satisfaction they seem to be getting for food (if trip advisor is anything to go by anyway).
 
Aramark are an unknown quantity for the majority of guests so the only brand at risk is Alton Towers, and for some reason Merlin don’t seem to be worried about that at the moment. Now whether there are contractual triggers that Merlin can use if the quality/ price starts to cause them serious issue is hard to say at the moment, but Merlin have shown no real evidence that they have any problem with the poor guest satisfaction they seem to be getting for food (if trip advisor is anything to go by anyway).

Yep given Merlin didn't seem to worry about guest satisfaction with food service I don't think Aramark can make it much worse. Rollercoaster Restaurant was already very bad compared to a few years ago.
 
Do Aramark own any recognisable brands that we might see pop up in the parks? Can't see anything online that suggests they do, but that seems odd for such a huge catering company.
 
Do Aramark own any recognisable brands that we might see pop up in the parks? Can't see anything online that suggests they do, but that seems odd for such a huge catering company.

His Majesties Prisons?

In all seriousness no I don’t think they do, and that’s the point, any reputation damage that may or may not occur will be on the resorts themselves rather than a food brand unlike the days of McD’s.
 
Do Aramark own any recognisable brands that we might see pop up in the parks? Can't see anything online that suggests they do, but that seems odd for such a huge catering company.

I don't think they even franchise any brands, but in the US it does look like they invent brands for the football stadia concession stands they run and other areas. So similar to Merlin making the Burger Kitchen and Fried Chicken Co brands across the parks.
 
In all seriousness no I don’t think they do, and that’s the point, any reputation damage that may or may not occur will be on the resorts themselves rather than a food brand unlike the days of McD’s.
Which I think is the glass half empty view. The counter to that is that if you don't have another brand to hide behind, you're incentivised to provide a good service. Merlin for the reasons that you outlined - they don't want the hassle of running F&B so outsourcing it for better outcomes is entirely sensible. Aramark are a huge organisation who want to grow, Merlin have a bunch of properties all over the world that they can expand in to if they get these sites right.

It's in no-one's best interest for this to fail ... I wouldn't mind if we were about to lose some sort of culinary nirvana, but what's there now is pretty poor. Yes it could worsen (somehow?), but it could get a whole lot better ... Let's see how it goes.

Further premature moaning should result in the moaner being locked up at His Majesty's Pleasure and forced to eat Aramark gruel until opening day.
 
Which I think is the glass half empty view. The counter to that is that if you don't have another brand to hide behind, you're incentivised to provide a good service. Merlin for the reasons that you outlined - they don't want the hassle of running F&B so outsourcing it for better outcomes is entirely sensible. Aramark are a huge organisation who want to grow, Merlin have a bunch of properties all over the world that they can expand in to if they get these sites right.

It's in no-one's best interest for this to fail ... I wouldn't mind if we were about to lose some sort of culinary nirvana, but what's there now is pretty poor. Yes it could worsen (somehow?), but it could get a whole lot better ... Let's see how it goes.

Further premature moaning should result in the moaner being locked up at His Majesty's Pleasure and forced to eat Aramark gruel until opening day.

Again I would agree with you if the evidence at Thorpe, Chessington and Lego didn’t suggest otherwise. Why are we thinking Towers will be different?
 
Again I would agree with you if the evidence at Thorpe, Chessington and Lego didn’t suggest otherwise. Why are we thinking Towers will be different?
I've only eaten at Thorpe and Chessington this year and I thought it was fine, personally - I'm not expecting it to be different.
 
McDonald’s was franchised not outsourced.
Wrong! They were what Tussauds called a "brand partner". Tussauds signed 10yr deal with the 3 brand partners (McD's, KFC & Pizza Hut). All Tussauds did was rent the units out to the relevant company - it was then up to them how they staffed them. The 3 McD's were definitely run in-house by McD's UK. They were also well known for having a reputation as being some of the worst 3 McD's in the UK. Food quality was variable at best & the staff were generally rude. It got to the point where a few years into the 10yr deal Tussauds gave McD's a list of staff where were no longer to be employed in the Towers units. Remember: if a guest gets poor service anywhere at Towers, in their mind "it's Towers who were rubbish" & they would tell other about their experience. The behind-the-scenes operating arrangement / agreement of any food outlet is if no interest to your average guest.

A normal McD's franchise works differently. You source funding (£100k minimum) work with McD's UK to acquire land & then enter an agreement with them that you will run the restaurant as the franchisee. The training you go on takes at least 26 weeks whilst the build takes place. I would suggest that staff in the Towers McD's - managers included - had under 2 weeks training, at best.

I can see history repeating itself as Aramark dive for the bottom line. As in an above post, outsourcing very rarely improves standards anywhere. Towers outsourced hotel housekeeping a few years ago, then bought it back in-house due to "issues". Lets face it, most of us have doubtless had a fun call with a call centre that is best-shored - you can no longer call it off-shored as that is not PC.

The all-time classic with Towers McD's was the state the Forbidden Valley McD's staff left the Green Room [staff room] under Skyride Maindrive in (food litter just left all over the place, despite there being a bin in the corner). One of the more mature litter pickers constantly had a go at them and was told to "get lost" in a rather more rude manner. One day he saw red & when the staff had returned to McD's, he collected all their litter, loosened a few tops on the drinks cups with liquid still in & went up to the McD's counter and just threw all their rubbish into the kitchen, with it going everywhere. He then just walked off saying "you left that behind". Oddly enough they started putting their litter in the bin from that day onwards.

When the 10yr brand partner deal came to an end, Tussauds (or was it Merlin by then, think it was?) wanted to crank the unit rent up through the roof. McD's walked & we got Burger King who charged even higher prices.
 
The fact they immediately took over the operations and immediately hiked the prices without doing anything else gives a good idea of how they intend to operate.

At the end of the day if its too expensive/bad quality all we can do is take our own food and let the park know why every chance we get.

I shudder to think how bad the hotel breakfasts will get, last time I stayed in 2019 the sausages were barely edible then.
 
I do remember eventually avoiding the FV Maccies as the staff in there in one period of time came across as if they hated you for bothering them by asking them to make you some food 😄. I would usually then instead go to the big one by Toyland/Charlie or the little one near the Flume.

Overall I quite liked the Maccies offering in general as you knew the ballpark quality and type of food you were getting, and the prices weren't too outrageous. I would happily have them back. My use of the parks catering has dwindled over the years due to the product/pricing to the point where last season was the first time I didn't buy any food and drink at all (maybe the season before too).
 
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Why would McDonald's UK sign such a deal? My understanding is that they only take over failing restaurants whilst they look for a new franchise partner or when they acquire a new restaurant (because a good opportunity came up) again whilst searching for a franchisee. So basically, always trying to offload onto a franchisee as that's a fundamental part of their business model.

I'm sure it's correct, I'm just puzzled as to why they would enter into a 10 year deal to run restaurants they don't own when it's not really what they do? Maybe it was a prove it could work with a captive audience to sub franchise out in the future kind of gig?
 
I do remember eventually avoiding the FV Maccies as the staff in there in one period of time came across as they hated you for bothering them by asking them to make you some food 😄. I would usually then instead go to the big one by Toyland/Charlie or the little one near the Flume.

Overall I quite liked the Maccies offering jn general as you knew the ballpark quality and type of food you were getting, and the prices weren't too outrageous. I would happily have them back. My use of the parks catering has dwindled over the years due to the product/pricing to the point where last season was the first time I didn't buy any food and drink at all (maybe the season before too).
Two chocolate donuts for a quid was the common "breakfast" back in the day on TTF meets (or kebabs - RIP) 😂.

Let's not turn this discussion into one about how the McDonald's/KFC/BK/Pizza Hut was operated though, as we'll be going back and forth forever on it when it really doesn't make all that much relevance to this topic (especially when Maccies left 15 years ago now!). The main point with Maccies is regardless of how they're operated, they are really on it in terms of brand standards. As others have pointed out, you know what you're getting at a McDonald's - it's consistent and of very similar quality regardless of where you end up. As a company they're hugely protective of that, a Big Mac is a Big Mac wherever you go in the world, and the public know what they are going to get and expect it to be generally the same.

Compare that with Aramark, they're a generally unknown entity to the general public. Sure many will have heard of the name, but there's no baseline standard as to what the public expect from them. What they provide in a prison will be completely different to what they provide when they cater for a multinational corporation's annual conference - it's all dictated by the agreement they have in place with the customer. There's no standard burgers and fries where the menu is the same regardless of where a customer buys it.

As I said before, in terms of the UK parks we only have how they've operated so far to go on. My experience has been limited to Chessington so far, which was...fine? What I had was generally the same as before, just considerably more expensive. The reviews from regulars at the south parks regarding quality dropping isn't filling me with confidence though.

If all we end up with is increased prices, possible drops in quality and little to no innovation off the back of the deal, it's no doubt great from a short term business perspective, but from a guest point of view that'd be a real shame. The events in recent seasons, such as Oktoberfest has rightly started to bring food and drink in as part of the overall theme park experience. Of course we have no solid proof as fans, but anecdotally I think it's safe to say the likes of that event results in guests spending more on food and drink, staying longer and ultimately spending more. If we see no progression of that to bring some decent year-round offerings away from donuts, burgers and hot dogs then it'd be a real shame. So it's a wait and see for the 2023 season to see if we still have more of the same old same old, or whether we see some of those genuine improvements that would actual benefit the guest experience.
 
Little immature don’t you think, I did say in the below post that I wasn’t 100% sure. By all means say someone is incorrect but there’s a classy way and a none classy way.
I apologise. No offence was intended. "Not quite correct" would have been more appropriate.

I totally agree also, the idea behind a McD's is that a Big Mac should taste pretty much the same wherever you buy it (unless in some middle-Eastern countries where you can opt for chicken patties to cater for religious diet requirements . That said, in particular the Forbidden Valley McD's was often found to be very lacking (admittedly 14+ years ago).

Wanting to keep control of their food standards is why McD's won't go down the "microwave at home" burger from a supermarket - this gives the customer the chance to nuke their Big Mac at home and form the opinion that McD's are rubbish. Yes, I have worked for a McD's franchisee with over 30 restaurants in the UK.
 
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The big problem with Aramark is as a general visitor at towers you wouldn’t know Aramark run food and drink, other than the card reader saying Aramark and the receipt saying Aramark. But the staff all wear towers uniform, the branding is all towers, the units will all look the same etc

So if anything goes wrong then it the reputation of towers which suffers and not Aramark.

You often see it will picsolve when people moan on twitter about photos not working etc, even when towers direct them to picsolve you see them kicking off at towers.

At least with a known brand like McDonald’s etc, then if you’ve got issues you know who they are.
 
The big problem with Aramark is as a general visitor at towers you wouldn’t know Aramark run food and drink, other than the card reader saying Aramark and the receipt saying Aramark. But the staff all wear towers uniform, the branding is all towers, the units will all look the same etc

So if anything goes wrong then it the reputation of towers which suffers and not Aramark.

You often see it will picsolve when people moan on twitter about photos not working etc, even when towers direct them to picsolve you see them kicking off at towers.

At least with a known brand like McDonald’s etc, then if you’ve got issues you know who they are.
Hmm, it's a "yes & no" on this one.

The first thing Towers staff are told in training is "the guest leaves their brain in their car / on their coach when they arrive here". This is 100% true. Guests don't read signs (even safety ones). Back in the days of Virtual Queue / free FastTrack when you needed to retain your park entry ticket, the number of guests who had chucked it in the bin was sky-high.

The odds of guests looking at the top / bottom of the receipt to see see who that actual trading company is for anything, be it food or ride photos, is practically zero. They are at Towers, so it is Towers / Merlin as the parent company who are under-delivering if the service is not up to scratch.
 
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