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Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

John_P said:
Still can't get my head round them outsourcing the catering seeing how if done well it's such a good source of income and secondary spend.

All I can think of is that they've had such an issue getting staff in across the entire resort they've just decided to take the guaranteed money from Aramark instead, and to try and staff up all their positions for operating the park before Aramark realise there's no one left to apply for jobs in catering and their stuck paying for recruitment agencies to get them staffed up. Probably not good for the prices on the park or their overheads.
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Oh, no. It's just that Merlin are literally no good at running theme parks. It's just not a skill that they have managed to acquire in the many years they've been trying.
 
Given that Merlin are second only to Disney, I am sure they have written into Aramarks' contract that they must lay on a Food and Wine/drink Festival to give EPCOT a run for their money - after all, Aramark are all but charging Disney prices! Some of the authentic delights on offer could include...

UK Pavilion - Donner Kebab. White Lightning cider
France Pavilion - Sausage baguette. Cheapest bottle of wine possible, watered down
Germany Pavilion - Bratwurst baguette. Hock wine, watered down
Italian Pavilion - Spaghetti. Prosecco
USA Pavilion - Hamburger. Budweiser
Korean Pavilion - Dog stew. Soju wine, watered down
China Pavilion - Sweet & Sour chicken balls. No beer/wine, just the sweet & sour sauce (upsell as not included with the balls)
India Pavilion - Chicken Tikka Masala. Cobra beer at at least double supermarket prices

I think I need to stop giving Aramark ideas! On a more serious note, I look forward to reading the TripAdvisor comments on the food offering in both the theme park & hotels once the season gets underway. I'd wager a fair amount that most comments will not be good.
 
Whilst in the hotels on Sunday night one thing I noticed was how many people were having food delivered in to the hotel, saw at least 3 groups order food (and the hotel was really quiet) but is it any wonder when SGR charge so much, and splash was closed that night so SGR or rcr is your only choice. It’s far cheaper even with the extra costs to get a delivery in to the hotel.

When I stayed at fireworks the manager was even telling guests to do that in the evening as there was no option to eat.

If I was the hotel manager and large amounts of guests are ordering food in, then you really should be looking as to why they are doing this.
 
£4.95 for Broccoli is absolutely hilarious. At least with a Steak they can attempt to defend the pricing with some rubbish about the quality and where it's sourced etc.

A portion of Broccoli will literally be costing them about 12p. And it's Broccoli.

It's not a family run restaurant where you don't mind paying a bit extra for the service either.

Great now I'm going to bed angry about Broccoli.
 
rob666 said:
The vegi dishes are no better, eighteen quid for a plate of spaghetti, courgette and mushrooms?
Ingredients cost about a quid in total, so not a bad mark up.
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Depends if they're getting Asda pasta or Gino D'Campo pasta (got some yesterday and it was over a quid for it).

Last time I had pasta at Towers (a long time ago) it was underdone. Which says a lot about the capability of the kitchen if you can't get pasta right.
 
GaryH said:
I would say Asda pasta would be pushing the boat a bit for Merlin
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Lidl or Aldi pasta would be pushing the boat out for Merlin.
It will be unbranded pasta, bought in by the sack-load. It will probably make HMP special pasta look appetising.

If Aramark put porridge onto the breakfast menu at Towers, it would be interesting to try and get a comparison between AT porridge & HMP porridge. Not easy to do though (unless someone wants to serve some time) - Aramark will use this to their advantage & serve rubbish.

It will also be interesting to see what happens to the Stargazing Pods breakfast rolls. General consensus seemed to be they were pretty inedible when Merlin did them in-house, so what will the Aramark version be like?
 
Not only are the prices criminal, what’s with the selection? That has reduced somewhat no?

The only beef option being ‘classic burger?’ No cheese, bacon, double etc?
 
Those are pretty thin strips of bacon/cheese if those calorie counts are anywhere near accurate.
 
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