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Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

Entertainment at Butlins far exceeds anything you get at Towers (maybe with the exception of CBeebies Land). I think people often think of Butlins origins rather than how it is these days. It's good value for money compared to most holiday parks/resorts.
 
I was going to make a post the other day, factors like Entertainment and F&B get overlooked by the public as aspects of a theme park because they're just concerned with the number of rides they can get in.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
I was going to make a post the other day, factors like Entertainment and F&B get overlooked by the public as aspects of a theme park because they're just concerned with the number of rides they can get in.
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If you strip your theme park of everything except rides and rubbish hot dogs then yes.

But if you offer a broad selection of things to do then guests will spend time doing other things, as is the case at many parks around the world.

The demand for entertainment is there at Towers, the shows are well attended during Oktoberfest for example.

Offering an improved and more varied F&B selection may well encourage different types of guests to the resort, not just those that only want rides.
 
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Just look at Disney they put in effort into their food and making it apart of the experience and guests happily fork out large sums of cash to post a picture of their well presented Disney themed food with a castle backdrop for some Instagram likes.

Granted that's got a big part of the brand recognition from it being Disney but what I'm trying to say is they could get away with their current prices which have risen quite a lot if they atleast tried to make it edible and dare I say tasty and presentable.
 
yoursilentface said:
It makes me laugh on here when you see put downs of butlins...i saw a comment on the hotels thread saying the entertainment was that bad it was like something you'd see at butlins

No it isn't...it really isn't
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Oh, absolutely. Not wanting to veer too off topic from the food, but when you look at the hotel entertainment the quality at Butlins far exceeds AT, even when accounting for scale. While full bands with professional tribute acts isn't feasible, the simpler children's entertainment is much more professional, and there's a singer with an acoustic guitar in the bar that is much much better than the murderous karaoke singer on the ship.

The beverage side of things is good too. Cocktails 2 for a tenner (equivalent to double shot and funkin mix), double Gordons gin and lemonade under £6, beers similar. Practically zero wait at any bar, or order on app and have it delivered in minutes. All things AT should be able to achieve.
The wine at Butlins is pretty rotten though, AT may have the upper hand there!
 
Excluding snack kiosks, food outlets as follows, comparison between Alton Towers & Thorpe Park (2023 season). We seem to do terribly at Alton for variety compared to Thorpe Park - I don't understand why given Thorpe gets 1/2 the guests of Alton Towers.

Alton Towers - sit down
Explorers Pizza Pasta Buffet
Woodcutters
Rollercoaster Restaurant

Alton Towers - fast food/take away
Coffee Lounge
Coffee Kiosk (Mutiny Bay)
Corner Coffee
The Burger Kitchen (Mutiny Bay)
The Burger Kitchen (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
Towers Street Hot Dogs
Loaded Fries & Hot Dogs
Hot Dogs/Waffles/Nachos (Mutiny Bay)
Eastern Express
Forest Feast
Donut outlet (X Sector)
Mutiny Bay Doughnuts
Towers Street Doughnuts
The Lunchbox (pizza slices, jacket potatoes, sandwiches)
Just Chicken
The Welcom-Inn

Thorpe Park - sit down
VIBES Bar & Kitchen
Wilderness Bar & Kitchen
Inferno's Pizza Pasta Buffet

Thorpe Park - fast food/take away
Burger King (Old Town)
Burger King (Amity)
KFC
The Veggie Box (falafal/salads/wraps)
Tacotaria (mexican)
Amity Kebabs
The Grill (may be closed?)
Peckish
Inferno's Pizza Takeaway
Cadbury Chocolate Lodge
Doughnut Time
Hotdog Hut
Colossus Hot Dogs
Churros, Waffles & Coffee
Chocolate & Waffles
Thorpe Perk Express (dome coffee shop)
Amity Donut Bites
Donut Factory
Cookies & Creamery
+ new coffee shop to open in Ghost Train shop

I don't know Chessington well enough to do a comparison there.
 
Chessington - sit down
Smokehouse BBQ
Pizza Pasta

Chessington - fast food/takeaway
Tortilla Burritos (Mexican)
Drop'n Chicken
Hot Potatoes and Hotdogs
Vampire's Burger Kitchen
Captain's Fish and Chips
Dragon's Lair Cafe
Dirty Fries
Dragon Delights
The Coffee Hut
Tiger Treats
Donut Express
Tuk Tuk Treats
Sweet Shop
Ben and Jerry's

Like Alton Towers there are also several resort hotel sit down restaurants.
Just noticed Towers doesn't have a proper Mexican restaurant unlike Thorpe and Chessington, has it in the past?
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Chessington - sit down
Smokehouse BBQ
Pizza Pasta

Chessington - fast food/takeaway
Tortilla Burritos
Drop'n Chicken
Hot Potatoes and Hotdogs
Vampire's Burger Kitchen
Captain's Fish and Chips
Dragon's Lair Cafe
Dirty Fries
Dragon Delights
The Coffee Hut
Tiger Treats
Donut Express
Tuk Tuk Treats
Sweet Shop
Ben and Jerry's

Like Alton Towers there are also several resort hotel sit down restaurants.
Just noticed Towers doesn't have a proper Mexican restaurant unlike Thorpe and Chessington, has it in the past?
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Yes, there was a Mexican restaurant called Mexican Cantina next to the flume. I believe it was originally due to kept when Wickerman was built, either that or the flume station was going to be repurposed into a restaurant? Could someone confirm?
 
Yeah I remember it, all the Mexican restaurants used to be under that Mexican Cantina brand. I guess it made sense to cut the food offering somewhat in 2015/16 but now visiter numbers are higher again, I think they could do with more options.
 
s_g_k said:
Yes, there was a Mexican restaurant called Mexican Cantina next to the flume. I believe it was originally due to kept when Wickerman was built, either that or the flume station was going to be repurposed into a restaurant? Could someone confirm?
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I don't think the Mexican Cantina was ever due to be kept (or at least not by the time the plans were submitted to the council). At one point, a smoke house restaurant was due to be opening roughly on the same spot as the Flume Station, but that would have been a new build (maybe reusing some of the foundations)

The one building that was retained was the Ben and Jerry's Scoop Shop, which neighboured the Cantina. It survived the first year of the Wicker Man as a little coffee stand before being demolished.
 
The Smiler crash was a real bad year for F&B at towers and the park just hasn’t recovered since.

We left Mexican, Ben & Jerrys, courtyard BBQ, refresh @ Ripsaw, towers bar & grill which have never came back, and we also lost small kiosks around the park like the gloomy wood and Katanga one as well as dark forest food outlets (which have since reopened under eastern express ownership).
 
It is a shame how backwards food at towers has gone, yet it seems to have gone forwards at Thorpe, they’ve got a dedicated vegan unit, they’re experimented with concepts and trials. Towers just seem to do the same every year.

When was the last new F&B we had at towers? RCR?
 
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