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Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

AT86 said:
The Secret Garden Restaurant appears to have an updated menu - certainly compared to the one posted by TS on Twitter earlier in the year.

It seems there have been a few changes in prices, some lower, some higher - more tinkering than anything significant. However the much derided Garlic Butter that was a rather outrageous £4 has dropped to £1.50, so that's something 😂

It does appear however that the choice of mains has been amended a bit, with the likes of Bangers and Mash and Fish and Chips being removed - perhaps no one was ordering these, since they were charging close to £20 for both of them, its not the biggest surprise.

Old:

From: https://twitter.com/towersstreet/status/1622684673473187853?s=46&t=zG_i8R9vX93ZZU0RljfzWA


New:
Mains
Desserts
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Ooh la la, they took the pence off the prices, very fancy!
 
BarryZola said:
Quarter Pounder meal at Maccies is around 6 quid, just for info.
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If Mc'Donalds we're primarily in the food business, they would have to sell their food at a much higher price. It will suprise you to hear though, Mc'Donalds' core business is not food and their core income is not from food, they can afford to sell their food at almost no margin to stay ahead of the competition. As something is else is making them far more cash. If they put decent margins on, it would have much less of a price difference and would be closer to say a theme park.

For the record, Mcdonalds is first and foremost in real estate. They are one of the largest in the world and collect a stupid amount of rent from over 38,000 restaurants. That is how they make their money and that is why they can sell their food so cheap.

That burger didn't look all that bad from Burger Kitchen. I would eat 3 of them no drama.
 
DistortAMG said:
If Mc'Donalds we're primarily in the food business, they would have to sell their food at a much higher price. It will suprise you to hear though, Mc'Donalds' core business is not food and their core income is not from food, they can afford to sell their food at almost no margin to stay ahead of the competition. As something is else is making them far more cash. If they put decent margins on, it would have much less of a price difference and would be closer to say a theme park.

For the record, Mcdonalds is first and foremost in real estate. They are one of the largest in the world and collect a stupid amount of rent from over 38,000 restaurants. That is how they make their money and that is why they can sell their food so cheap.

That burger didn't look all that bad from Burger Kitchen. I would eat 3 of them no drama.
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So if the franchisee can afford to pay rent to McDonalds and still knock out a meal for £6 and make a profit for themselves, what does that tell you about the ability for other places to be able to knock out a meal for £6 if they really wanted to? Unless the cost to rent the franchise from McDonalds is cheaper than owning or renting your own burger shop then I don't see why other places can't be competitive with Maccies...

Full disclosure: I know very little about running a fast-food joint.
 
BarryZola said:
So if the franchisee can afford to pay rent to McDonalds and still knock out a meal for £6 and make a profit for themselves, what does that tell you about the ability for other places to be able to knock out a meal for £6 if they really wanted to? Unless the cost to rent the franchise from McDonalds is cheaper than owning or renting your own burger shop then I don't see why other places can't be competitive with Maccies...

Full disclosure: I know very little about running a fast-food joint.
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Mc'Donalds fix rent on a franchise owner for 20 years at the start. They calculate rent on a 10 year projection basis of sales. Franchisee owners will make a set return of about 20 to 25% of their investment over 20 years after all costs are factored in. Not that much in the grand scheme of things, not huge but not too low. Low margin food is a big reason for this. They are masters of high volume, low margin sales.

The whole system naturally, is setup to make Mc'Donalds the actual big money, not the franchisee owners. They of course will get more money if they open more locations, which they are encouraged to do, making even more cash for Mc'Donalds.

Mc'Donalds themselves have very high margins, their margins are based off their rental income, not the food. The food is calculated differently being down on the franchisee level.

A Very different from the setup at say, Alton Towers.
 
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Aramark are surely shooting themselves in the foot here? If you fancied just a coke you can’t buy one from their outlets, so you buy a bottle from retail instead which they don’t operate so lose any income.

It’s not like they don’t have the product available so what do they gain by limiting access other than fewer sales?
 
AT86 said:
This feels like they have reduced staffing to lower costs, so now need to reduce the menu to make it as simple as possible so the staff that are left can deal with the orders.
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I get why you might reduce the size of a menu (it’s not great for customer experience but I understand the basic business logic), but in this case someone is making these burgers or pouring a drink anyway, what do you gain by not selling the individual items? The burger isn’t harder to make if it goes out without chips and the drink doesn’t require anymore effort to pour when it doesn’t have a burger going out with it!
 
Here's a look at the new menus:



Bang average, and a lack of any sides is strange. It does look like you might be able to get a drink on its own.
 
Aramark must be spending a fortune on signage. I kinda get forcing people up to meals generates income in the short-term, but it alienates those who already have an unlimited drink bottle and therefore don't need a meal.
 
Weren’t we told by Bianca that the park were working with Aramark to bring up standards of both quality and selection at the other outlets based on the one in Gloomy Wood?

Every time we see a new menu at the moment it appears to reduce selection and/or jack up prices further.
 
Is the £3.85 water they sell in burger kitchen actually bottled water or is it “Peckham spring” in a Coke cup?
 
Dave said:
Someone in the comments of that post said they couldn’t order drinks on their own but they might be mistaken.
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I’m pretty sure we are on our 5th menu of the season in Burger Kitchen. Randomly they seem to change the branding with every menu as well. The mutiny bay one is now themed.

But we went for a basic menu, to quite a big menu and now it’s back to a basic menu, if anything it’s more basic than the last basic menu.

It’s odd they’re removed onion rings, mozzarella sticks, etc. and it’s odd they don’t do ice creams anymore.

I guess their logic is people have no choice but to buy a expensive meal deal, rather than picking what they want.

I believe the same has happened to fried chicken as that’s had a new menu on the wall outside, however it was too busy for me to look inside.
 
Let's be honest to what iv tried of the food since they have taken over, none of it is worth the money or ordering it in any case. The last I had was at the chicken place in x sector and it's didn't even taste of much other then disappointment 😞
 
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