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Rollercoaster Restaurant: It's just dire.

I understand the being hungry, but it’s quite possible to send back food that you describe as unrecognisable as edible without making a scene.
I had low expectations after reading reviews, sadly our experience was worse - just our experience. If you wanted an all encompassing phrase for it, how about deeply disappointing. I've seen some people say its good but that was TPWW so suppose he had a dry sausage. You're also paying over £8 for most stuff so you'd expect a modicum of ability to cook food.

I assumed we had a bad experience as it was the first night of operation even though my expectations were low, suffice to say I'd never go back as with any restaurant experience as bad as this one. The staff member we paid our bill to asked us how our experience was, I told them it was terrible and said the food was awful. Some "upper end" restaurants would pick up on this but nah, felt like we'd broken up their nice little chat.
 
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The thing I find most strange about RCR is that a large TS group booked multiple tables for its opening night, and based on Towers Street Bar and Grill's opening day it was fully expected that the evening would be an absolute (but potentially entertaining) disaster. I don't have any detailed recollections of that visit, but I do remember being very surprised that it wasn't - good food was being served, and efficiently too. Sadly I haven't known it to be like that ever since. Evidently Towers have long since decided that since that standard is apparently unachievable now, the current mess has been deemed to be as good as things can or should get.

Service issues, ever reducing options and poor food quality seem to be par for the course with F&B at Towers of course, and those issues are far from unique to RCR. Even so, this should be one of the higher end experiences, particularly given that it costs so much and the opening hours lend themselves to shouldering some of the totally overloaded hotel dining demand. This restaurant, more than pretty well any on site, has no reason to be so rubbish.

FoodLoop at EP shows that the method of delivering meals to diners doesn't limit the types of food that can be offered. Yes, you pay a premium for one of the nicer dishes compared to at another park restaurant that might even serve exactly the same thing, but there's certainly a much broader menu available than the bog standard, bland, overpriced dross at RCR. Eating there is a pretty time consuming business too due to high demand and the nature of the place, but I don't remember ever having had issues with availability and cleanliness of cutlery, plates etc. like at RCR, and I've certainly never known it to reek of bleach as you walk in!

It does seem unlikely that Aramark can make RCR or indeed F&B generally any worse than now, but I'm certainly not going to say that with too much confidence just yet...
 
Now... ARAMARK MAKE IT BETTER.

I think I'm right in saying Chessington went across to Aramark earlier this year? The food is now shockingly bad, hugely worse than last season, so it's not a great sign of whats to come. I'm not a complainer, but burger kitchen was so bad last month I had to email in, 3 free meals and a stack of faskcack thrown at me, but really I just want them to be better rather than compensating for being awful.
 
I don't really like Theme Park Food in most places really. I have visited countless parks all over the world and can only really think of a handful where I have really enjoyed the food.

Usually I take my own sandwiches to parks for lunch (where it is permitted) and for Evening meal, if it's a longer operations day, I usually opt for a Pizza as I find it to be the one food type that most people can't get wrong.

We had one visit to the Rollercoaster restaurant a number of years ago now and we weren't that impressed really. Nice gimmick but sadly wasn't that great of a meal for the price.
 
I don't really like Theme Park Food in most places really. I have visited countless parks all over the world and can only really think of a handful where I have really enjoyed the food.

Usually I take my own sandwiches to parks for lunch (where it is permitted) and for Evening meal, if it's a longer operations day, I usually opt for a Pizza as I find it to be the one food type that most people can't get wrong.

We had one visit to the Rollercoaster restaurant a number of years ago now and we weren't that impressed really. Nice gimmick but sadly wasn't that great of a meal for the price.
I have to disagree here. Food at parks in most of Europe and many in Asia and North America offer some really great food.

In fact for some parks, they even list it as a priority!

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My most recent experience of Rollercoaster Restaurant was an evening meal in September. It was quite honestly atrocious.

I ordered steak. I was served a foul smelling piece of meat. Unfortunately I was feeling hideously ill at the time and didn't challenge.

The staff were more interested in talking to each other than delivering good quality service. @Rob did you ever get that glass you asked for? I think we're still waiting a month later.

I will not be returning.
 
I have to disagree here. Food at parks in most of Europe and many in Asia and North America offer some really great food.

In fact for some parks, they even list it as a priority!

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Parks in North America offer great food? Yeah if you like burgers and fries / fried stuff.

Not sure where these parks are but I certainly didn't find any.

I did say there's a few good ones and most of them are in Europe as well but Theme Park food as a general rule I find it be incredibly bland, unhealthy and overpriced.
 
My most recent experience of Rollercoaster Restaurant was an evening meal in September. It was quite honestly atrocious.

I ordered steak. I was served a foul smelling piece of meat. Unfortunately I was feeling hideously ill at the time and didn't challenge.

The staff were more interested in talking to each other than delivering good quality service. @Rob did you ever get that glass you asked for? I think we're still waiting a month later.

I will not be returning.
No I did not! That was my first time trying RCR in a good few years and I have no desire to return any time soon. The evening menu was varied and I must give them credit for how they handle guests with allergies, but the food was bang average (or disgusting in the case of Saz's so called steak) and the general service was poor.

Parks in North America offer great food? Yeah if you like burgers and fries / fried stuff.

Not sure where these parks are but I certainly didn't find any.

I did say there's a few good ones and most of them are in Europe as well but Theme Park food as a general rule I find it be incredibly bland, unhealthy and overpriced.

Silver Dollar City, Dollywood, Disney parks and Busch Gardens Williamsburg all offer good food in my experiences. Even some of the Cedar Fair parks have some decent varied options that are better than your standard burger and chips/pizza.
 
I guess the problem is (like most things at the resort), there will always be new people to take your place. We waited 20 minutes to get in and there was a similar length queue when we came out. If their sole metric for running the place is bottom line financial figures then there will never be an incentive for them to improve anything.
 
I don't really like Theme Park Food in most places really. I have visited countless parks all over the world and can only really think of a handful where I have really enjoyed the food.

Disney of course is probably a different entity but I've had a lot of good meals there in the past, but the prices are also crazy.
Last month at Universal Florida I had several pretty good meals, the Ribwich from Krusty Burger was fantastic.

But Seaworld & Busch Gardens was poor, over priced and low quality.
 
Disney of course is probably a different entity but I've had a lot of good meals there in the past, but the prices are also crazy.
Last month at Universal Florida I had several pretty good meals, the Ribwich from Krusty Burger was fantastic.

But Seaworld & Busch Gardens was poor, over priced and low quality.

Disneyland Paris food isn't good at all unless you pay like 70 Euros a head for a sit down meal and even that's not good value.
 
There’s definitely a divide between a good quality offering and an expensive offering. The two are not necessarily linked. Disney for example charges through the nose for pretty much everything. Equally you can be in the Alton Towers boat of poor quality and high prices.

Other attractions have good food offerings at reasonable prices, so it can be done. We’ve had some excellent food at Disney, Walibi, Europa, Parc Asterix, even Chessington.

There’s no excuse for poor food, it doesn’t take that much more money to cook decent food, it’s just an attitude which allows poor quality to be tolerated.
 
Parks in North America offer great food? Yeah if you like burgers and fries / fried stuff.

Not sure where these parks are but I certainly didn't find any.

I did say there's a few good ones and most of them are in Europe as well but Theme Park food as a general rule I find it be incredibly bland, unhealthy and overpriced.

We'll agree to disagree then. Of course there are some bad eggs out there, but I have had some delicious meals in parks like Cedar Point (Melt Bar & Grilled... mmmmm), Knott's Berry Farm, Silver Dollar City (skillets mmm), Dollywood (home cooking), Kennywood (amazing Philly Cheese Steak) and BGW. Six Flags is more a mixed bag.
 
I do wonder if food across the park is worse than ever this season, with Aramark taking over next year, why should food directors or managers really care if they will be leaving the park next season and replaced by Aramarks own team?

The daytime menu has always been average, with no starters or desserts, even when it opened. But the choices have got worse over the years even at night.
 
Woodcutters remains satisfactory (aside from veggie/vegan offer, from what I gather) and of reasonable value. But everywhere else is moderate to poor.
 
I do wonder if food across the park is worse than ever this season, with Aramark taking over next year, why should food directors or managers really care if they will be leaving the park next season and replaced by Aramarks own team?

The daytime menu has always been average, with no starters or desserts, even when it opened. But the choices have got worse over the years even at night.

I don’t know for sure, but would they not be TUPE’d to Aramark, assuming the deal is they takeover the entirety of delivery?
 
We'll agree to disagree then. Of course there are some bad eggs out there, but I have had some delicious meals in parks like Cedar Point (Melt Bar & Grilled... mmmmm), Knott's Berry Farm, Silver Dollar City (skillets mmm), Dollywood (home cooking), Kennywood (amazing Philly Cheese Steak) and BGW. Six Flags is more a mixed bag.

Maybe I just didn't choose the right food places to eat at in some of those parks. Six Flags parks are awful though.

Only been to Cedar Point once but the food didn't do much for me. Again probably didn't choose the right places as I didn't research the food when I probably should have done.

Disneyland Paris is absymal for food in my opinion unless you are willing to pay a fortune for a proper dining experience.
 
I don’t know for sure, but would they not be TUPE’d to Aramark, assuming the deal is they takeover the entirety of delivery?
I imagine the general staff will, and lower managers but I’m sure Aramark have been advertising for management, finance, etc for towers and Warwick.
 
This is probably one for the Aramak thread but I don't understand all the fingers crossed stuff that anything will improve.

It'll be the same corporate buyer's buying the same ingredients. All Aramak will do is cook it and flog it to a spec given to them by Merlin. As alluded to already, it'll probably be the same staff TUPE'd over, and as people leave the newer recruits will end up getting paid less, having less holiday and a crappier pension than the Merlin staff. Just like contract cleaners.

Some things may get batter, some may get worse. I ate at Chessington twice earlier in the year and apparently that's already Aramak? Well it was worse and made Towers look like a Michelin Star resort by comparison.

Oh and for those pretending that they've had a different breakfast in Secret Garden to Crooked Spoon this season, I can tell you that the same crap sausages, rehydrated scrambled egg and cheap vac packed bacon was served in the Chessington Safari this year as all the Towers hotels.

It's the crap they buy and the standards they accept that's the problem, not the company logo on the payslip of the minimum wage employee who presses the start button on the Microwave. Aramak won't solve any of that.
 
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