KI Food Service Ideas

[thedaveyboyshow]

Simple for me - get rid of the refill bottles, let us have a wristband that can be scanned.  Yes, that increases trash waste; however, as was previously mentioned, the single person standing at a soda machine while fishing out five refill bottles, rinsing them all, and trying to figure out what bottle belongs to who and what should be in it....very frustrating.  

 

Second - menu signs outside of the facility.  This way, people can know what they want before they get up to the counter.  I won't apologize in saying that most of the frustration and slowness of the KI staff comes from the customer.  Chicken Shack has a very limited menu; however, it does seem to take an inordinate amount of time for people to figure out if they want the fingers served by themselves or put inside a wrap.  

[The Interpreter]

In the old days, McDonald's, who has also slowed down, had only hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries (one size), sodas (small and large) and shakes. And a motto:

KISS: Keep it simple, Stupid.

And QSC-V

Quality

Service

Cleanliness

Value.

Look at KISS. And QSC-V. How's KI Food Service doing on those?

From what I've seen, I'll give them cleanliness.

[CoasterOhio]

I think an idea would be that if someone does have to think about ordering something, they can step off to the side and look over the menu and figure it out on their own terms while the line keeps moving to those who DO figure out what they want to order. 

 

ON TOP OF THIS: If they figure out their order, they can get back into line once the associate is finished working with the people he currently was working with at the time.

[BeeastFarmer]

I know how difficult it can be to fill positions.  I've had to do it before.  I've also had to choose to terminate unmotivated employees.  That put me in a very short term bind, but it improved quickly when the "bad apples" were eliminated.  Morale went up, not down, and other employees took note and improved. (I'm thinking about the guys who were leaning on their elbows at the Skyline Chili location last August, in the area formerly known as Coney Mall.)

 

Now, I am also looking toward the customer.  Last Friday, I was at The Chicken Shack and the line was being held up by two ladies who were ordering for their entire family (who were seated).   The family was not the problem, their food was simple.  But the ladies wanted a salad with this, no that, more of this, less of that, that strip doesn't have enough breading etc.  And they seemed proud to have the attention from the frustrated line.

 

Another suggestion for KI to improve:  Listen to your customers.  I looked at the Facebook page this morning, and it is like a minefield.  Not a word from the park.  With all the issues Kentucky Kingdom has, it responds to people on Facebook, as does Carowinds.

 

Speaking of Carowinds, food service speed was good.  Employees had the same lost look though.  Quality and quantity was great, but the Chicken Steak sandwich at Chickie and Petes was not good. 

[shark6495]

Once a company, internally or externally, begins to blame the customer for poor service/planning/etc has already failed. At least that's my opinion.

You are always going to have a customer who wants a burger with cheese or a heavy/light breaded chicken finger. You can't fix that, and if your business/restaurant is set up correctly it can handle these outliers. If it's not set up correctly, well you will fail.

Comparing WDW to KI is not fair but as an example. Last year at Disney we got in some "quick service" type food lines. The longest any line really got was 10-12 deep and took about 5-10 mins to order and maybe no more than 10-15 to get our meals. That 10-15 you were waiting for them to call your number. But staffing levels, employee engagement, and facility helped speed these lines up. In some places there were only 2 cashiers but serving four lines funneling to a pick up area. Still the line went fair fast. And that was with a meal plan as well.

And Terp, there has been a significant purge as of late in the restaurant business. Your older managers who had 30-40 years of customer service are being relieved of duties to cut costs. Instead they hire low rent managers. These managers are usually younger and don't care. That's why you will notice that as a whole, good quality, cleanliness, service, etc are starting to see a decline.

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[Gabe]

When I was at the park this past Saturday, I went to Chick Fila about 11:30 and only waited a few minutes.  The woman taking my order was prob in her 40s and was on the ball. While ordering, I noticed an older gentleman in the back who was a line cook.  I wonder how many older people the park employs in food service? 

[medford]

As i was thinking about this, Terp's points really hit home.  This isn't a brand new ride where the employees, patrons and management have to figure out the quirks of how the ride loads, how the patrons react to getting on and getting off the ride, how busy it gets at certain points in the day, etc....  This is food.  Menu's change, tastes change, prices change, but the basic premise has remained the same for thousands of years, a patron walks in, place an order, gets their food and (hopefully) enjoys the product.  Societal nature has conditioned us to eat early in the morning, around mid-day and again around 6:00  There is no excuse restaurants to remain closed at noon on a Sunday as I've seen in the past.  There is no excuse for not anticipating larger crowds around 6:00pm on a beautiful opening weekend.  The basic premise has been the same for the entire existence of King's Island, there is 0 excuse for failing to properly serve its patrons this far into the game.  Sure there will be hiccups along the way, multiple employees turn get sick or don't show, have to be let go, a bizarre rush at 8:00 pm when lighter crowds are more traditional, etc...  but to consistently perform this poorly is a reflection upon the management chain within both Kings Island and Cedar Fair.

 

People are all ready taking their money elsewhere, others will follow.  We used to leave the park a shade early and grab dinner at Jimmy Johns or Chipotle up the road, often catching the sounds of the fireworks, if not a few glimpses as we were enjoying some Dairy Queen situated b/w the two.  Then the meal plan arrived and we started eating more in the park.  Now, w/ the reports that I'm hearing, I'm glad I held off on buying the meal plan up front last season with my pass, may hold off entirely if the reports remain this poor.

[Magenta Lizard]

When I was at the park this past Saturday, I went to Chick Fila about 11:30 and only waited a few minutes. The woman taking my order was prob in her 40s and was on the ball. While ordering, I noticed an older gentleman in the back who was a line cook. I wonder how many older people the park employs in food service?

That the park employs? I've seen very few. The franchises in the park have many more, and overall, better staffing and management.

When I was waiting a long time for Panda Express, it was largely due to issues with the computer system (park controlled), as well as the fact the park was packed in general. All day there were problems for people who pre-loaded a souvenir bottle to their pass, but it wasn't showing at the register, so that was causing slow down at the registers. During our wait, the system also went down entirely for awhile, so they couldn't scan passes at all, and the manager (who was very involved in making things run as smoothly as possible) chose to just wave through everyone who said they had dining. He was very actively acting as a floater the whole time, picking up in any area where slight hang-ups occurred.

If the management supplied by the park was as good as that in the franchises, it would improve things quite a bit.

[shark6495]

There is a reason restaurants are the worst business to start and suffer the most closures. It's tough if you know what you are doing. It's down right impossible if you don't.

Fast food is different than fine dining. If you try to treat 1 as the other then you will fail.

And if KI can't staff enough people then one of two things need to change: either pay better or cut options.

I know at points last year the Chicken Shack was stocked with volunteers earning money for an NPO.

And right or wrong I have 2 mental images of the KI food employee:

One is of the bored teenagers in Skyline not doing work

The other is the one who (after getting dropped off by the metro bus) while in uniform walked in front of my car causing me to stop suddenly (she didn't look) and then she yelled at traffic.

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[IndyGuy4KI]

With some of the awesome suggestions, I wonder if it is time for KI to think about an updated POS? (Point of Sale) I am sure the upfront cost would not be cheap, but if they can streamline some processes, and adding features like Mobile app ordering, etc. 

 

I would love it if I could use the Mobile app to place an order, have several pickup windows through the park (like the Coke refill stations) that I choose where I want to pickup my order. AZ is station A, CM is station B, Rivertown is station C, PS is station D, IS is station E, and SC is station F. These stations could have specific menu items that are geared towards your meal plan holders. Before I order I get a wait time of food prep, (We are by DB now, but see there is a 20 min turn around for my order to be ready in AZ because we want to ride The Bat and Banshee after lunch.) Cool, I place my order, stop for a ride on Boo Blasters on the way. We are walking down IS, I get a text saying my food is ready for pickup with my order number. I get to the pickup station. Give them my order number. I get my food. We grab a table in the new sitting area in AZ. Once done we go for a ride on The Bat.

 

It sounds good typed out, having the capital to put it in place, is another story, but this would free up lines at existing food locations for your once a year park goers, and non meal plan folks making them happy and have more time to spend on souvenirs, games, etc. If you are a guest that comes once a year and spend an hour of your day each time you eat, you are going to skip the shops and games and spend your time in queues for rides. I see the ROI being worth the investment.

[Tr0y]

I don't understand why thread was created, considering the long and lengthy discussion on how poor KI's food concessions from last season in previous threads. I don't feel sorry for anyone renewing their season long meal plan since it was apparent by the park that nothing was going to be done for this season. For those who have bought their first Season long meal plan, my heart ( and stomach ) goes out to you.

[jcgoble3]

I think an idea would be that if someone does have to think about ordering something, they can step off to the side and look over the menu and figure it out on their own terms while the line keeps moving to those who DO figure out what they want to order. 

 

ON TOP OF THIS: If they figure out their order, they can get back into line once the associate is finished working with the people he currently was working with at the time.

 

This also. When I walk into a fast-food joint and don't know what I want, I won't step up to the register until I have determined my entire order. If there are other people behind me when it becomes my turn, I will wave the next party in front of me repeatedly until I'm ready to order, otherwise, I'll inform the cashier that I'm not ready and will need a few minutes, so that they can go do other things (assist with drive-through, etc.) while I think. And if there's a new promotional item on the menu that I might be interested in but I'm not sure about, I won't go up to place my order until I know what questions I have about it, which answers to those questions will lead to me ordering it, and what my backup choice is otherwise. Why can't other people do this?

 

To basically summarize this complaints in this thread as I see them, it seems like the poor food service is partly (some) customers' fault, partly the employees' fault, and partly management's fault. As there's little the park can do about speeding up the customers, and many of the issues with employees appear to stem from being poorly managed, management is the root of the problem here and is where the real fixes need to happen.

[shark6495]

I'm not sure you can blame food service at all on any of the customers. You have to plan for this. And let's take any line in general at KI, if a customer was expected to step to the side where can they do this? At Festhaus there is barely room for 2 people to pass in the Buffett line. At Skyline on IS its the same way SL in CM there is barely a line and it's more a mob.

A restaurant that is not prepared to improve the customer service is set to blame. This is why a Wendy's Restaurant has a line queu that goes to the side versus a straight line. This allows the customer to see the entire menu. Plus there is one register, then drink then food pick up.

McDonalds sets it up so that there are multiple POS with space between for order pick ups and drink machines far enough away to cause a cluster.

There is a reason every Skyline outside of the park is a sit down with waiters.

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[silver2005]

In regards to Skylines' lines, at least KI only has to serve ways, fries and coneys.  On a busy day, our drive-thru line circles the building for customers who order the more complicated things (our fries are cooked to order due to not having a place for them which takes about 3 minutes, wraps, burritos, chilitos, potatoes and salads also take a while to make, chili cheese sandwiches also take slightly longer).  We rarely have people walk in to make take out orders.  I think the in-park Skylines should adopt a similar model (along with adding a few of the items found outside the park).  If they must do it the way they are, they should have numbered tickets and designated areas for customers to wait on food.  Also, they should have at least 4 people manning the steam table instead of 2 with the customer flow they have (that's how we staff at ours during the busy hours, though, we have it where there are 2 people on coneys, one on ways and another at burrito bar, KI should do 2 on coneys and 2 on ways and should have it where workers can work on 2 sides of a steam table).  To top it off they should have at least 2 registers going.  '

I also see they have a pathetic amount of spaghetti and chili to work with at a time and the grills for the hot dogs aren't that big.  It looks like they have to change it out a lot.  Get bigger pots and grills.  Also offer more than 1 size for the ways (we have small, regular and large, KI only has the large size).  That will make things go even faster with having to serve smaller portions.  

 

And for goodness sake, don't drench things in chili unless its requested.  Its just one even flick of the wrist (which takes some practice) to get an even layer across.  I also wonder if KI knows how to make stuff dry and juicy.  

[The Interpreter]

I'm always amazed the LaRosa's and Skylines of the world don't get upset at the "versions" of their products dished out at the park.

For LaRosa's, for example, the pepperoni is atop the cheese on pizzas. In the stores, nope.

[silver2005]

^LaRosa's crust on their hand tossed and thin crust pizzas (the ones most similar to KI's) taste better than in the park.  Setting them under heat lamps doesn't help either.  Also, KI, please add calzones and their good hoagies to the menu.  Please and thank you. 

[The Interpreter]

As if service at LaRosa's in the park wasn't slow enough already.

[silver2005]

If the KI employees really want to see a fast Skyline restaurant, they should go to one of the ones downtown or in Clifton to see how speed is really done.  Its impressive watching those locations go.  

[The Interpreter]

It's primarily not the employees who are the problem or need to see this.

They don't buy the equipment, design the restaurant or the menu.

Management.

Again.

[silver2005]

One more thing before I'm done ranting- Out of curiosity, how does Six Flags implement their dining plan?

[The Interpreter]

In much the same way. They, however, do not seem to be drastically understaffing their food service. And the plans are priced higher.

[ginagirl2020]

I mentioned some of this same info in another thread...but I called them as a friendly FYI to let them know my experiences w/ the very slow food service last year. If they don't know something is wrong they can't fix it. Anyways, I was assured that they are aware of the issue & they have new mgmt in food service who are working to correct it. I hate to say this but I will believe it when I see it. I was discussing this issue w/ my mom & dad and they wondered if mgmt was telling the employees to work slower so that people will get out of line so they don't have to serve as much food. Either way, people need to be held accountable. Whether it is food service mgmt holding the workers accountable Cedar Fair for holding mgmt accountable. Something has to happen. I would've bought the refill bottle this year but they go through the same line as food orders. Imo, it would help GREATLY to make a separate line for drinks in all restaurants. Also, the more complaints they get, the more likely they are to respond. :-)

 

Annnnd, I wondered even if mgmt was telling the employees to work slower so that people will have to wait longer & get out of line...because if that happens less food is served. 

[Kenban]

In much the same way. They, however, do not seem to be drastically understaffing their food service. And the plans are priced higher.

 

Not really, they are pretty different and only higher priced if someone actually paid regular price except they give MASSIVE discounts.  For instance you can check out Great America in Chicago, or Magic Mountain outside of Los Angeles.  Both have a regular price of $199.99 assuming you want the deluxe dining plan.  That sounds a lot higher then Cedar Fair and you would be right if anyone paid that much.  Great America has the deluxe dining plan on sale for $79.99 right now, and Magic Mountain has it on sale for $84.99.  I have checked multiple times and have never seen them regular price.  They always have some sale.  The current one which is the earth day sale started a month ago.  That had a Christmas sale, New Years sale, Easter sale, etc and they all seem to last around a month before they find some new excuse for a sale.

 

Not only is the plan cheaper you get more.  They require you eat lunch and dinner in set windows, Lunch is 11:30 AM to 3:30 PM, while Dinner starts at 4:30 and the ending is based on which park you are visiting.  But on top of getting two meals a day you get one snack a day, so you can get an ice cream, pretzel, Slurpee (they have a partnership with 7-11), Fries, fresh fruit, cotton candy, brownie, cinnamon roll, milk shake, funnel cake, etc.

 

On top of getting more food you also get the season long drink cup as part of the dining plan.  So it is typically cheaper, you get 2 meals, plus a snack every trip, and a season long drink cup.  The only thing that makes the Six Flags plan worse then the Cedar Fair dining plan is that you are forced to eat lunch and dinner in specific windows.  I would be happy to give up our current freedom for the set windows if we gained a snack each trip.

 

Even worse the service is a lot better, the lines move so you are not waiting an hour even if the park is really busy.

[BoddaH1994]

Reading reviews on a Workplace Review Site, Glass Door about KI, I see a general theme from people in food service

Serious Overhaul of Management should be required

Overworked

Almost no breaks(This one has got me curious)

No morale

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Kings-Island-Reviews-E178894.htm

(Note it is like other websites were you have to sign up to read the whole thing. )

Kings Island needs a SERIOUS overhall of its food operations. I think they were doing fairly good in the first years I had a Gold Pass, 2012-2013 but ever since then and especially 2015 and MOST especially this year, it has been getting worse and worse. They have good quality of food on non busy days but when it is busy, they sacrifice quality for quantity and even then they still have those outrageous lines!

They got a new VP of foods (director level) late last year and were in search of a new director a little while after that. I do not have enough information to create an opinion on how things will change, but they will.

[thedaveyboyshow]

I did notice a certain Executive Chef, accompanied by people in business attire, closely watching the lengthy lines at Festhaus (pizza side) and Rivertown Potato Works on Saturday...none of them looked pleased at all.  I think perhaps they know??

[thedaveyboyshow]

I did notice a certain Executive Chef, accompanied by people in business attire, closely watching the lengthy lines at Festhaus (pizza side) and Rivertown Potato Works on Saturday...none of them looked pleased at all.  I think perhaps they know??

Also, I should add...  I have the Dining Plan and chose to get a burger on the pizza side of Festhaus for dinner on Saturday.   The bun was cold, the meat patty was cold, the potato wedges were cold and all of the mustard pumps were completely empty.  This is not a food decision I will employ again in the future.  All of the food was pre-portioned and sat on plates for people to grab.  When I attempted to ask one of the employees behind the food counter, even having eye contact with her when I said "excuse me ma'am" she turned her back to me and walked away from the counter.   I would discourage this counter for your food choice until changes are implimented.  

[Italian Job 2005]

Maybe they weren't pleased with the new manager that they supposedly hired...

[westcoaster]

Bring back international street....restaurant

[diamonbackandbeastlover]

I saw the chef walking around today. Hopefully they get this fixed quick or I feel a lot of the people wanting food who have passes will find other places to eat outside the park. Or in their car.

[Dane]

I can't believe I am saying this as cracked up when I thought about it today. People can't handle the Coke Freestyle machines, its too many options and they get lost. People also need to realize that its not the sampling hour of all these new flavor combos at their disposal. The line being 10 mins long to get a refill is because the guests are slow, nothing else.

 

On the other hand... it took 38 mins to get French Fries today at Rivertown Potato Works. The line was only 13 people deep.