another moan about last night...BUT THIS ONE IS NOT SERIOUS

[clapham_gull]

Last nights catering expereince of the refreshment staff.

Me: Can I have 2 pints and 2 halves please?

Azure person: Sorry we don't do halves.

Me: Yes you do, that's what i ordered. and recieved last time.

Azure: Not from this till:

Me: I think you'll find it was you know.

Azure: Well not fro me, we dont have small beakers.

Me: What are they then, those smaller ones next to the pint ones?

Azure: Dunno.

Me: OK, can I have 2 pints and 2 lagers in the smaller beakers please?

Azure: I'll have to charge you for pints for the smaller ones, the till doesn't do half prices.

Me: Yes it does, thats what I got charged last time. Look, never mind, can I have 3 pints please and could you give me 2 of those smaller glasses aswell.

Azure: No.

Me: i think you may need to try another proffesion.

This conversation really happened, WSU North End last bar.

Reminded of last Christmas in a pub in Balham. A good pub by the way - a big Youngs.

"Can I have a half of lager and a half of bitter (whatever it was)"

Person behind the bar disappeared for ages whilst a queue developed behind me.

"What's wrong...." "No idea...."

Finally they returned behind the bar but were deep in conversation with the manager. They come over...

"Are you sure you want half a lager and half a bitter ?"

"Yes"

"In the same glass ?"

"No"

"But you asked for half a lager and a half of bitter ?"

"Yes, but can I have them in separate glasses ?"

"Not together ?"

"No on their own...."

Bar was in hysterics.

 

[alan partridge]

some of these are great! keep em coming

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Last nights catering expereince of the refreshment staff.

Me: Can I have 2 pints and 2 halves please?

Azure person: Sorry we don't do halves.

Me: Yes you do, that's what i ordered. and recieved last time.

Azure: Not from this till:

Me: I think you'll find it was you know.

Azure: Well not fro me, we dont have small beakers.

Me: What are they then, those smaller ones next to the pint ones?

Azure: Dunno.

Me: OK, can I have 2 pints and 2 lagers in the smaller beakers please?

Azure: I'll have to charge you for pints for the smaller ones, the till doesn't do half prices.

Me: Yes it does, thats what I got charged last time. Look, never mind, can I have 3 pints please and could you give me 2 of those smaller glasses aswell.

Azure: No.

Me: i think you may need to try another proffesion.

This conversation really happened, WSU North End last bar.

This reminds me of the time I tried to buy a red pepper in Tesco's. I only wanted one. They only had them in packs of three. I reluctantly took a pack of three to the checkout, paid for it, and then opened the pack up and gave a pepper to each of the two people standing behind me in the queue.

"You can't do that!" shrieked the woman working the till.

I'm still trying to work out what I did that was WRONG.

 

[pauli cee]

I queued for 20 mins to get a pie...

I get to the front and quite clearly said Steak Pie and a Fosters please..

I then move to get a fork..

Fork pierces pie and its bloody CHICKEN.....

Pie returned but woman said sorry u put afork in it so we cant re sell it..

AND IT WAS COLD!!!!

All fair enough having some idiot dressed in chefs outfit but the pies are not even hot and the right flavour...

Its all going down hill on the catering front...

get a life!

 

[pastafarian]

i had a steak pie at half time,it was scorching hot and had massive chunks of meat in.
this left me so confused as to whether i was actually at a football match i left early.........well it beats blaming the transport system!

 

[BUTTERBALL]

I had my first experience of truly shocking service on Monday night in the East stand catering area.

I asked for an (ultimately cold) chicken pie and a pint and went to pay. There was £4.58 left on my swipe card and i handed the idiotic 'couldn't care less' girl a tenner and told her to take the difference from there.

She then proceeded to hand me about £3.50's worth of change in 5p and 10p pieces (without apologising about all the change). I asked "what about the balance on the card" as i wanted to use that first. Her reply "machine didn't work" (she hadn't even mentioned it to me)! I handed back the change and told her to try another machine. After tutting, she called her supervisor who went to another till and it worked no problem.

He then went to get some change and sorted out the problem. He told me it was a penny short, i said forget it. Finally, when i walked away, i realise they had actually short changed me by 30p.

This was AFTER the game when there was no queue whatsoever and the staff were just standing around.

The whole incident took nearly 10 minutes to sort out and the attitude of that girl is disgusting, she should not be working there.

These catering staff issues should have been sorted out by now. I never thought i would say it but it makes the Withdean catering trailer staff look like they have been trained by Marco Pierre White!

 

[jezzer]

catering is awful, stopped eating there now if poss, queued for ages to get pie before the liverpool game to be told theyd run out, so only option was sausage, they ran out of pies before half time this week, its appaling service, wouldnt mind but there is such a lack of choice if they have run out of pies youre pretty stuffed

If they run out of their mainstay what the f*** are they cooking?? How can you run out of your mainstay before the game even starts.

its fine some of you taking the piss, but its lost revenue for the club as much as sheer bad service

 

[The Grockle]

No problems like that in the away end.

What's the away end like then? Hopefully my seggestion of offering the away team's local tipple is going down a treat... i trust they didn't run out of WKD blue for your visit!?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Not going to join in the moaning, as it really was not a big deal for me, but I've had the wrong pie too.

Perhaps they should identify them a little more clearly, to make it easier.

 

[Frank Gallagher]

I queued for 20 mins to get a pie...

I get to the front and quite clearly said Steak Pie and a Fosters please..

I then move to get a fork......

Fork pierces pie and its bloody CHICKEN.....

Pie returned but woman said sorry u put afork in it so we cant re sell it..

AND IT WAS COLD!!!!

All fair enough having some idiot dressed in chefs outfit but the pies are not even hot and the right flavour...

Its all going down hill on the catering front...

Next time, trying adding razor blades to your pie.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I've skipped all but the first page of this moan but can I say this.

During our presentations we were assured that the catering at the Amex would offer more than your average offering of burgers,pies& hotdogs.
When we attended a familiarisation evening it seemed to be true with noodles & curries on offer so what has changed.

Has making all the pies on site reduced the capacity to provide a more varied choice of food on offer.

Basically because the pies have been so successful they have kept the other items off the menu to keep it simple for the staff and for the storage of the food. They do intend to vary the offerings at a later date.

FWIW, I managed to get a veggie burger and a pint in about 2mins on monday and never had to queue much longer than that for subsequent pints later. I thought there was an improvement in service on monday.

 

[The Large One]

Basically because the pies have been so successful they have kept the other items off the menu to keep it simple for the staff and for the storage of the food. They do intend to vary the offerings at a later date.

It's a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy though, isn't it? Pies are popular because they're the only decent thing on the menu.

Give us the choice of foods, and the pie consumption will drop.

FWIW, I managed to get a veggie burger and a pint in about 2mins on monday and never had to queue much longer than that for subsequent pints later. I thought there was an improvement in service on monday.

I actually found the service at the stadium was fine for me. Got my pie and pint after the game, and knowing that my e-account thing would be short, asked if I could pay part card, part cash. After the howling on here, I'd though that somewhere down the line the service person would burst into tears, or crumble to dust or spontaneously combust. No such drama.

'No problem', she said. I came in £1.81 short, so gave her £2.00 and rather than faff about with change, got 20p back. So I came out of that little transaction one penny up.

Get in.

Uh-huh.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Just want to say again that I had a chicken pie in WSU at half time and it was probably the BEST one I have had yet, and that takes some beating believe me.

 

[ROSM]

What did Azure say when you bitched and moaned to them via email?

Sorry TLO but I dont see that anything here is a case of 'bitching'. Your response is neither helpful nor accurate.

yes as customers the complaint should be raised with Azure - but I'm not sure that they seem that bothered (like some other aspects of the club) to respond to issues raised. The kneejerk response seems to be that customer concerns are moans - they're not. they are however opportunities to engender good will.

Ultimately the catering promised at the stadium has not materialised in a consistent manner;

- The menu has been reduced and is now not as varied as promised,

- the quality of the food has reduced (and this is the frustration as it clearly has been proved that quality is possible as we've all seem to have had examples of good quality pies)

- food is treated poorly (so pies are microwaved or served cold)

- the staff seem to have issues in the basics of mass food catering. Dont blame the wages because Burger King and McDonalds seem to be able to produce fast, sometimes complex (albeit banal) food in a consistent manner on minimum wage

Now you had Elliott on the Roar a few weeks ago and he seemed to recognise the shortcomings but I cant say there has been any measurable improvement since then.

I understand in the grand scheme of things that the food at a football ground is not a huge issue but dont belittle people who do have concerns with it. The club is reliant on people to arrive early and stay late in order to make the transport challenge manageable and catering (as well as sorting out the transport) are key struts in this. Currently this is costing the club, if not financially, certainly reputationally.

 

[The Large One]

You appear to consider that you're talking for everyone, Adrian. You may even be speaking for the majority - who knows? You're not, however, speaking for me. My experience at the ground has been, for the most part, fine, but that doesn't make for an interesting thread, does it?

I understand people have issues and concerns about the quality of the food and service, but as Elliott says, they receive hardly any feedback. What they do receive, they promise to work on - whether they have or not is down to each individual's own experience.

Obviously, serving the wrong pie is a totally daft, but my original point is that I'm still curious as to what can be gained by coming on here to say what has happened while NOT contacting Azure.

 

[ROSM]

You appear to consider that you're talking for everyone, Adrian. You may even be speaking for the majority - who knows? You're not, however, speaking for me. My experience at the ground has been, for the most part, fine, but that doesn't make for an interesting thread, does it?

I understand people have issues and concerns about the quality of the food and service, but as Elliott says, they receive hardly any feedback. What they do receive, they promise to work on - whether they have or not is down to each individual's own experience.

Obviously, serving the wrong pie is a totally daft, but my original point is that I'm still curious as to what can be gained by coming on here to say what has happened while NOT contacting Azure.

Al - I'm not talking for everyone. I'm not even talking for you (you are more than capable to do that for yourself). But clearly this and other threads previously, indicate that there is a significant amount of issues being encountered with the catering service given that perhaps only 1 tenth of the crowd read let alone post onm NSC but after every game there is at least 3 or 4 pages of concerns raised.

What i will say is that the point you did make was put in a confrontational way which was neither necessary or accurate.

Interestingly I've NOT received a response from Azure to a question I raised twice with them. But then I also didnt receive a response to an issue I raised with Customer services. perhaps I'm an isolated incident?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The pie box has a tick on the side saying what kind of pie it is. If the pie turns out not to be what it says on the box take it back. It'll clearly have fork/teeth marks in it because how else are you going to tell what the contents are without trying it? If they won't change it or give you a refund, speak to the manager. Mentioning trading standards should do the trick. Clearly its the catering company's mistake and they need to put it right. After they've had to throw away a number of mis-sold pies they should finally twig that its denting their profits.

 

[swindonseagull]

The pie box has a tick on the side saying what kind of pie it is. If the pie turns out not to be what it says on the box take it back. It'll clearly have fork/teeth marks in it because how else are you going to tell what the contents are without trying it? If they won't change it or give you a refund, speak to the manager. Mentioning trading standards should do the trick. Clearly its the catering company's mistake and they need to put it right. After they've had to throw away a number of mis-sold pies they should finally twig that its denting their profits.

Why not clearer marking? coloured boxes? the catering staff dont appear to be the brightest and should the customer really have to check a little cross on the side after ordering steak over chicken?

 

[swindonseagull]

Next time, trying adding razor blades to your pie.

Yet another one with nothing important or constructive to add.....BUT HE THINKS HE IS FUNNY TO TRY AND GET A LAUGH......WANKER!!

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Why not clearer marking? coloured boxes? the catering staff dont appear to be the brightest and should the customer really have to check a little cross on the side after ordering steak over chicken?

Not sure that would help very much. The one time it happened to me, the box was marked chicken and the contents were veggie. Felt a bit cheated but ate it anyway as I'd never tried the veggie (and won't be trying it again). If it was the other way round and I was a veggie who got served a meat pie I'd be pretty pissed off and would have no option but to take it back. The problem is down to the catering staff not putting the right pies in the right boxes.