Catering Experience at Amex

[Storer 68]

Lets be honest-for all the talk of fantastic pies, they really aren't. Steak and ale is rancid, chicken and ham has no ham or taste and only the veggie worth eating. They sell because they're the only pies! Why not steak and kidney or chicken and mushroom-traditional pies with flavour. Gave up and took sarnies for Leeds match.

well you could have this bog standard football food.........

or what we are getting.............

They first started reckoning for sales of 5,000 pies - I reckon we are getting through 3 times that for an evening game - certainly double for a weekend game.

hardly a failure in my book.

Viva the pies.

Specially designed pies on offer at the Amex
5:30pm Thursday 12th May 2011

By Neil Vowles

Specially designed pies will be on offer on matchdays at the American Express Community Stadium.

The Amex will be the first stadium in the country to bake its own pies in-house following a unique partnership between the stadium’s catering team and Shoreham-based baker Joanna Philips from Piglet’s Pantry.

More than 5,000 pies will be served from the stadium’s 15 food kiosks for the first game and will be served in a blue and white box with a seagull design.

The pies come in three flavours - steak, ale and mushroom, chicken, gammon and leek and a vegetarian pie made up of butternut squash, coriander, roasted vegetables in a spicy tomato sauce.

New public catering manager, Stuart Laming, who has come from the O2 in London, will oversee the kiosk service and he is delighted that the quality of the food will be so good.

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[Uncle Spielberg]

The pies are f***ing superb and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. STOP moaning. Why is it life or death to have a pint/pie during a 15 minute break ?.

Rewind to Withdean, a shit burger, eating it in the rain in the South Stand.

Be greatful you moaners for what we have at the Amex.

There will be teething problems but FFS give them a chance.

 

[MattBackHome]

It would be interesting to see Azure's SLAs, and the extent to which they are being met (or not.) Is the club pleased with the way things are as they stand?

I agree that Catering vans outside the ground (with the ability to use smartcards) and Beer Only queues would appear to be the most obvious ways of serving more people, faster.

 

[Tooting Gull]

The pies are f***ing superb and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. STOP moaning. Why is it life or death to have a pint/pie during a 15 minute break ?.

Rewind to Withdean, a shit burger, eating it in the rain in the South Stand.

Be greatful you moaners for what we have at the Amex.

There will be teething problems but FFS give them a chance.

Is there a cut-off point for people saying 'Remember Withdean'? FFS, it's like listening to political parties saying 'under the previous government' and blaming them for everything.

Withdean is NOT a point of reference for the bespoke, designed facilities at the Amex.

Don't you get it, theese are people who WANT to spend money but can't? What sort of f**ked up catering business model is that?

As someone else said, there's probably a lot of back-slapping going on over the numbers. But the reality is they could be even better (not to mention making the experience even better for the punter).

 

[Storer 68]

The pies are f***ing superb and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. STOP moaning. Why is it life or death to have a pint/pie during a 15 minute break ?.

Rewind to Withdean, a shit burger, eating it in the rain in the South Stand.

Be greatful you moaners for what we have at the Amex.

There will be teething problems but FFS give them a chance.

or , for even worse matchday catering experience, rewind to Priestfield or the Goldstone............

 

[Storer 68]

Agreed, the Amex ones are shite. Much prefer Pukka or Peters pies at football grounds

Enjoy your salmonella and botulism pies them

 

[southwickseagull]

Another moan. What has happened to the hot dogs? At the first games they were served in a nice crusty roll, with or without onions. Now they're the usual crap served at all other stadia, but only without onions!!! A hot dog without onions? What is the world coming to?

 

[Springal]

Am I the only one that have had consistent pies (at EVERY game) and enjoy them ?

Should say, we are in the WSU, at the far end by the North stand. Queues can be bad but if you go down just before half time, get served in time, eat and drink a pint and back in seat just as it kicks off....

 

[Bozza]

Am I the only one that have had consistent pies (at EVERY game) and enjoy them ?

The pies I've had have all been excellent. I'm a veggie so I'm not having the meatless pie as it's the only thing left, I have them because it's the only one I can eat. In many grounds there is no hot veggie food offering - a packet of crisps is as good as it gets. So having something hot to eat and it being decent gets a big thumbs up from me.

 

[mwrpoole]

Am I the only one that have had consistent pies (at EVERY game) and enjoy them ?

Should say, we are in the WSU, at the far end by the North stand. Queues can be bad but if you go down just before half time, get served in time, eat and drink a pint and back in seat just as it kicks off....

No your not, i'm also in WSU and use the kiosk at the North Stand end between blocks H & I. Never had to Q for more 10 minutes before the game or at half time (admittedly i'm in row C so can get there quicker than most at 1/2 time). Pies always good, only ever ran out of Steak pies once at half time. Also after a few games you get to learn where the food is racked up so you can see what's there and what's not before you get to the front of the Q!

 

[Captain Sensible]

Its not really the quality of the stuff ( it's good for football) but its the service levels that remain the problem. Insider has passed on this thread to the Caterers.

 

[jackcgull]

wsu queues are quite something and seem to fill the whole concourse before the game. come out of the stairs into a wall of people. doesn't bother me, but wouldn't mind trying one of these pies at some point.

 

[y2dave]

I wont bother getting to the ground early or attempting half time purchases any more. Doubt this is a unique experience but heres why:

At the Leeds game I left north stand seat after 40 minutes, joined the shortest queue to get a pint and some hot food. Queue barely moved and I advanced more due to people giving up than those served.

When the second half kicked off I was finally at the the front of the queue after 20+ minutes waiting and probably only 5 people served during that time and many abandoned purchases. After a very tedious wait watching the very confused staff struggle with every order I was told the cut off time for alchohol sales had passed on the last order and that no hot food remained.

By now I was prepared to give up but noticed the guy sat behind the Fosters stand and bought two bottles without any hassle or mention of cut off times.

No way I'm prepared to sacrifice more than a few minutes match time so until service improves my money will be spent elsewhere or not at all.

 

[Munkfish]

The queues at half time are a joke. to have one person serving on each till is obscene.

They need to have two on each till, one collecting whatever is ordered the over taking the money, its really quite simply to organise, McDonalds can do it FFS its really not rocket science.

if they had invested in proper equipment from the start this would of also helped, the fact you have people having to pull pints one at a time is a joke. with a rush like this, the machines which pull several pints at a time would of surely paid for themselves by now and this would then free up people to serve on the till.

im pretty much fed up of waiting 12-13mins to get a pint and then having to down it.

First and last rant about this situation as the staff are doing there best, the management however i do not believe they are.

 

[Springal]

I must admit, e-cash only and beer only queues would probably help. There were some right divvys ordering for 4 people, then trying to work out the cash that caused hold ups. If you're going ot order with your mates, just someone pay it and sort it out or something like that, dont start fannying around with asking for change in pound coins etc etc

 

[mcshane in the 79th]

Not had a bad, or cold, pie yet and I'm into double figures now. Average queue time about 20 minutes - not great and hopefully will improve as the season progresses.

Did they still have the pie and pint kiosks in the WSU for Liverpool or Leeds? I didn't noice them but may not have been paying full attention. They seemed to help a lot.

 

[pishhead]

Go into Aldi on London road for a masterclass on how to serve people quickly and efficiently.
It really does need a productivity expert to get in there and see where they are going wrong and what can be done to make things better, as already mentioned people are simply giving up because of the time spent queuing. Azure need to really get onside with this as they are losing fortunes. In the first few games I spent twenty five quid on each occasion, since then I haven't spent a penny as for me the whole experience is just not worth the outlay.

 

[Tooting Gull]

I see the General Manager at the Amex for the caterers used to be in charge of food sold on Brighton Pier, among his other achievements. Can we expect to see some of those doughnut machines? Sticks of Albion-themed rock?

He has also worked at the O2 and Emirates start-ups, so should know what he's doing. People like that need to be out on the concourses in the hour before kick-off, though.

 

[les dynam]

WSU - the service has definitely got worse up there. I have pretty much given up bothering to buy anything now until after full time. Just wanted a bottle of water on Friday, but those fosters stalls had none left at 7.15 (they usually offer fosters and water).

It saddens me because i WANT TO SPEND MORE MONEY on match day. And i think that's basically the issue, we all love the amex and love going there, and would love to be able to spend more money when we get there. But can't because the service is stupidly slow. That has to worry both Azure and the Club surely - we're a captive thirsty hungry happy audience, please make it quick and easy to hand over our money to you please!

One thing that sums this up, those mini kiosks that have been opened up (i think they were intended for bookies) - there's one in WSU that is staffed by ONE person at half time - this is madness, i don't blame the lad behind the bar, but it takes an age to serve each customer - take the order, get the pies together, poor the drinks, sort out the payment and change - why on earth can't they staff the place properly!

 

[honey boy zimba]

catering

Azure have never actually set up a stadium from the start and I think there lies the problem they have always taken over another companies staff and expirience .Also the only local thing the buy is the beer and pies every thing else comes from Brake Bros who surply schools and harvesters ect so menus are nort very creative and they only produce 80% in aroom so if you run out its tough on you 1901 ers .