sort the catering out please. its farcical

[BN9 BHA]

As the turnover of staff is so high then having extensive training/induction programmes wouldn't make sense. And as trained bar staff aren't necessarily likely to pick the 20 game a season option of working at the Albion once or twice a week then you're left with unskilled students etc who won't have had 150 HOURS or so.
I've been to over 70 odd matches at the Amex now and i've never once had the wrong pie, a bad pint, or (really) bad service. A little bit of confusion from time to time but thats it. I've just had to stand in a queue for 5-10 mins max.

What stand are you in Jem?

 

[chaileyjem]

What stand are you in Jem?

WSU . Also I deliberately get there in time for an order by 2.20pm at the latest.

 

[The Large One]

Sodexo are a large multinational corporate catering company. That said they sell local ales and local pies as part of their contracts at many clubs where they do the match day food (Huddersfield, Goodison, Headingley etc) and are seemingly proud of it. Clearly their bid and the reasons they won, given that they still remain on the menu two seasons on into a four year contract, its almost certain that their winning bid was actually dependent on it selling Piglets/Harveys .

What Sodexho want to do and what they are obliged to do aren't necessarily one and the same.

I was watching the poor lass in the WSU 'betting kiosk' on Saturday, working on her own. She was pulling pints, serving pies and taking the money. She had no assistance, and the floor managers / support staff were nowhere to be seen. She ran out of pies without anyone coming by to check what needed topping up. Needless to say, she was getting a certain amount of unnecessary grief from customers (sorry, fans).

Obviously, service was slower than it should be / has been, but for the most part, she appeared to cope, but it was no thanks to anyone not helping her.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I would add that some fans are just as bad as the staff.

Waiting in the Seven Stars, the person ordering in front of me, who'd been waiting a fair amount of time to get it all sorted in his head, ordered item by item….so staff member said 'what would you like'….'pint of Heineken'…..staff member brings back pint…..'and a pint of Amstel'……same again, pint comes back…..'and a bag of crisps'……same again….'and 2 cokes'……so the staff member has done about 5 unnecessary journeys because the f*ckwit fan next to me can't reel off his order in one go.

Same as the fans who get to the front of the kiosk after 20mins, then promptly start shouting to all their mates or surrounding family what they want - you utter tools, you've got less bloody brain cells than the people serving you!

 

[Hastings gull]

More expensive prices but very poor service, not good you would think. The club should be busting a gut to get this right seeing as it is a vital revenue stream

A friend of mine is in the catering business, and says that it is expensive for the firm to train people during out of hours time, as they would incur costs, which they avoid by simply putting them in on match days and hope for the best. That way they are just paid on the day as opposed to payments for training time. I am NOT justifying this, just saying how it could well be that the staff at times seem so clueless and slow. One East Stand Upper queue was slow as the young lad seemed to struggle with the till.

 

[BN9 BHA]

WSU . Also I deliberately get there in time for an order by 2.20pm at the latest.

I usually get there about 2.30 and I did get served quicker this week as I went to the mobile bar ( express bar or whatever) near the middle of the WSU, before the Charlton match I went to the pie & pint counter and waited 20 minutes in a queue for a pint.

My seat is at the North end of the WSU but the nearest kiosk is is the wrong position IMO as every one coming up the stairs has to get through everyone queuing up, there are also fans standing by the window talking/ drinking, so it's always chaos there.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Was in the WSU as usual on saturday and was pretty appalled by the behaviour of some of our fans at halftime shouting at the staff from the queue. All pretty embarrassing truth be told, are you really that desperate for a pint at HT? The service did seem a little slow but I'm afraid I cannot get too exercised about it at halftime, I either get served or I go an retake my seat.

As a side note the Harveys was bang on on saturday, an absolute belter of a pint.

 

[Questions]

I agree with you on having beers poured and ready, but the lady is correct as near the end of last season some bloke kicked off about having a pre poured beer, this was in the WSU in the North kiosk after the match, all of the serving staff stopped work to see what was going on.

A few of these mobile beer pumps are required, and at least one needs to be open at the end of the match in the WSU even if it's for only 30 minutes after the final whistle.

On Saturday after the match in the WSU middle kiosk at one time I counted 7 staff around the Harvey's beer pump waiting for 1 person to pour pints.

The only time I could see that it would be a problem pre-pouring would be if they did it too early for the end of game drinks. One idiot kicking off should just have been told that the majority want a quicker service so they are pre-poured to help things move quicker.
Did this guy think an unattended pint might have had rohypnol slipped in it or something ? Christ I,d be glad of that after watching the sort of dross served up on Saturday.

 

[Questions]

Was in the WSU as usual on saturday and was pretty appalled by the behaviour of some of our fans at halftime shouting at the staff from the queue. All pretty embarrassing truth be told, are you really that desperate for a pint at HT? The service did seem a little slow but I'm afraid I cannot get too exercised about it at halftime, I either get served or I go an retake my seat.

As a side note the Harveys was bang on on saturday, an absolute belter of a pint.

It's football for gods sake man not the cheap tickets in the stalls for the Monday matinee performance at the local cinema. GET IT SORTED .

 

[Rogero]

We always double up on the rounds and get two pints at once. It saves queueing again.

 

[Questions]

What Sodexho want to do and what they are obliged to do aren't necessarily one and the same.

I was watching the poor lass in the WSU 'betting kiosk' on Saturday, working on her own. She was pulling pints, serving pies and taking the money. She had no assistance, and the floor managers / support staff were nowhere to be seen. She ran out of pies without anyone coming by to check what needed topping up. Needless to say, she was getting a certain amount of unnecessary grief from customers (sorry, fans).

Obviously, service was slower than it should be / has been, but for the most part, she appeared to cope, but it was no thanks to anyone not helping her.

This is most certainly what is happening all around the ground. I have felt really sorry for some of these kids trying their utmost to serve quickly but they just haven't had adequate training or they they are just left on their own.

 

[Crennis]

My biggest complaint recently was the bloke who served me in WSU before the Charlton game was unable to differentiate between the different units of british currency, fortunately I eventually got the correct change but only after he'd examined each coin as if it had been dug up from a Roman ruin.

 

[Seagull1989]

So if its not financially viable to train someone, why not set them a sales target or a certain time span that a transaction should take and then reward them if this is hit. This will encourage them to work a bit quicker.
The girl at the pie and beer kiosk in the north stand didn't have any sense of urgency at all. They also didn't have any fosters there, I wasnt drinking it but how can this happen on a match day.

The other problem is that all the kiosks sell different things now, only guest pies or only hot dogs . It seems these kiosks aren't popular so the queues for chicken or steak pies are longer

 

[Prince Monolulu]

Have mentioned before, but Shirley the basiccest of basic training would prevent one member of staff trying to force my season ticket into the credit/debit card reader before I had to remove it from his grasp quite forcibly to prevent damage prior to placing delicately upon the correct scanner.

 

[Langley]

Agency people serving who Dont know What they are doing and done
care.Massive queues in the Upper West making it impossible to get served . Get permanente staff and manage it yourselves . Bloke who served me yesterday did not know What a snickers bar looked like. Why Is nt it as good as the first year ? Why Dont you want to sell us stuff quickly and efficiently . Poor and unprofessional . Has anyone else any thoughts on how we might improve things ?

The guy who served me in Lower West asked me if I wanted milk in my Bovril, absolutely true.

 

[The Large One]

So if its not financially viable to train someone, why not set them a sales target or a certain time span that a transaction should take and then reward them if this is hit. This will encourage them to work a bit quicker.

I don't know about the current caterers, but Azure did set a target time of 'request to closed till' transaction (50 seconds I think it was). The best kiosk team got a bonus.

It was fine in principle, but it meant it wasn't open to everyone, and still relied on outside support.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

It really does need looking at. It's now very noticeable that the numbers staying on for a post-match drink have fallen dramatically because very disappointingly, 3 years after the Amex opened, the service where I sit, in the WSU, has got worse. On Saturday, once again, there were loads of people wanting a post-match pint but gave up as it was taking an absurdly long time for people to be served. It's no better at half-time and virtually impossible to leave your seat on the half-time whistle, get a drink or a bite to eat, and be back for the start of the second half. It should be possible to do that . I don't know why the bar staff don't just line up dozens of pints like they do at the cricket. Most fans accept some queuing is inevitable but how long is it reasonable to wait to be served?

 

[champion7]

You think the home parts are bad,I had 200 Blackpool fans and catering couldn't keep up with demands.

 

[Greavsey]

Have to say my catering experience has massively improved since moving season ticket from West Upper to the Lower this year. Much more pleasurable experience. I'm sure the service staff are no different, so must be something to do with capacity, assume the lower has less customers (fans).

 

[Superphil]

It really does need looking at. It's now very noticeable that the numbers staying on for a post-match drink have fallen dramatically because very disappointingly, 3 years after the Amex opened, the service where I sit, in the WSU, has got worse.

I think this is the real point that should be addressed. Getting worse, year on year, seems ridiculous. On Saturday in the overline lounge the chillers on the beer lines had packed up about 1:30pm on one of the bars, that didn't stop them (trying) to carry on serving, warm lager does not pour very well, let's just say there was a lot of foam. The barman then proceeded to wipe, with his fingers, the foam from around the rim of my glass. I told him not to bother, and he just said, "well it's been like that all day because the chillers aren't working today".

This is a debacle on at least 2 levels, firstly that they (the staff and, therefore, Sodexo) knew the chiller wasn't working, so why did they carry on serving? Secondly, how hard is it to "train" someone not to wipe their fingers around the rim of a glass, or to hand over a glass by holding it by the rim?