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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 13:33:18 GMT 1
Guys and Gals
As most of you are probably aware, there has over the course of this season been a rising number of comments/complaints, made about the current state of the catering facilities and services at the Stadium.
Sodexo, the company that runs the catering at the JSS, have recently undergone changes within their management, and have made it clear that they wish to improve upon the relatively poor services that have been offered to date.
A member of their team has created a DATM account, and they want to heat YOUR views.
Please use this thread to post your experiences of the catering facilities at the Stadium, and any ideas you may have for improvement.
Please try to keep it clean and productive, and not turn it into a slanging match, this is about highlighting where things have gone wrong, and where they can be improved.
Thanks,
Chris
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Post by SODEXO@HTAFC on Jan 20, 2015 13:39:38 GMT 1
Sodexo at the John Smith’s Stadium are pleased introduce themselves on Down at the Mac. This will be a great platform to inform you of new changes, future plans and for you the fans, to submit constructive feedback / suggestions for improvement. We are a relatively new team at the stadium and really want to improve the entire match day catering service. We are positive with your assistance we can make the John Smith’s Stadium the best in The Football League.
Sodexo Team
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Post by Sio on Jan 20, 2015 14:03:59 GMT 1
Plenty of comments on catering on this board- perfect opportunity for people to put them forward to the company dealing with it.
I'm sure they'll welcome feedback good and bad.
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Post by mids on Jan 20, 2015 14:05:32 GMT 1
Sodexo at the John Smith’s Stadium are pleased introduce themselves on Down at the Mac. This will be a great platform to inform you of new changes, future plans and for you the fans, to submit constructive feedback / suggestions for improvement. We are a relatively new team at the stadium and really want to improve the entire match day catering service. We are positive with your assistance we can make the John Smith’s Stadium the best in The Football League. Sodexo Team I love your enthusiasm, and I applaud your aims. "Shoot for the stars and you may just hit the moon"....We'd all settle for that, as it's clear there's a hell of a way to get there. My suggestions would be: Employ staff who understand English Train the staff on the menu and its pricing Be prepared for the half time rush...have drinks pre-pulled....reduced queues equals quicker service and may encourage more people to sample your wares |
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Post by ruud1boy on Jan 20, 2015 14:13:55 GMT 1
Suggestions for improvement;
- prepour a load of pints ready for half-time. It shouldn't be too difficult to work out rough projections of demand, based on sales in recent weeks, weather, that day's opposition etc. Work out how many you think you'll sell from a particular hatch, knock 20-25% off that number to mitigate / avoid wastage, then pre-pour that many.
- Invest in those machines that pour 6 pints at a time. Don't know how much they cost, this may outweight the potential increase in sales and / or customer satisfaction, but one of these units per hatch would be a real benefit.
- Sell pre-paid tickets for ale, like they do in the theatre. I want 3 pints of Smiths at half-time, so I visit the hatch before kick-off, place my order and pay for it - they give me some sort of of receipt / ticket, which I then redeem at half-time for my 3 pints, which have been pre-poured during the 1st half. No danger of wastage from your perspective, as I've already paid for the beer, if I don't collect it, it's only me losing out.
- Much the same as Town, trim down the offering (squad) to a smaller amount of better quality items (players). Does anyone really buy burger & chips??
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Post by Marco4 on Jan 20, 2015 14:14:37 GMT 1
A member of their team has created a DATM account, and they want to heat YOUR views. Heating the food would be better, to be fair. Have to say the only recent experience of food/drink I've had at the JSS in the recent past has been disappointing - hot drinks served without lids on cold days, and a fairly tasteless and long-time warm hot dog. Both would be fairly easy to remedy, I'd have thought. |
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Post by jkempf1 on Jan 20, 2015 14:21:13 GMT 1
The problems I face with catering are mainly based around the staff which I'll come on to.
The food itself is OK for a football stadium. I'd say the pies are above average, the hot dogs average, and the burgers below average (maybe something to look into there. Seems to be sloppy, fake meat in a soggy bun with no flavour!)
Drinks are to be expected - tea, coffee, bovril all fine, pricing a little steep but not outrageous for a football stadium. Alcoholic drinks standard, one bitter, one lager, no qualms.
This is where I feel the problem lies, and I speak as a season card attend ever weeker person:
1) The staff seem generally uninterested and slow. With a few exceptions they seem to struggle with basic duties like serving a hot drink or pouring a pint. I've found that a lot of the staff also struggle with the financials and are slow to make basic calculations which in turn holds up the queue.
2) HALF TIME. The busiest time for a football catering service I have no doubt. A lot of stadiums pre-pull pints which saves a great deal of time as well as creating clearly marked separate queues for hot drinks, cold drinks, alcoholic drinks, hot food, cold food etc. I've found this keeps this improves flow, therefore increasing customer satisfaction as well as sales figures.
3) Why is the food in the Football Media Lower different from the rest of the ground? I'm sure there's a reasonable answer for this I just haven't heard it yet!
Hope you can take suggestions on board and make improvements which are much needed.
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Post by Is It Eidur Gudjohnsen on Jan 20, 2015 14:24:04 GMT 1
My biggest issue is to do with the quality of food on offer. On a night game I don't have time to get anything to eat before a match so food at the ground is my only hot food option but it is very poor. Its understood that as a service provider Sodexo will want to be as price competitive as possible whilst maintaining their margins but if there were higher quality options as well that would be a bonus.
As I imagine the food is "cook chill" type it cant be too difficult as the actual work is done off site and the operatives heating it up wont have any more difficult a job to do. If that were on offer then I would probably buy it more often rather than a rubbish sarnie from the supermarket.
The hot drinks are pretty poor, Im surprised its not viable to have a proper coffee shop style service at say one of the outlets in a stand as you only have to look at the queues for Costa near the ground and trends nationally to know there is a market for it. I again would buy a coffee if it were better quality but at present its terrible.
Training is probably an issue aswell. With this type of service I have no doubt there is very high staff turnover but if there were say 1 more qualified person per concession to supervise then it would help identify issues and improve service all around.
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Post by royrace on Jan 20, 2015 14:27:55 GMT 1
Well done on soliciting feedback, great idea, be prepared to receive quite a lot  For me I'm not expecting gourmet and I'm not expecting cheap, what I do expect is a very basic level of service, I expect to be served by someone who is capable of doing the job. I personally think the only way you'll improve is by hiring staff of the correct calibre. The vast majority of staff you employ seem to be: De motivated (poorly paid?) Lots have a poor understanding of the English language, some very poor. Most look like they've never seen a beer pump before and don't know how to work a till. Every single week it looks like you've literally dragged 4 people off the street and thrown them behind the counter at half time without a minutes training. It really is so bad its funny sometimes but I've never experienced as bad anywhere before! As well as being unable to carry out basic tasks like pulling a pint and taking money the stock control seems to be virtually non existent. The number of times they've run out of items even before half time is ridiculous. If you want to improve matters tenfold just do this: Employ capable staff who can understand English and ensure they're trained and supervised correctly. Don't get a fresh batch of new people in each week, I know its not exactly a great career path but it should be possible for you to retain part time staff if you pay and treat them properly. Ensure there is one person of responsibility at each concession capable of ensuring you don't run out of the basics. The vast majority of what you sell is pints, get a machine capable of doing 4 at a time and part pull them, work out a simple system for speeding things up. It's VERY easy and most other clubs do it. Take the time to watch the carnage at half time, you'll soon realise what the problems are! Once you've done that I dare say takings will go through the roof as people realise they have a chance of getting served at half time without needing to go down 5 minutes early. Good Luck |
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Post by Baby Ate My Eight Ball on Jan 20, 2015 14:41:41 GMT 1
- Have a load of pints pre-poured for half time. This would solve about 90% of your problems and probably triple your turnover
- Have one of those 6 pint pourers in each stand
- As someone else said, maybe a ticket scheme would quicken things up
- I'm in the FM Lower and adding a cup of soup to your menu would be great, I'm usually half frozen to death and soup would be better than tea
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Post by otium (EPBS) on Jan 20, 2015 14:48:29 GMT 1
I only ever have a drink, I cannot for the life in me understand why any sane person would want to eat at a football game or on the hoof.
Get some of those machines that fill 10 pints at once from a hole in the bottom of the glass.
Round up or down all prices to speed transactions.
Give staff maths and English tests as all the ones I have dealt with have seemed slow in the head and even slower of body. Try some over 50s who understand service and reliability..whats with all the mumbling, surly kids?
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Post by detox on Jan 20, 2015 14:59:10 GMT 1
One initiative I've seen at other grounds is to have staff with back packs full of beer/lager or hot drinks..and walk around the concourse dispensing from the back pack. this could extend to delivering warm drinks in the stands even.maybe at the bottom of the steps...yes more staff, but I'm sure a hot soup or whatever would go down well with the frozen fans who don't fancy the rugby scrum in the concourses.
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janeo
Iain Dunn Terrier
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Post by janeo on Jan 20, 2015 15:18:26 GMT 1
Make sure you supply what is advertised. I went to the ground at a reasonable time before kick off and wanted some wine (as advertised) to be told there wasn't any. Also one of the members of my group went to get a hot drink at half time to be told they'd run out of lids for the paper cups. Surely these aren't hard to come by or expensive!!
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Post by Skint Terriers on Jan 20, 2015 15:22:15 GMT 1
as people are saying the staff can be a bit of an issues. They seem a bit clueless and all bottle it under pressure at half when there's a rush.
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Post by Baby Ate My Eight Ball on Jan 20, 2015 15:46:59 GMT 1
One initiative I've seen at other grounds is to have staff with back packs full of beer/lager or hot drinks..and walk around the concourse dispensing from the back pack. this could extend to delivering warm drinks in the stands even.maybe at the bottom of the steps...yes more staff, but I'm sure a hot soup or whatever would go down well with the frozen fans who don't fancy the rugby scrum in the concourses. Yeah I've seen this but not sure how efficient it would be compared to a few 6 pint pourers, or whatever. It's great if they could come into the stands with hot drinks, but obviously they wouldn't be able to serve booze (they did that in the stands at Hamburg when I went the other year and it was class). If they were selling bottles of beer though they would do a roaring trade. |
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Post by Essex Terrier on Jan 20, 2015 15:47:30 GMT 1
I only ever have a drink, I cannot for the life in me understand why any sane person would want to eat at a football game or on the hoof. Get some of those machines that fill 10 pints at once from a hole in the bottom of the glass. Round up or down all prices to speed transactions. Give staff maths and English tests as all the ones I have dealt with have seemed slow in the head and even slower of body. Try some over 50s who understand service and reliability..w hats with all the mumbling, surly kids? They are cheap, you can treat them like shit and they still come back for more and you can hire 'em and fire 'em at a whim - what's not to like hey, SODEXO?!! Not within SODEXO remit, but what about the positioning of the TV in the Fantastic Upper - it couldn't be worse!! Right where folk want to watch the TV, get from the refreshment area & the loos and the queues for refreshments! It really needs sorting! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 15:49:53 GMT 1
Often runs out of food by half time.
Disappointed dad and 3 kids and you miss a bit of my money.
Top stuff coming on here and asking though. Gives me hope Jo'ana, Hope Jo'ana 'til the morning come.
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Post by Big Ern on Jan 20, 2015 15:59:10 GMT 1
Bring back them proper rollover hotdogs, the early 2000's ones. They were the shizzle
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Post by scoffsablue on Jan 20, 2015 16:04:10 GMT 1
My Sodexo wish list so far is for.....Fully trained staff to resolve service issues when they occur and reduce queuing to a minimum. All catering staff to have name badges and ID eg team leader/supervisor etc for a more personal service and to compliment or report based upon the service level received... Fully stocked food and drink outlets to ensure continuity of service....An additional larger and permanent fixture in the North Stand Lower that serves both food & drink so you don't have to queue up twice if you require both and to take the pressure off the individual mobile food and drink outlets....I am aware that the quality of the food has improved and would now like to see a wider variety of both food and beers.....A timescale as to when you believe these things can be achieved....Best of luck Sodexo...good to see you've opened yourself up to change and opinion via this board....Hopefully Town fans will take this opportunity as a positive and use the feedback facility via DATM in the same manner.
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Post by Frankiesleftpeg on Jan 20, 2015 16:41:06 GMT 1
Sodexo - Get yourself to the Vulcan in town around 1pm on a Saturday afternoon and watch how they manage to serve goodish cheap ale & food when its absolutely heaving. Might just pick up a tip or two.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 16:48:06 GMT 1
Sodexo - Get yourself to the Vulcan in town around 1pm on a Saturday afternoon and watch how they manage to serve goodish cheap ale & food when its absolutely heaving. Might just pick up a tip or two. About 1000 years ago they served me beer at the age of 14. Top pub! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 16:58:33 GMT 1
A bit more choice on the beer front would be good, at the moment I don't buy anything because I don't like lager or John Smiths.What I didn't know was that John Smiths is part of the Heineken group which owns Newcastle Brown and loads of others, I understand there might be a space issue but the odd guest beer/lager now and again might go down well.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2015 16:59:54 GMT 1
Sodexo - Get yourself to the Vulcan in town around 1pm on a Saturday afternoon and watch how they manage to serve goodish cheap ale & food when its absolutely heaving. Might just pick up a tip or two. About 1000 years ago they served me beer at the age of 14. Top pub! Spoke to Pete on Saturday night, Silver Myst no longer on tap after this week.  It's his best seller and my favourite, he can't understand why it's been pulled. Said he's hoping for a decent substitute.  |
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Post by terrierfortythree on Jan 20, 2015 17:06:43 GMT 1
get them meal deals back that were on in august
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Post by Frankiesleftpeg on Jan 20, 2015 17:13:09 GMT 1
About 1000 years ago they served me beer at the age of 14. Top pub! Spoke to Pete on Saturday night, Silver Myst no longer on tap after this week. It's his best seller and my favourite, he can't understand why it's been pulled. Said he's hoping for a decent substitute. Ask him to get the Rat to brew him a barrel or two of White Rat. It'll go down a storm.  |
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Post by BoltonTerrier on Jan 20, 2015 17:32:32 GMT 1
For me I'd just prefer some healthier choices for my kid and some better beer choices for me. Plastic bottles of speckled hen or similar would do down a treat. Failing that something half decent. Fosters and John Smiths are absolutely diabolical
-Plently of great breweries and pie shops in the vicinity. Surely you could look into tying up some local deals?
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Post by Is It Eidur Gudjohnsen on Jan 20, 2015 17:43:44 GMT 1
For me I'd just prefer some healthier choices for my kid and some better beer choices for me. Plastic bottles of speckled hen or similar would do down a treat. Failing that something half decent. Fosters and John Smiths are absolutely diabolical -Plently of great breweries and pie shops in the vicinity. Surely you could look into tying up some local deals?
Agree on the healthy choice bit. This is a problem in this country as elsewhere you can get healthy take away food but we don't seem to do it over here.
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Post by galpharm2400 on Jan 20, 2015 17:44:52 GMT 1
Britannia stand.. from the cinema end the first kiosk serves everything that the other two do apart from coffee? ? when asked why this was, the staff could not tell me.. I guess its because there just isn't a reason, a sensible one anyway.. The staff have scalded themselves so often trying to put the tops on drinks that they have stopped bothering, that's maybe something to consider. Eating and drinking isn't part of my 'matchday experience' so other than the above, meh!!!! |
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Post by Sugy , Paignton Devon Terrier on Jan 20, 2015 17:47:43 GMT 1
Best catering i have witnessed over the years was this season at Fulham. Plenty of decent food and alcohol avalable throughout the match, no long queues when catering for around 2,700 fans , Friendly quick service and not much more expensive than at the John Smiths. Shame a group of drunken town fans ruined it for most.. I have seen the days at town when you could replace the sole on your shoe for a hard wearing burger.
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Post by Sio on Jan 20, 2015 18:10:53 GMT 1
The speed that beer is served should be significantly sped up. I know it isn't a fair comparison, but at somewhere like BVB they can serve pint after pint in seconds simply by having them pre-poured. Could a cash-less system be introduced using season cards? Swipe the season card, hand over a pre-poured pint- you're talking 10 seconds.
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