Things You Ate: Catering At The Vic

What gets me is that everyone knows that a lot of people want a beer at half time, but they pour every pint based on what is ordered. How quick and easy would it be to have a load of pints ready?

I've been to so many other clubs and gigs where they do this and the queues move fast, yet the club can't get their tiny marketing minds round it.

Are they that ignorant or just so precious about every penny that that they don't do it? There must be basic stats about how many pints they shift at half time. Just get the minimum ready and watch the money roll in.

 

I agree. You’d think there would be money in a really fast turnover. Football fans are not particularly fussy on price or quality and by half-time even less so.

There have been some genuine attempts to improve choice and quality, but they are undermined by lack of preparedness.

 

That definitely. But if they can't then why not have some sort of fool-proof fast pour pumps installed? The ones they have at the moment seem to dibble out your drink of choice and then it's russian roulette whether the teenager doing it will lose interest half way through and spill some or create a massive head.

 

I think that's the real issue.

My youngest daughter applied to a premier league football club near where she's studying for a catering role. When they saw she had experience they put her into a role with the corporate guests, she's nowhere near the general fans. So the ones serving us in the stands are the ones with no skills whatsoever. For what they pay them I'm not surprised anyway.

 

Imagine buying food at a football stadium. It's 3pm, so not lunchtime. Why on earth do our obese fans need to consume some reclaimed meat product at the match?

I rarely sit in the Rookery but whenever I have, the stench from the poorly bowels of the filthy populace made me sick.

 

We also had the vegan pie (after preferred options had run out). Pretty, pretty good.

 

Comfort eating to take away the pain of watching what we're served up.

 

You can smuggle in a hipflask of the good stuff

 

Agreed.

Lunch is between 12:00 and 14:00, or extended to 15:00 on Sundays.

Dinner (or tea if you were brought up on a council estate like I was) is between 18:00 and 20:00. This can be brought forward t0 17:00 if you have kids or are old and you nothing else to look forward to in the day. It can also be extended to 21:30 if you are on holiday abroad.

 

Oh, I say. Bad luck old chap.

 

Yes, that is an unpleasant aspect of football, made no less pleasant by the knowledge that these days that fart could theoretically be carrying a viral load too. You can only hope the masking effect of strong underpants is in play.

Enjoy the game!

 

Happened a few years ago at a PS friendly against…. Fiorentina/Sampadoria? Opened up less than half the stadium, along with it being a baking hot sunny day…

 

Just going through my bank statement for the first time in months - saw a weird payment to F&B which turns out to be Frankie and Bennie, Woodside. I was about to phone bank as I haven't been in one of those since taking kids to pictures about 12 year ago, when I realised it was the day and amount I'd spent at the Vic...

 

Yeah I’ve had a couple of those recently. Definitely purchases at the stadium. Odd.

 

They used to carve ham hock rolls before the Pozzo's came.

Those things were bliss.

The new pies are very good. Tring ale is very good. Camden Pale ale is very good. No complaints from me (apart from maybe speed up the service a little bit).

 

The bins. Something has died in there or something, but they still hadn't got rid of it when Southampton came along.

 

Bring back Wagon Wheels and tea that tasted of cardboard.
Fans are spoilt these days

 

Always remember when I first started going out properly at 18+ naturally you’d go to the local weatherspoons, but irrespective of which one it was the queues at the bar would be about five deep, and it would take you about 20+ minutes or longer to get served. I could never get my head round that scenario then and I still can’t now.

Surely the cost to employ a few more staff on minimum wage (presumably) would easily be recouped by being able to sell significantly more?

If someone is on £11 p/h or whatever, but can serve someone every couple of minutes then it’s a no brainer surely?

Fair enough if staff are standing around doing nothing then you’re wasting money, but if you’ve got queues of people waiting to be served within a finite window, then you’re missing out on money by not being able to serve them.

 

“naturally you’d go to the local weatherspoons”

 

Being young and skint

 

Absolutely. I never buy a pint at half time because it takes too long and the second half will start unless I leave before half time whistle to order. I’m sure there are others so employing extra bods is surely a money spinner. Usual Pozzo penny pinching false economy I’d imagine. Meanwhile we will pay the loathsome Duxbury 800k a year to spout nonsense and wind up the fan base. Idiotic ownership.

 

Not sure if you're being sarcastic but if you're not, why would we want horrid tea?

 

Scott and Gino never sell horrid tea.

 

Went to a baseball game in America many years back and loved the people walking through the stands selling stuff while you sat there and passed along the row, (pre covid obviously). Could that be a possible solution that would keep crowds down at half time meaning beers are easier to buy?

 

It’s a good idea, but works best somewhere hot. Hard to serve warm stuff like that. And it couldn’t serve beer, that’s not allowed. And the rows are a bit narrow.

So it could maybe sell warm pies, but then we are back to the flatulence/aromas issue.