Concessions at the Verizon Center

I agree with you on all points. This might be a good thing to email to Leonsis.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the VC concessions are Union run. This may be one of the many ingregients as to why the entire operation lacks efficiency.

It’s hearing about stuff like this that should hopefully put the final kibosh on any consideration for RFK as a WC site.

I have proposed a “Season Ticket Holder Debit Card” in the past. Very much like the Smarttrip card on the metro, you load it, and can swipe it to buy things at Verizon. The only difference is that you can get 5 or 10% off all purchases.

This encourages people to invest in the card, allowing Ted to invest and predict concession revenue’s, speeds up lines, and makes everyone happy.

Without the discount on purchases, I dont think it will work. There is no reason to pre-load without a benefit to the buyer.

Some great ideas being thrown around here—unfortunately, it’s all for nought. The VC food and those who serve it have been so shitty for so long that even if Ted pours his heart and soul into the issue, it probably won’t matter. It’s become an entire culture of apathy and indifference (not that I blame people getting shit pay for providing shit service.) And let’s face it, things are going pretty well if the arena food is something near the top of the gripe list. Slightly OT, but for all of the VC’s faults, I’ve always been impressed with the 400 level guest service reps—total class.

This is something Ted should see. I know he does stop by the Rink on occasion.

Personally, I’ve been to a number of arenas, hockey and otherwise, and the VC is certainly in the bottom half in terms of the concessions, with the exception of fresh-popped popcorn. No one does it better than Joe, who’s been popping it fresh back in the days at the Cap Centre.

Be that as it may, the best concessions I’ve seen at a game, by far, was at the RBC Center in Raleigh, when I went to a Caps game. The concessions stands in the section I was in were all together with the various arena-style food and drink you expect, and it was cafeteria style, in that you selected the items you wanted, put them in the tray, and then took the tray to the cashier. One set of these concession stands even had a food court where you could sit at a table or stand at a table. The cashiers were friendly even to those of us in Caps jerseys (in fact everyone who worked at the RBC Center was friendly…well other than the Storm Squad ladies… but they’re biased…)

Another great place for concessions is the Potomac Nats stadium (I forget the name). If you buy a box seat (and they’re pretty inexpensive) they have waiters come to take your order and then deliver your items. Can’t beat that.

The worst concessions in the area is RFK. Ugh. The place is dirty, dark, filthy and falling apart. Once United gets their new digs, they need to demolish RFK…what a dump it’s become. Another place that concessions are no good is FedEx Field. The lines are long even during the game, and they’ll sell beer to anyone with a 20, even if they’re clearly inebriated. Definitely not good.

This is why I always sneak in as much food/beverage as possible any time I go to a place like a sporting venue or movie theater

And I’m not afraid to admit it.

C’mon.. all you folks in Silver Spring have at least thought about the convenience of having a liquor store right next to the AFI and the Magestic :)

The price and the quality isn’t really much of an issue for me with the Verizon Center. I’m prety much resigned to the fact that I have to refinance my home and pull out all the equity every time I go and have a craving for a 10 day old hot dog bun.

But the speed is what I have the problem with. You’re right. They’re slow as hell and it seems like every time you go up there it’s a trainee that has to ask 5 different people “where is this”? I actually ordered some cracker jacks once and the lady at the register couldn’t have been more confused. “Whats a cracker jack”? Maybe if they didn’t hire a bunch of kindergarten dropouts to work the registers, the people would be served twice as fast.

I actually wonder if setting up a “conveyer belt” type system might help with concessions. Not sure how it would work, but they can take a lesson from that Sushi place on the ground floor at Gallery place.

I’ve been hungry a few times while rushing to a Caps game with only 5 minutes till the puck drop (with 7pm games in a workaholic traffic-hell-hole like DC, who ISNT in this situation everytime they go to a game?) and I always run into that restaurant, sit down quick,, grab everything and rip down as much sushi as my stomach can handle and I’m out the door with my check paid in 4 minutes flat.

If there was a system where everything was there for you to grab, you’d have all your time in line to figure out how to carry everything and by the time you got to the register, you wouldn’t have to wait a senatorial term for the cashier to figure out that the popcorn you ordered is RIGHT BEHIND her.

These arenas can’t be perfectly clean all the time you know. There’s room for improvement but at some point they need to take a

concessions stand.

The club-level food is light-years better than the regular food.

I just recently changed my job after 23 years in the food industry. In those 23 years I have worked in free standing restaurants(opened 2 of them from ground up), large 5 star hotels both in cities and exotic travel stops, high end in flight catering, large volume food service operation and also last but not least event services just like the company that has the contract for the phone booth. Just so everyone knows, a box of soda syrup costs about $106 which works out to about 3 cents for a 32 ounce cup, add the cost of the cup(if they are bought in bulk they work out about 7 cents apiece), throw in a 9% cost for labor, and lets be generous and say another 10 cents to cover ice and straw – total soda cost is about 21 cents, so let’s say double it because its DC and round it out so we are at 50 cents. Last season we paid $5.50 for a large soda. So in case you missed it that a $5 mark up. I like many others know that you are being ripped off when you go to a game but it is like a huge slap in the face to be told about all of these health issues as well. I can state for fact, if it was a free standing restaurant with that many health code violations it would be closed and the owners in court. While this is not Teds fault as Aramark holds the contract there I believe, it is now on Ted to kick their ass and fix this or kick their ass out on the street.

I applaud your effort and hope Uncle Ted is able to improve things, but I would suggest a few comments and counterpoints…

A) First off I won’t argue the first point… Agreed that things could be MUCH better.

B) I’m not sure the inefficiency you list exists everywhere. I have seats in 101 and the concession stand out in front of our section is actually pretty quick (and they already employ several of the thoughts you have – they get the next customers order while someone else retrieves yours, they have dedicated staff on drinks and other key food areas, the staff is quite friendly despite the mad rush of people). Hopefully that can be replicated elsewhere in the arena.

C) While I think that the vendors can do a lot to improve the food, there is a ceiling on how good food made in an extremely small area (most of it pre-cooked by necessity) for a HUGE number of people can be. Certain food is always (to some degree) going to suck based on the limitations of an arena environment.

D) Beer vendors in the hallways was becoming a regular thing towards the end of last season and it was improving things A LOT.

E) I would add that while the idea of a pre-loaded smartcard is a great one. It’s also one that comes with a big price-tag and necessitates agreement across all vendors (which isn’t likely until the contracts are up).

F) What IS something that should be able to be done in the short-term is to pressure the vendors to accepting credit cards without the need for a signature. That seems silly and antiquated in this day and age (especially when considering few places could benefit from a speedy transaction more than a sports arena).

Thanks for bringing this up, Uncle Ted takes criticism not laced with emotion and hostility much more seriously, so I’d bet this post was well considered.

I have never been to an indoor arena that has had good food, or a football arena for that matter. I feel like the entire “fan experience” thing is something that has been isolated in baseball for awhile and if it moves to other sports it would be great. The Club level at Verizon Center has always had pretty good food and I don’t see why they can’t just offer that food on the other levels. i can also somewhat understand the high prices at most sporting events as they have to pay the employes, city taxes, rent, the catering company, and probably some fee that goes to the NHL, MLB, NBA, or NFL. Food is the cornerstone of the fan experience and indoor arenas don’t really have much else to offer. At baseball games I can walk around and still see the game, but indoor arenas are at a bit of a disadvantage which makes getting the food right even more important.

At Nats Park, we’re allowed to openly bring food and water into the park. I think that forces concession stands to (at least attempt to) offer better food, since the crowd isn’t a captive audience. Also, for the concession stands that are outposts of local restaurants, (Ben’s Chili Bowl and Hard Times Cafe, for example) I think the restaurants want to make sure that what’s sold at the ballpark is up to their usual standards. The hot dogs at Verizon are generic — there’s no Ben’s or Hard Times putting their name or reputation on the line for chili dogs.

Doesn’t seem like that long, but I’ve hit almost every major sector of the industry in that time – quick-service, all-you-care-to-eat, retail, and concessions. I thought I might be able to shed a little light on the concessions industry, seeing as how I may or may not work for the Company.
The Health Violations: Without reading the entire health report, I can’t say for sure exactly what is wrong or needs to be improved, besides the mouse droppings. What I can tell you is this: as food service employees & managers we can only do so much. My guess is that while the food service on the 100 & 400 levels are maintained by Aramark, they outsource pest control to a company like Steritech or EcoLab. (Club level food is run by Levy, which might explain the differences between quality of food there) Aramark employees should be cleaning up the mouse droppings, but it is the pest control company’s responsibility to ensure there are no actual pests. If you’ve ever had pests in your home, you know that, while difficult, its actually pretty simple. You have to identify where they are entering and fix it, remove their food sources, remove the actual pest, then treat to prevent it from happening again. The scope of the Verizon Center is what makes it difficult to keep pest free. I’d also like to see a list of every stadium that has been open for more than 3 years that doesn’t have mice or roaches. I’m willing to bet I could fit them all on a Post-It without even trying to squeeze them in.
But health violations can come from something as seemingly simple as leaving the scoop in the popcorn, having a damp towel on a counter, or not having a label on something. To be honest, I’m more concerned with the damp towel (which can breed listeria) than the mouse poop.
1. Long Lines/Slow Service & Volunteers
I’m going to touch on both the long lines/slow service and the volunteers at the same time, because they are linked.
The monthly employee turnover in the food-service industry is, on average, the highest in the US at around 50%. That means that for every two employees I have working on given day, one of them will leave, whether voluntary or not, within a month. These employees are, if my account is any standard, making minimum or close to minimum wage. Combine that with long, late hours, being on your feet for 90% of your shift and physical labor, and we’re not exactly working with the cream of the crop. To succeed in this industry, you either have to absolutely love it or have a high tolerance for bulls***, of any variety. To work in this industry, you need to have a pulse and above comatose brain activity. That’s about it. Most of my employees work the food-service industry because they have little training or education for anything else. This isn’t a career for them, its how they are paying their rent. Keeping your employees motivated to work more efficiently is something a manager struggles with every day. That said, I don’t understand why VC doesn’t employ the "assembly line" process I’m used to and you suggested. Its standard at every concessions stand I’ve worked.
As far as volunteers go, yes, they are a way for us to control labor, by paying them a 10% commission on their sales, we drop our labor below the 30% of sales it would cost us to staff each stand with our own employees. Yes, it pretty much guarantees crap service for our guests, which I hated. I’d love to spend buckets of time and money training and retaining top-notch staff that loves their job, but I’m lucky if I get one in ten employees that actually love their job and want to be trained. Granted, when I was in concessions I was working college football and basketball, not pro hockey, but management and supervisors were there at least 6 hours prior to kick-off, 4 hours before tip-off. We considered ourselves lucky if we got out 2 hours after the game ended. Football game days were a 12-hour shift, at minimum. Our volunteer groups were there 3 and 2 hours before. Everything in the stands has to be inventoried by the group, because they are held accountable for that stand. They get credit for what they sell and docked for what disappears unaccounted for. I’ve worked with groups that have their stuff together, know what they’re doing and allowed me to watch the game periodically. I’ve had groups where I ended up running their stand because they were understaffed, disinterested, incompetent or just plain stupid. You make do with what you have and try to keep the ship from sinking. When you have events, at the max, every two days, if not daily, your time for training is minimal, especially in a sector that is open year-round, unlike colleges, where I am now. It’s a fact of life in the industry.
Extra carts in the concourse may help, but at some point, they are a hazard that the fire marshall will become very interested in.

2. Prices & Food Quality
Prices are generally agreed upon by the vendor (Aramark) and the client (the Verizon Center, aka Monumental). When Aramark is figuring pricing, several things go into it. 1) Client percentage – the cut they have to give Monumental before paying anything out to suppliers, averages 7.5-15%. 2) Food cost – varies by sector, but typical concessions run around 20%. 3) Labor cost – volunteers decrease this, but typically, you’re looking at another 20-25%. 4) Fixed cost – I’m not sure what this would be for the VC, because I don’t know their contract, but it could be as much as another 20%. If it’s the cost of beer & alcohol you’re figuring, don’t forget to pay your local ABC. Profit for Aramark is around 20%, depending on the product mix that night. Sodas are a very low cost item and where they make the most money because of the low COGS. Bottom line, yes, prices are pretty steep, but they’re not going to get much cheaper, regardless of who’s running the show.
Food quality also comes down to inexperienced staff. It took at least 3 football games for me to be able to pick up on the trends of how the game affected our sales. That cold hot dog on the stale bun during the second intermission? Was probably cooked not long after puck drop and put into the warming drawer. Then, right before the first intermission, more hot dogs were cooked for the rush and dumped on top of that hot dog. By the time you buy it during the second, its been rediscovered like some Mezazoic fossil and sold to you without a blink because the staff doesn’t realize its that old. Running good concessions is all about timing and with staff turnover and volunteers, its hard to instill that timing into them. Hopefully, Ted is willing to push Aramark to higher standards. And if not, well, my contract with this account is up in a year, I’d be willing to take a crack at it. ;D
As far as food not being up to health department standards, well, check any restaurants ratings on the Health Departments website. Most of your favorite places will have gotten a warning for something.
For answers to a few other comments:
Regulations say a signature for purchases under $25 is no longer required, but many companies still request them. CYA and all.
For those saying how horrible Aramark’s college dining is – two of the top 5 Princeton Review schools for food in 2009 were Aramark accounts, #1 Wheaton and #5 James Madison. I’m not saying they’re the best, but they can be good. I know VT is self-operated.
I have been to RBC and like their concessions. They are self-op as well. Having said that, I rarely eat at stadium concession stands. If I want something, I’ll buy a beer and a pretzel. Its probably a function of not living in the DC area and not being a STH, because going to games is an experience for me, so I go downtown early and eat somewhere nearby. If I want a hot dog, I’ll eat one at home.

Thanks for this thorough and thoughtful post, from an insider’s perspective.