all i wanted was a burger

[BrianW]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

The club obviously have the policy of hiring the cheapest labour they can get and charging the maximum they can get away with for the product.

If you want this to change the answer is obviously to boycott the outlets and tell the club why. I have always been amazed by people who are so unwilling to go 90 minutes without a beer that they are willing to pay a stupid price for a pint of piss. Ditto the food equivalent. Still folks, it's your money, your choice, but if you buy, you shouldn't really moan as the answer is in your hands.

 

[BTH]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

You,ve hit the nail on the head when you say "what i cant understand is how you fail to order burger and chips x2"
Thats what i cant understand. its a very simple process isn't it yet these 2 guys were completely oblivious to my request. i have no problem with the guys not speaking fluent or very little english at all. we live in a multicultutral city and of that i am proud to call myself a mancunian.
Yes i tried pointing.yes i held up 2 fingers. But still they didn't get it. i have read some posts on here that question my integrity in this and question if i'm exagerating but mate. This did genuinely happen. i couldn't believe it. I'm not exactly blaming the guys and i said to Junior blue i'm sure there are a lot of great staff work there. But there was clearly no or very little training done with these guys. its a simple process of ordering with a very limited menu.
like i said in my OP all i wanted was a bloody burger.
i make reference to one experience and i'm sure others have had no problems but me personally i would never attempt to buy from a catering outlet again based on this. its expensive but its a treat and i accept that when you go to the game it costs. but if others have the same experience and refuse to buy then not only does it make the experience less enjoyable it ultimately deprives the club of important revenue.
After all catering is a service industry and in simple terms the staff couldn't serve me. Surely that is a major fail?

I note that you've entitled the thread "all i wanted was a bloody burger" and repeated that since and yet, in your OP, you have stated that you wanted a "burger meal."

Just got back from the game and i have to say the catering staff at the ground are notthing short of a joke.
at half time i took my lad to one of the outlets in the Colin Bell stand and asked for a burger meal and the guy just looked at me. I repeated and he just stared looking totally lost. i tried to simplify by pointing to the board to show him what i wanted. He then called another fella over to help and he looked completely lost too. Seriously most of them cant even speak or understand basic English.
I walked away in total dismay and told my lad i'd get him something on the way home.
Seriously City. This needs sorting out. its an embarrassment

Now, I'm no fast food expert (whatever my detractors may say), but is a burger and a burger meal one and the same or are they, as I suspect, two completely different things?

I'm a Mancunian and English is my first, indeed my only, language, but if I'm slightly confused then what chance has some poor bugger who's on the minimum wage at best and who may not be too well vested in the English language got?

 

[SalfordCityBlue]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

I've never had a problem with the staff in the South Stand, or with getting my order across to them.

Was surprised to see nothing had changed in there though, considering they thought it was worthy of mentioning as a selling point for season tickets:

"Food and drink outlets will be improved for 2010/11, delivering a faster service to give you more time to get on with enjoying the match."

This has clearly not happened (yet). I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that there is still time to make the promised 'improvements' before the season starts (perhaps during the fit out of City Square?), but if it doesn't happen then you'd have to say 'typical City' I'm afraid...

And the prices were eye-watering. £7 for a hot dog and a beer? And that was a 'deal' lol. I'd like to see the club get this right, as I'd much prefer to spend my money with them than elsewhere, but as it stands it's just not worth the hassle or expense.

 

[cleavers]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

Correct, its not hard to work out, though its still a topic that should be discussed on here, because the club do use these forums to get an opinion, but the bottom line is don't use the facilities, and use the better ones available around the ground.

Mate, you honestly believe the club give a toss?

No, sadly.

 

[BTH]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

This thread should send the paper tigers at the fans' committee (or whatever it's called this week) into a proper tizzy!

 

[itsnevereasy]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

The service will always be shite, how can anyone train and develop a team of staff during such limited time. An hour or so before the game and 15 min's during half time, it is near impossible to gain any commitment from the staff because they ain't getting 40 hours a week, 4 to 5 hours maybe once a week if lucky.

There are some simple fixes that could be put in place very quickly.
1. Interviews - no decent English no work.
2. They know when they are going to get busy, get some pints prepared in advance, same goes with the food, they might waste some but the simple fact is the quicker they serve the more oney they will take.
3. Instead of 10 staff all floating around the bar, they need one per till with other staff getting the orders together for them.
4. More tills to make point 3 work.

A long term solution would be to franchise it all out to a big brand, this would allow the 'big' brand to staff with people from there other stores.

 

[joshoco]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

you're there to watch football not eat burgers. have a word!

 

[BTH]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

The service will always be shite, how can anyone train and develop a team of staff during such limited time. An hour or so before the game and 15 min's during half time, it is near impossible to gain any commitment from the staff because they ain't getting 40 hours a week, 4 to 5 hours maybe once a week if lucky.

There are some simple fixes that could be put in place very quickly.
1. Interviews - no decent English no work.
2. They know when they are going to get busy, get some pints prepared in advance, same goes with the food, they might waste some but the simple fact is the quicker they serve the more oney they will take.
3. Instead of 10 staff all floating around the bar, they need one per till with other staff getting the orders together for them.
4. More tills to make point 3 work.

A long term solution would be to franchise it all out to a big brand, this would allow the 'big' brand to staff with people from there other stores.

Unless it's changed, it's already franchised out. Assuming this is still the case, then this - ladies and gentlemen - is why the club couldn't really care less: because they get the money up front.

We may have come a long way in the last 20 years, but the catering doesn't appear to be any better now than when Stadia Catering and Greenall Whitley were running the show....

 

[Rob J]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

The service will always be shite, how can anyone train and develop a team of staff during such limited time. An hour or so before the game and 15 min's during half time, it is near impossible to gain any commitment from the staff because they ain't getting 40 hours a week, 4 to 5 hours maybe once a week if lucky.

There are some simple fixes that could be put in place very quickly.
1. Interviews - no decent English no work.
2. They know when they are going to get busy, get some pints prepared in advance, same goes with the food, they might waste some but the simple fact is the quicker they serve the more oney they will take.
3. Instead of 10 staff all floating around the bar, they need one per till with other staff getting the orders together for them.
4. More tills to make point 3 work.

A long term solution would be to franchise it all out to a big brand, this would allow the 'big' brand to staff with people from there other stores.

With regard to the beer situation, I've always thought that the solution to this issue is, one bar serves one type of beer as they do in Germany.
I believe that one of the problems at CoMS is where the beer is kept and when a certain barrel runs out. If all they had in the cellar was twenty barrels of Heiniken then there wouldn't be a problem of moving stock in and out.

 

[The 12th Man]

Re: all i wanted was a bloody burger

I work in the catering too and had my first day on Friday. It all went fine on Friday but yesterday I had to put up with grief from people complaining about prices, which really isn't my fault. Then there's people who start changing their mind on stuff after you've keyed it in so you have to cancel the whole order and type in what they really want. Then they get annoyed that you're asking what it is they actually want and start complaining that you're taking ages, I wouldn't be taking so long if they hadn't changed their order and I had to redo it all.

The thing about the burger meal is there's three different buttons, one for a burger meal and one for a just a burger/cheese burger and another for a chicken burger, some people don't realise the burger meal is the burger and chips. They come up and ask for a burger and chips and I say that's the burger meal then they say they don't want a drink and I have to explain it's only a burger and chips in the meal. So some people probably order it thinking it includes a drink which I have to explain that it doesn't. What was probably wrong was the guy didn't know if there were still burgers in the kiosk, the chefs obviously stop making food towards the end of the match as there'd be loads of unneccessary waste at the end.

We also get all the grief if something goes wrong in the making of the food, despite us just being the ones that sell it, some guy got a bit angry with me last night about his food even though I'm not the chef, I'm just the one who sold the food. Someone asked me for onions and I had to ask the chef who was busy doing something for someone else and when I got back with the onions the guy had a go at me for taking a few minutes.

We also have to do a lot of work before the fans get into the stadium and after they've left but some people just think we turn up, sell food and as soon as the shutters are down we're gone, which is not the case at all.