What Is Up With CF Food Service?

At CP the only ones I tip are those babes who welcome me to Alaska.

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Soggy said:

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CoasterMonkey said:God kill me if a Union could slip in to a Wal-Mart and get some of theses brain washed people a clue.

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Wal-Mart spends over a Billion dollars a year to squash any and all attempts of their labor to go union. The amount of anti-union dollars spent could go to actually paying employees more, but its in their best interest to spend it to keep them down. It's sad, really. Watch the documenatry, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices."

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Yeah, a Union would do Wal-Mart a lot of good. Our city used to have four or five solid grocery store chains in it. All but one unionized. Guess which one is the only one left? Unions are good for certain industries but an industry where a majority of the employees are paid within five dollars of minimum wage is not a good candidate.

I have noticed that unionized retail seems to fail pretty frequently, around here anyway.

For many corporations unionized retail isn't a matter of failing, they'll just snuff it out wherever the threat is. Wal-Mart will just flat out close a store before unionizing.

^^ Aren't the Ohio Giant Eagle stores union? The ones in PA are.

They tried organizing us a few years back. I voted no just because I genuinely think I have it better under the people I work(ed) for. I make a little less per hour, but I get better retirement, vacation, and benefit packages than I would with the IBEW. It took a long time to come to that decision, though.

Remeber a few years ago when Circuit City abruptly fired everyone across the board that made over a certain dollar amount? People got a raise then found out a couple weeks later that they were being fired because they were given that raise. Everyone that's left working for that company that did not join a union is an imbecile.

Anyhow, what is up with that CF food service?

This may though the conversation for a loop...

My local Target store starts new employees off at $6.75 per hour (soon to change because of the minimum wage increase which is $7.15 I believe). My local Wal-mart starts new employees off at $10 per hour.

While I do not notice a difference in service between the two stores, strangely, Target's employees seem much friendlier.

Maybe Wal-Mart realized that higher pay may yield to better customer service. It would be nice if this is not an exception for just my area.

I have no side to take or point to make here. I just wanted to add my observations.

Target seems to hire fewer people trying to make a career out of it. It seems like mostly high school and college kids, with the exception of managers. Wal-Mart has the elderly greeters and people trying to feed kids out of a cashier salary. That's just an observation of course and not a comprehensive study.

So, I finally managed to bring an end to my personal off-season today. The kids and I arrived at Cedar Point about 2:45, processed passes, and spent about four hours at the park.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the park was near-empty today, but not completely so.

First, the Macho Nachos over at Los Gatos around 3:30. A tad under $8 for a heaping large bowl of chips, "cheese food", taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, jalapenos, salsa, and sour cream. Fed the three of us (one of whom---my 9 year old---ran a 5K this morning) no worries, with an adequate service time. This was a pretty good deal, I thought.

We had dinner about 6:30, in Coasters. Coasters is dependable---in part because it is one of the few places that has an electronic order-tracking system, so things tend to get filled properly there. Throw in the fact that a plat passholder gets a free order of fries with the signature burger, and dinner for the three of us was under $20 (albeit with cups of water rather than drinks). My kids were in a booth, and when the food came up, I asked for a tray. Sadly, none were to be had (there were some in prior years, right?) However, the instant I said it, one of the ladies behind the counter immediately offered to help me carry it, and did so. Wonderful! She wasn't a "kid" by any stretch, but still excellent service.

Overall, I'd give Foods a pretty good grade for the day.

Nice to hear, Brian.

La Ronde in Montreal is unionised.

Let's see what the lucky employees get out of it.

Starting wages near 10$, 50-75 cents raise after a month if they stick around.

Past a certain point of the season, guaranteed hours. Even if the park shuts down due to low crowds, weather, etc, employees are paid for their full shift (this changed this year, Six Flags got 5 "weather days" and in exchange, has to apply missing hours as guaranteed overtime on fireworks days.)

Schedule that give you a weekend out of 2 off.

Pretty nice? Well, all that is due to the fact that the previous owners were the City of Montreal, so the employees, even if seasonal, were considered either blue collar or white collar city employees and were protected by the biggest, baddest union around. The kind of union that will use a chainsaw to open a door if you show up uninvited at the president's office and then will toss you out like trash on the pavement in front of the huge office tower that houses the union! *** Edited 5/19/2008 4:09:32 PM UTC by Absimilliard***

And the other side of the union question... how much are the dues? I know a few people who left union jobs for non-union because any additional pay and benefits they received were more than offset by the dues that came out of their paychecks.

Both my parents belonged to unions, and by the time it was said and done, their unions screwed them over more than "the man" did. UMW and ILGWU, both notoriously bad, bad unions.

Funny but true story-- those "union labels" they told us to look for back in the 70s-- were made in China (long before NAFTA and Wal-mart).

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RatherGoodBear said:
Funny but true story-- those "union labels" they told us to look for back in the 70s-- were made in China (long before NAFTA and Wal-mart).

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By the mid-1970's there were 125 Wal-Mart stores with 7500 employees in 9 states and they were listed on the NYSE.

Just saying. ;)

And with that said, let me point out that I'm generally anti-union even though as a kid my family always did better when Dad had a union job.

Perhaps Cedar Point realizes that they might be losing business to their expensive food?

I got an email message from them this morning offering park admission AND a buffet meal (fried chicken, hot dogs, potato salad, beans, cookies, ice cream) for $44.95/person. To put that into perspective, the undiscounted gate price is $42.95. So that's lunch for $2. Sounds like a hell of a deal!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Then why would you be against Unions..

I have belong to the IAM for 8 years now.. hell I'm the president of my plant. Can't see were you go wrong with having a chance to go to the table with your employer and be able to ask for things that would make your life better. Now you don't always get what you want, but at least you get that chance. Where I live our plant pays top 5% in our area, if it won't for the Union we would be making crap and the working conditions would be slave labor. We can't kick people out of this place.. it's such a wonderful place to work. Paying Dues is part of the union system.. The union is also a business, it does have costs and yes it does give a lot of money to different groups. Never forget that Verizon is another anti-union company that spends butt loads of money to keep out unions. Well thats what I think...

Now lets get ripped off by CP and have to stop by 7-11 when we leave!

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RatherGoodBear said:
And the other side of the union question... how much are the dues? I know a few people who left union jobs for non-union because any additional pay and benefits they received were more than offset by the dues that came out of their paychecks.

quote]

You can add me to that list.
About 20 years, I was a Teamster. They got 50 a month in dues, 15% of our overtime (which is why they they never fought 10 hour days six to seven days a week.)
It wasn't good.

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Lord Gonchar said:
Nice to hear, Brian.

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I , too was at Cedar Point on Sunday. Around 5:30 a couple of friends and I went to the Game Day Grille, and thought they place was busy we went to the bar to be seated and served quickly. Not only did I get free refills on soda, I got a great burger and waffle fries for around $8. Service was quick - in fact I had to turn down a refill (cup wasn't quite empty yet!). Plus, the Cavs-Celtics Game 7 was on the screens, exciting though disappointing. At least I got to see the Penguins clinch a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals!

Overall, the park was dreary weatherwise, a lot of stuff was closed, Dragster was rolling back (without me on it), and I couldn't fit into Raptor. But my visit was still worthwhile, and my dining experience was outstanding.

When you go to an amusement park, what do you want most of all? Not great food, I'm sure. You want quality coasters and thrill rides. Food is secondary. Still, in response to the whole bring-a-cooler-thing, if I remember correctly, you're not ALLOWED to bring in food to Dorney Park (a CF park). Your options are thus limited. Would I like better food and service? Absolutely. However, I do what most people should do: suck it up and eat the crummy food. Or, I eat before I go to the park and as I'm leaving. It's better not to eat too much of that stuff before doing all those rides anyway.

No, that's what you want. Coasters aren't even important to the real money making customers, namely the families with young kids. And for people who actually care about their bodies, what we put into them most certainly matters regardless of where we are. Your view of the universe is too narrow.

Not to mention most CF parks already have the "quality coasters and thrill rides" thing under control. I mean if there were something lacking there, we'd be talking about that instead.

I was not very articulate last night, and I think I was misunderstood here. Sleep deprivation does that. I don't necessarily want to put toxic, infected food into my body either! And Matt DOES raise a good point that CF parks already do have quality coasters and thrill rides. I didn't even think of THAT. But I think that even if CF were to truly focus on their food service and food quality, it probably wouldn't matter that much because it is, after all, an amusement park. I don't think people go there thinking about all the delicious food they're going to eat, and I think if there IS that expectation, it's going to be a disappointing experience! The attitudes of some of the staff ARE indeed lacking, and I read some truly horrifying anecdotes about the CF parks' employees putting their hands and germs and whatnot all over the food. However, I just think, that in the grand scheme of things, half of these places are not air conditioned, they are understaffed, and they're the equivalent of cafeteria food at a school or hospital. Improvements could be made, but there is a low set bar for food establishments in amusement parks (not just CF parks either) that is going to be difficult to surpass. When I go to an amusement park, though, I understand this, and I either eat before I go, or I pick places within the park that don't look like rat traps, and I think other people should understand enough to do the same. I THINK that's a little better. I was a craba** yesterday and DID sound narrow...you called it.