Food and Drink @ VP Your chance to influence decisions

We need good quality food: I work on the premise that if you would gladly eat it yourself then it is good enough to sell.

1. Small pots of curry and rice. Veg only and meat.
2. Pasties, Veg only. Trad Cornish.
3. Pork Pie and mushy peas, mint sauce.
4. Chips. Not those thin things proper chips.
5. Hot soup
6. Coffee, Tea, and Hot Chocolate.

Can I suggest we have a sweet stall as well, selling ice cream, donuts etc.,

Sorry forgot to mention, we need to protect the environment as well, so plastic free where possible, and recycle bins near the kiosks.

 

Fab ideas.

I can’t remember the last time I bought any food or drink inside the ground because it’s so poor.

 

Same here it has been years since I have. We used to skip lunch at home and indulge in a Cornish pastie, they used to be top notch at VP, they changed their caterers and they were awful, and we never bought them again. I have looked at the food, but it is not inviting, and don’t touch any of it. Plus I am not convinced they have been trained properly.

 

Can't we be a bit more adventurous, whenever i've gone to places like Headingley the choice has been varied. The problem is its a service used 23 times a year (more dependant on cup runs) which doesn't lend itself to having quality staff. Privately owned food outlets would give better service but City are tied into contracts, i certainly wouldn't be happy if i was the contract holder and someone else was selling food outside the ground. Plus the fact theres very few areas to site mobile food sources. Nothing is impossible but i can see it being difficult to implement a plan at Valley Parade as we currently stand in league 2.

 

We could be more adventurous, but as you have stated once every 2 weeks is not enough for any caterer to make money, so that is why I think we need to limit the menu. I would rather have good quality food, and less selection. I think some items will sell really well, and they are definitely missing a trick on the sweet stall. I am presuming that the staff are not just used on match days, in either event they need to have good training, as we have high hygiene standards within in the current law on selling food.

 

I get this ? Now we back to virtually non league let's go non league with our eats and drinks. Back to a Hut serving pie n peas ! mint sauce; trays a,chips, tea, bovril served in polystyrene cups ! All a quid a pop ? All served up by Doris & Noreen behind counter at snail pace as endless queues snake back down the stairs to mens bogs !

Yeah stuff the prawn sandwiches now we back in the Kama Khazi League !

#claytondonaldson #hesoneofourown

 

I fully agree about using if possible private caterers they know their business they do it 52 weeks a year. Because of different tastes I think the menus have to be quite general but perhaps different kiosks in the same stand could offer something different from the other But better service hygiene and quality would be great

 

Maybe the change of company will have a change of professionalism in the approach to customer service. I guess its difficult when the staff on the whole seem to be young and inexperienced on minimum wage. I agree with the menu and its generalisation but would like to see some sort of variation to the usual traditional fayre, especially when a city like Bradford has such a diverse taste in food.

 

I like it ........ Simple and doable, with little fuss.

 

Problem with having different things on different kiosks is if people from the group, eg kids, want items from different kiosks. Double queuing needed.

 

Perhaps the variation could be provided by having one or two 'pop up' stalls each game? Have the kiosks selling the kind of stuff Onside is suggesting, and then have a couple of small local catering businesses offering something a bit different.

 

I like a beer at half time but often the queues put me off. We need an improved process behind the tills to turnover customers quicker and bring in further revenue. Often there are 4 or 5 staff behind the counter yet only 2 are serving and are also prepping the order while the other 2/3 are just fussing.

 

Don’t introduce the pint pots you have to pay a quid for. Apart from that, I’m going to watch a football match, I’ll get something in town before or after if I’m hungry

 

Its an option. Certainly nothing new, they've been doing this sort of thing at Odsal for years with mobile food vans offering far better food than anything at Valley Parade. Odsal does lend itself to it though with its layout and i'm guessing they don't have the same catering contracts as City do. In this day and age its not hard to offer variation, go to any festival or large gathering and the options of food and drink can be large and varied. Things such as mobile pizza vans and small pop up beer tents seem all the rage these days. All dependant whether the figures add up. Something in theory we'd like to see happen, whether the fans would back it with hard cash on the day remains to be see.

 

The thing putting me off is the queues. The service is so slow. Contactless payment in the kiosks would help speed things up considerably.

For food choice, how about a munchie box of local delicacies. Couple of onion bhajis, shami kebab, chicken pakora and potato pakora. These could be pre packed (in recyclable material @Onside) and served with a little rub of mint sauce. Throw in a plastic bottle of beer that isn't Carlsberg and I'd pay 5 or 6 quid for that.

 

Can we not have some decent beer? There's loads of decent local breweries, rather than having to pay £4.40 for a plastic bottle of that pish Carlsberg

 

Whatever is decided it has to be quick to serve and little wastage so that whoever is selling it has a chance of making some money. The problem with doing a wide range of stuff is that there is a high chance of stuff selling out which leaves people annoyed.

 

I can use contactless payment pretty much anywhere so there is no excuse it not being used in a sports stadium catering for 10,000+ people. I would also happily pay for the food you mentioned Hooch, i've no real interest in boring pies or hotdogs.

 

When I get to a match that's what I pick up on the way from Food2Go. Who wants a crusty old pie, it's not the 1980s man.