New on-park restaurant ideas?

[BigAl]

After taking a look at the places to eat on Alton's website it struck me that there's so much junk and cheap food on offer and only Woodcutters for those willing to pay extra for decent food. Okay, it's expensive enough for those without MAP's but sometimes people fancy paying a bit more for better food. Burger King is hideous, the Mexican Cantina's food doesn't taste as nice as it used to and the Pizza Pasta is always packed and it's more of a free-for-all than a restaurant. The Towers Street Restaurant has never made me go wow either and the food is average. I think the Woodcutter's is the only really decent offering Alton Towers has so surely it would be worth getting another restaurant of a similar standard to it, if not better?

Personally, I think making use of the Towers newly restored conservatory and turning it into new restaurant or cafe would be a nice idea. I could imagine it being something like this inside:

... with Mediterranean food maybe? If not this then maybe as a traditional tea room?

Okay, that may all seem extravagant but it's just an idea.

[Stelios7]

^ I think that idea is pretty awesome, but I doubt it will be AS busy if it is a resteraunt. But, would work with the increase of guests planned in the 10 year plan.

[BigAl]

Ah thanks!
It would be such a shame if they fix it up and don't do anything with it.

I've often wondered why there are so many derelict buildings in the garden too and those magnificent green houses that are just neglected and thought why not make use of them? I mean, maybe turn one of the greenhouses into a cafe or an ice cream stall at one of the old houses or shed things because plenty of people walk through the gardens and it's odd for Alton to not make any use of them in this way. I could have sworn Merlin were the ones who never pass an opportunity to bombard their guests with adverts for their products, services and companies that sponsor them? :P

These ideas would certainly need money throwing at them for them to work but they'd earn as soon as they were open. And let's face it, they aren't exactly strapped for cash if Merlin's profit last year was £200 million something (that's what I've read on here anyway so it may be wrong :P )!

[mrbrightside]

Merlin's profit was that across all their profits, unsure how much Alton made for them though.

I doubt they would see the gardens as much of an opportunity right now though as the amount of people going through there is so much smaller than the amount of people walking round the 'normal' ways.

But I agree a few more offerings would be good - technically they have attempted tea-rooms with "Corner Coffee" but maybe a few new types of food are needed, I think a different buffet style restaurant would be good somewhere in the park - like Explorers but with a wider range of food. Think of it as a cheaper Flambo's. Something like that would make it easy to cover many food types (and healthy food types) in one. Unsure where they would put it though.

[Big Dave]

I think it got said a few times last meet, that they should reopen the Swiss cottage as a up market tea room with fresh sandwiches and English treats (Scones, tea cakes, etc)

[crofty2009]

trouble with that is the quality of the sandwiches would probably be poor, look at what's available, they buy them in.

i would like to see alton pushing more of an international menu, sushi noodles ect... by the way spinball noodles don't count.
you could have tapas, lets face it there's a lot of options.

this food topic has always bothered me, after all how can alton claim to be a world class resort, but provide next to no quality food. i happily pay for woodcutters but i want more quality food venues providing a good range of foods, burgers are nice but they are done to death in the park

[Ritadz]

I actually think the food offerings at Alton is quite, I mean it's definatly got the most variety in the UK, and I've never thought anything I've ate was poor quality either. Yes it is overpriced but nowadays everything is.

Obviously Alton doesn't come close to the likes of Europa or DLP, but when you compare it to the likes of Flamingoland it has loads of quality options:

Mexican
Noodles
Pizza/Pasta
Pies/Hotdogs/Pastys
Fish & Chips
KFC
Burger King

And then you've got 2 proper resteurants, all the waffle/pancake places plus the numorus pancake/donut stalls around the park.

As for ideas for new resteurants, how about a Curry House, I'm a fan of spicy food, something which the park lacks, with the exception of the Cantina and the KFC Zinger meals.

[AstroDan]

DLP? The food at Disney in Paris is pretty average. Some even poor.

I would love a decent coffee and sandwich bar. They try their best, but none of the coffee shops at Alton come close to Nero at CWOA or Starbucks etc. on the high street. Even worse, they're more expensive!!

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[Magrathea]

I actually found the food at DLP to be worse than that of Alton, simply in that short of eating in the very upmarket restaurants (something I didn't have the budget for), it was very hard to find decent food...and there certainly wasn't a very good variety. AND this was before I was veggie, I can imagine it being hell now...

However, I find Alton's culinary offerings to be very satisfactory (and the park offers a good range of veggie options); part of me would like to see a slightly more upmarket restaurant on park, but I somehow doubt it'd get the custom to justify it being open.

[quote=""Ritadz""]As for ideas for new resteurants, how about a Curry House, I'm a fan of spicy food, something which the park lacks, with the exception of the Cantina and the KFC Zinger meals.[/quote]

There's also Eastern Express, which serves curries and samosas and other Indian food .

[AstroDan]

To be fair, vegetarian options in Europe will be few. They simply don't cater to that market. Merely our culture to theirs.

But Disney's food is poor.

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[BigAl]

It's annoying when people complain about the price and service at Woodcutters because from my own experience it was a lot better than the other restaurants on the park. Yesterday we were seated and food was ordered within 5 minutes, food arrived 5 minutes after we ordered it, it tasted nice and was well presented, the staff were great and had a laugh too and it was very clean. Our total bill for for 4 steak sandwiches, chips, salad and coleslaw and the drinks came to £23. Now compare that to Burger King.

Their burgers taste of plastic, everything always has too much salt on, there's pretty much always a massive queue and they basically throw your food at you because they need to serve the people behind you. A lot of the tables are dirty, there's food on the floor and has anyone ever noticed their shoes squeaking on the floor because they get sticky when someone spills a drink and nobody mops it up. It's not very healthy either and the burgers also have a lot of gristle in them which kind of puts you off.

I could go on...

The average meal at BK is about £4-8 so compare this with Woodcutter's which offer far superior service and food at an average of £6-10 and sense would tell you to go there. I'd rather spend more money and have a nice quiet meal in a well kept restaurant than cram in with the hordes somewhere else.

When I say restaurant I mean actual restaurants that serve a wide variety of quality foods, not just more fast food. I wouldn't really compare places like Pizza Pasta to Pizza Express or Mexican Cantina to Barburrito, etc... These in my opinion are restaurants and the ones at Alton Towers are merely large fast food restaurants with a few restaurant like qualities and they could do better.

There's room for more cafe's and restaurants in the park and some of the existing ones need to be sorted out. If Drayton Manor down the road can sort out their cafe's and restaurants then there's no doubt that Merlin can sort Alton's out too (well they've tried their best with what they have anyway).

If I were in charge then my priorities would be to spend more money on regular entertainment across the resort and more money on eating facilities as well. We didn't get a new ride this year and last year they had record gate figures so some of this money could have gone towards vastly improving these two areas.

[Islander]

Seeing the title of this thread brought two simple words to my mind:

Food-Loop

[BigAl]

[quote=""Islander""]Seeing the title of this thread brought two simple words to my mind:

Food-Loop [/quote]
Eh? Explain please?

Or do you mean those silicone things used to replace string in cooking? :P

[Islander]

Linky. Watch the video from about 3:05

[BigAl]

[quote=""Islander""]Linky. Watch the video from about 3:05

[/quote]
Oh god that's :censored: amazing!

WHERE'S OUR FOOD LOOP ALTON? WHERE IS IT? :P

[crofty2009]

ok love it!

looks like they order the food through a PC so this could be a restaurant that caters for loads of different foods.
it would bring a whole new meaning to sushi conveyor-belts
and i can see loads of potential. ALTON please install one [-o<

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Quite simply: they need more indoor seating areas particularly in Forbidden Valley, self-service would be good.

They have the Towers Family Restaurant, but its always empty because virtually no-one is still in Towers Street by lunchtime.

As has been mentioned, they need to develop the derelict buildings in the gardens and towers into coffee shops and tea rooms. Sadly, this is unlikely to happen unless there is a separate entrance price for those only wishing to visit the towers and gardens as presently very few pay to come in for these alone. I doubt a fancy restaurant like the old Swiss Cotage would work today either, simply because people no longer want that sort of thing from a theme park today.

[Stelios7]

A fast food seafood resteraunt in Mutiny could work, if we had the space! :P

[Joe Passant]

Kfc's contract runs out at the end of the season so that will be gone and said to be replaced by alton towers version of a kfc :L

[Stelios7]

And your source is...?