Boardman: Amtrak Commits to End Food and Beverage Losses

[battalion51]

Mr. Boardman is soliciting comments on this post of his on Amtrak's Blog.

You have to create an account to comment though.

IMPROVING OUR FOOD AND BEVERAGE SERVICE

One of the comments has an interesting idea: offer a more expensive variety of coach ticket that includes meals.

I wonder what the financial performance of the Auto Train diners are. They could make Coach pay for food.

What is VIA's policy on complimentary meals for sleeping car passengers? Do they offer it to coach passengers on some runs?

It would be an interesting concept to allow passengers to "pre-order" meals before they board the train, maybe offering a small discount or other incentive for doing so. For those that do pre-order this could allow you to guarantee your specific choice would be in stock. Every restaurant always has a challenge with predicting what will move on a particular day, and I'm sure its even more challenging with the Dining Car. But if your stock was able to be better approximated by receiving orders in advance that would help your cause. It would also help speed kitchen production, order accuracy, etc. Tie it in with your rail reservation, and the LSA or SA scans your ticket, your order pops up, they confirm it with you, and then it gets fired to the kitchen. If you're a coach passenger, payment could be taken care of during the pre-order process, so the LSA doesn't even have to handle the payment processing. Of course you'd have to still have additional stock on board for those who don't pre-order, but this could definitely help control spoilage, running out of items, etc.

 

[henryj]

"Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain

routes. The elimination of cash reduces transaction time and significantly reduces

accounting expenses and the risk of fraud or abuse"

"This model is very popular in the airline industry and has

been seen as a favorable change by travelers."

I never been one for this whole push for going cashless, yeah I have cards, but that doesn't mean I always want to use them. I also don't get where there getting the idea that cashless cabins have been popular with airline passengers, they have probably just gotten used to it. I don't think going cashless would be all that well received on Amtrak.

They said it was popular with the airline industry, not passengers. If it's popular with the airline industry, that means the airlines have determined that the benefits of not accepting cash (i.e. reduced losses due to theft) outweigh whatever downsides there are of people not having credit cards. That said, it's almost a given that an airline passenger is going to have a credit card. The same may not be true of an Amtrak passenger.

But, on the other hand, the type of passenger who is likely to spend money in the dining car is probably more likely to have a credit card than the average LD passenger overall.

When I rode the Alaska RR in July, they were cash-less in the dining cars. It's just the trend.

 

[Ted C]

I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.

 

[cirdan]

So, on the whole, cafe cars are a break-even affair, while dining cars are the money-losers. Have we ever had confirmation that was the case in the past?

Seeing the NEC has cafe cars, and the NEC cannot possibly be resposnible for losing any money at all, it is quite logical really.

I suggest rebranding LD trains as NEC Extended Edition and losses would evaporate instantly.

 

[Shanghai]

It would be interesting to know how much the Congressional Cafeteria's losses are

compared to Amtrak's Long Distances food services.

 

[zepherdude]

The big question here is: will Amtrak continue to include meals in the cost of sleeping accommodations?

Or, will the Sleeper Accommodations go up even higher to offset the meal service and other amenities?

 

[cirdan]

The big question here is: will Amtrak continue to include meals in the cost of sleeping accommodations?

Or, will the Sleeper Accommodations go up even higher to offset the meal service and other amenities?

Or will the next story be that meal services are highly profitable but that Amtrak is making huge losses on sleeper accomodation and other amenities.

And when somebody shouts anout that, the accounts will yet again magically find something else to offload the costs onto. The locomotive fuel budget maybe?

It's what happens when you get people without a clue making absurd micromanagement demands.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

"Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain

routes. The elimination of cash reduces transaction time and significantly reduces

accounting expenses and the risk of fraud or abuse"

"This model is very popular in the airline industry and has

been seen as a favorable change by travelers."

I never been one for this whole push for going cashless, yeah I have cards, but that doesn't mean I always want to use them. I also don't get where there getting the idea that cashless cabins have been popular with airline passengers, they have probably just gotten used to it. I don't think going cashless would be all that well received on Amtrak.

They said it was popular with the airline industry, not passengers. If it's popular with the airline industry, that means the airlines have determined that the benefits of not accepting cash (i.e. reduced losses due to theft) outweigh whatever downsides there are of people not having credit cards. That said, it's almost a given that an airline passenger is going to have a credit card. The same may not be true of an Amtrak passenger.

The quote says "has been seen as a favorable change by travelers" but I agree not all Amtrak passengers may have a card.

And there are times the machines won't work. What then? No food? Free food?

I prefer to use cash - no fraud worries and cash is one of the most recyclable things ever invented! I actually avoid buying on airlines ever since they went cashless.

And oh -

I'm not suggesting it, but he could bust the union and pay the LSA and Chef minimum wage with no benefits, pay the SAs $2.00/hr and have them 'live' on tips. Then there is the old buffet style of food service...

 

[cirdan]

Inventory, personnel and cash management. The press release suggests that a lot of Amtrak's efforts will be focused in these areas, which may be a good thing. Chain restaurants have perfected these systems without sacrificing quality (well, some of them have). The comments others have made about ditching Amtrak's antiquated paperwork and cash-handling systems are key. (I'm not too troubled by the idea of going "cashless," but that will take careful experimentation and planning.

If I may care to differ, I know of virtually no chain restaurants (other than maybe top-end expensive ones) that I would consider quality (food-wise). However there are many mom & pop type places that do excellent yet affordable home-made food that beat any chain.

However, Amtrak are obviously not seeking to compete that in category. So my point is sort of pedantic but moot.

 

[Anderson]

Mr. Boardman is soliciting comments on this post of his on Amtrak's Blog.

You have to create an account to comment though.

IMPROVING OUR FOOD AND BEVERAGE SERVICE

One of the comments has an interesting idea: offer a more expensive variety of coach ticket that includes meals.

I wonder what the financial performance of the Auto Train diners are. They could make Coach pay for food.

What is VIA's policy on complimentary meals for sleeping car passengers? Do they offer it to coach passengers on some runs?

It would be an interesting concept to allow passengers to "pre-order" meals before they board the train, maybe offering a small discount or other incentive for doing so. For those that do pre-order this could allow you to guarantee your specific choice would be in stock. Every restaurant always has a challenge with predicting what will move on a particular day, and I'm sure its even more challenging with the Dining Car. But if your stock was able to be better approximated by receiving orders in advance that would help your cause. It would also help speed kitchen production, order accuracy, etc. Tie it in with your rail reservation, and the LSA or SA scans your ticket, your order pops up, they confirm it with you, and then it gets fired to the kitchen. If you're a coach passenger, payment could be taken care of during the pre-order process, so the LSA doesn't even have to handle the payment processing. Of course you'd have to still have additional stock on board for those who don't pre-order, but this could definitely help control spoilage, running out of items, etc.

It's interesting you should mention pre-ordering. In BC, VIA apparently allowed you to do so up until recently, but it wasn't well-advertised. They just dumped this recently (though again, it may have been a flop due to lousy promotion).

The biggest issue I see with pre-ordering is long trip passengers. I'd rather not be committed to 2-4 days' worth of meal orders a week out.

 

[battalion51]

That's where it comes down to what's the incentive for going through the process. Its unreasonable to expect someone who is doing a long haul trip (say LAX to NYP) to commit to three days of meals ahead of time, but there may be cases where it makes sense. For example, if I were getting on the TE I can promise you I'd be wanting a steak for dinner and French Toast with bacon for breakfast. So what does Amtrak provide for the incentive, is it maybe a cocktail with dinner? An upgraded cut of meat? A broader menu selection? For those that are traveling on a multi-night trip having a broader menu selection available if you pre-order could be an excellent incentive. If you've got someone that wouldn't eat Chicken Cordon Bleu (presuming that's the poultry option) but would eat a BBQ Boneless Chicken this could be a huge advantage. The other person that comes to mind is the vegetarian crowd. This could open the door for them to not have to have the same small number of selections on a daily basis. One of the meals I always struggle with on the train personally is lunch because I don't eat hamburgers, and that's almost always one of the options. If you told me I could get a Chicken Sandwich simply by pre-ordering, I'd ask where do I sign up?

 

[Anderson]

That's where it comes down to what's the incentive for going through the process. Its unreasonable to expect someone who is doing a long haul trip (say LAX to NYP) to commit to three days of meals ahead of time, but there may be cases where it makes sense. For example, if I were getting on the TE I can promise you I'd be wanting a steak for dinner and French Toast with bacon for breakfast. So what does Amtrak provide for the incentive, is it maybe a cocktail with dinner? An upgraded cut of meat? A broader menu selection? For those that are traveling on a multi-night trip having a broader menu selection available if you pre-order could be an excellent incentive. If you've got someone that wouldn't eat Chicken Cordon Bleu (presuming that's the poultry option) but would eat a BBQ Boneless Chicken this could be a huge advantage. The other person that comes to mind is the vegetarian crowd. This could open the door for them to not have to have the same small number of selections on a daily basis. One of the meals I always struggle with on the train personally is lunch because I don't eat hamburgers, and that's almost always one of the options. If you told me I could get a Chicken Sandwich simply by pre-ordering, I'd ask where do I sign up?

That's actually a good point: You could arguably allow someone to select any meal coming out of the relevant commissary.

There's one other thing Amtrak could do that would probably be a sharp move: On trains like the Adirondack/Empire (longer corridor trains with little or no ability to restock at the back end), find ways to better manage the cafe to reduce food shortages on the return. A cafe that sells out at the end of a trip is successful, but one that starts running out of food options hours before the end of a trip is an utter disaster. I'm particularly thinking of my trip back from MTR in August...we were held up at the border, and about all I could get by Albany was the burger.

 

[battalion51]

Another great point. The move to a Point of Sale system should help that cause tremendously. I've got a lot of knowledge into POS through the hotel world, and the data you can get from it is tremendous. If you have the right analysts looking at the data you can find a lot of trends based on time of day, weather conditions, clientele conditions. I've worked a lot with my F&B partners to analyze data on groups to determine hot and cold sellers during a group's history. In the case of application to the Cafe Car you can look back at what PAR was loaded onto the train and how quickly it moved. Sure the train sold out of Cheeseburgers, but did that spike in sales happen at a certain point in time? If it did was it right after another item sold out? Were customers forced into the alternate selection, or was there just a late run on them because the train was empty until it got to Albany and then it went to standing room conditions? Predicting people's buying patterns is huge in terms of your ability to not only serve your customer, but make profit as well. Ahem, Wal Mart...

 

[Anderson]

Good point there. If you compare the POS data with inventory, you should be able to deduce when you ran out of X without too much difficulty and adjust accordingly. For the Adirondack example, I know that salads and sandwiches are wont to run out while still pretty far north, while you'll still usually be pretty good on burgers and noodle cups until after ALB.

And of course, adjusting for seasonality and weekends would be another big measure there. The Adirondack isn't going to do nearly as much business on a Wednesday in February as it does on a weekend in July.

 

[SubwayNut]

The solution to the Adirondack is to reopen the Albany Comissary so the cafe car can actually be restocked there on trains like the Adirondack and Maple Leaf. I still remember when Albany had a Comissary before the non-through Empire Service trains went foodless. The trick was to visit the cafe car just after Albany in either direction and they always had a great selection.

Also does NFL have a Comissary or are the through Empire Service trains only stocked once per round-trip in NYC?

 

[jis]

I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.

Just to set the record straight....
Most legacy airlines still serve hot meals in domestic First Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (either at your seat as in Acela or in the Diner in LD trains), and most sell a short list of cafe stuff in domestic Economy Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (in the cafe car). The non-alcoholic beverages are still free in Economy Class of most airlines unlike in Amtrak Coach Class. So strictly speaking most legacy airlines don't have anything that resembles Amtrak Coach Class as far as food service goes. Amtrak Business Class (except on Acelas) is like legacy airline Coach Class. OTOH in Acela First Class alcoholic beverages are free, which is not the case in most domestic airline First Classes.

 

[dlagrua]

The dining cars are necessary for LD travelers. There is also a limit to the amount of passengers that one dining car can serve. In view of the necessity and the limitation here is an idea. Have sleeper and other passengers place their order and make their reservation for breakfast. lunch and dinner when they are ticketed or even a few days before boarding. Everyone pays and orders in advance. This way food can be loaded that would be enough to serve everyone at their chosen meal time with only a small amount of overage. As it stands right now, the dining car must carry enough extra food to have all menu options available to everyone, but is food waste the biggest expense, or the fact that a dining car carries five employees? I see no way to make a dining car profitable and if Amtrak reverted to stopping along the way, they could do it but they would have to be very well coordinated. Currently some of the longer station stops are in the middle of the night.

 

[PRR 60]

I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.

Just to set the record straight....
Most legacy airlines still serve hot meals in domestic First Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (either at your seat as in Acela or in the Diner in LD trains), and most sell a short list of cafe stuff in domestic Economy Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (in the cafe car). The non-alcoholic beverages are still free in Economy Class of most airlines unlike in Amtrak Coach Class. So strictly speaking most legacy airlines don't have anything that resembles Amtrak Coach Class as far as food service goes. Amtrak Business Class (except on Acelas) is like legacy airline Coach Class. OTOH in Acela First Class alcoholic beverages are free, which is not the case in most domestic airline First Classes.

At least on US domestic F, alcoholic beverages are free. I assumed the same would be true on the other legacy's since US is seldom a leader in on board service.

 

[jebr]

The dining cars are necessary for LD travelers. There is also a limit to the amount of passengers that one dining car can serve. In view of the necessity and the limitation here is an idea. Have sleeper and other passengers place their order and make their reservation for breakfast. lunch and dinner when they are ticketed or even a few days before boarding. Everyone pays and orders in advance. This way food can be loaded that would be enough to serve everyone at their chosen meal time with only a small amount of overage. As it stands right now, the dining car must carry enough extra food to have all menu options available to everyone, but is food waste the biggest expense, or the fact that a dining car carries five employees? I see no way to make a dining car profitable and if Amtrak reverted to stopping along the way, they could do it but they would have to be very well coordinated. Currently some of the longer station stops are in the middle of the night.

What happens, then, if someone buys a ticket last-minute after the time they stock the train? Are they relegated to the cafe car, do they only get to eat what's available in the "small overage", or something else?

 

[OBS]

The solution to the Adirondack is to reopen the Albany Comissary so the cafe car can actually be restocked there on trains like the Adirondack and Maple Leaf. I still remember when Albany had a Comissary before the non-through Empire Service trains went foodless. The trick was to visit the cafe car just after Albany in either direction and they always had a great selection.

Also does NFL have a Comissary or are the through Empire Service trains only stocked once per round-trip in NYC?

No commissary in NFL. What you start with is all there is...

 

[OBS]

Another great point. The move to a Point of Sale system should help that cause tremendously. I've got a lot of knowledge into POS through the hotel world, and the data you can get from it is tremendous. If you have the right analysts looking at the data you can find a lot of trends based on time of day, weather conditions, clientele conditions. I've worked a lot with my F&B partners to analyze data on groups to determine hot and cold sellers during a group's history. In the case of application to the Cafe Car you can look back at what PAR was loaded onto the train and how quickly it moved. Sure the train sold out of Cheeseburgers, but did that spike in sales happen at a certain point in time? If it did was it right after another item sold out? Were customers forced into the alternate selection, or was there just a late run on them because the train was empty until it got to Albany and then it went to standing room conditions? Predicting people's buying patterns is huge in terms of your ability to not only serve your customer, but make profit as well. Ahem, Wal Mart...

You would think... The Acela's have had POS for, what, 2-3 years? And there have literally been zero adjustments to Par levels based upon the information that COULD be extracted from the POS data...very disappointing.

 

[me_little_me]

It would be an interesting concept to allow passengers to "pre-order" meals before they board the train, maybe offering a small discount or other incentive for doing so. For those that do pre-order this could allow you to guarantee your specific choice would be in stock. Every restaurant always has a challenge with predicting what will move on a particular day, and I'm sure its even more challenging with the Dining Car. But if your stock was able to be better approximated by receiving orders in advance that would help your cause. It would also help speed kitchen production, order accuracy, etc. Tie it in with your rail reservation, and the LSA or SA scans your ticket, your order pops up, they confirm it with you, and then it gets fired to the kitchen. If you're a coach passenger, payment could be taken care of during the pre-order process, so the LSA doesn't even have to handle the payment processing. Of course you'd have to still have additional stock on board for those who don't pre-order, but this could definitely help control spoilage, running out of items, etc.

There should be no reason to have to pre-order more than a day ahead. During the day, Amtrak on-board personnel could take orders for the next day via a in-car device (with help by on-board personnel for those unable to do it themselves). This would be transmitted to a private company (anti-Amtrakers would love it) who would meet the train and restock it.

 

[Nathanael]

If by "ending food and beverage losses, Amtrak means electronic accounting and Point-of-Sale, along with proper electronic inventory tracking, and efficient use of space in the dining car (maximum number of seatings), then great!

If by "ending food and beverage losses", Amtrak means means worse or more expensive food, then terrible!

(Regarding what I just wrote: Look up "if by whiskey" in Wikipedia. )

 

[Nathanael]

One of the comments has an interesting idea: offer a more expensive variety of coach ticket that includes meals.

There's an interesting idea here and I'd like to explore it further.

Sleeper passengers get a "fixed price" meal. Coach passengers have to buy stuff a la carte.

The accounting problem is reduced greatly if coach passengers also buy a fixed-price meal.

Now, I think that it's important to make it *possible* to buy meals in the diner with cash.

So, in addition to offering a coach ticket with meals included... I would suggest that Amtrak also allow the onboard purchase of literal "meal tickets" to coach passengers. If this were done, the diner could still accept cash payments, but Amtrak would gets most of the simplification benefits of "cashless" operation; the cash handling would be much, much smaller and the accounting would be a lot simpler. Perhaps the meal tickets could even be done in the cafe car, which very definitely needs to continue accepting cash for impulse purchases.

It's an interesting idea.

 

[battalion51]

The challenge with doing any prix fixe menu is getting your menu engineered to where all meals are at a relatively similar price point. Granted its virtually impossible to get it exactly the same, but you want it to be relatively similar so that your yield is relatively even. If you look at restaurants that participate in "Restaurant Week" usually their menu is restricted to two or three entrees that would all cost out about the same. For example you might see Fish, Chicken, and Short Ribs. That generally fits in with a portion of the dinner menu. However, what about the Vegetarian crowd? Or the Signature Steak crowd? You're getting into multiple price points now. Also, don't forget that you've got the beverage issue. Sodas and alcohol service are a huge piece of your yield. Based on the current price points I'd guess a soda is about 10% cost. Talk to any Chef, they'll tell you they love what soda sales do for food cost.