Bringing food / Having food brought to the train

[gmushial]

It seems that I might have been the last one to come to the party... I had been talking about having a food delivery service [one of those companies which brings ordered food from restaurants, nominally to home] bring food to the CZ in GJT. So... last night I emailed the three services that google turned up for that area... sending a very tentative email, explaining what it was I was interested in, the variableness of the timing, and the narrow window that they'd have to hit etc... thinking that nobody had thought about this before or had tried such. Was I wrong. At least the one reply I got back from MyFoodTaxi... seems they've been doing this for some time. Seems actually that it has expanded beyond just ordered meals from their list of restaurants, but there has been sufficient demand - they will even do grocery shopping for passengers and bring that to the train. [Also seems that hitting the 10-12 minute window that the CZ is sitting there is not a problem, in that they have been hitting even narrower windows at the airport with planes coming in, picking up the food, and flying out.]

So... such takes away the pioneer spirit of trying something for the first time, being the first one to do such... but on the other hand, seems that given their success at doing such, I just might have a nice warm lasagna for dinner on the way back west in a couple weeks.

And actually, thinking about it: I've seen people from the train return to the train in Reno and Denver with pizza boxes... previously I had thought they'd gone and gotten the pizzas, but my guess now is that they simply connected with a food delivery service and during the smoke breaks at each venue, picked up what they had ordered.

Bottom-line: it seems that a) there is at least one alternative to either eating from the dining car or café and/or buying junk food at the smoke stops; and b) there are enough others that have grown dissatisfied with the Amtrak choices that at least one food delivery company considers delivering to the CZ nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[Silver Star rider]

Maybe for a café car type food, never had that myself. But for the quality of food served in the dining car I frequent, I would be surprised they can get better food elsewhere. Maybe cheaper... but not better.

Bruce-SSR

 

[neroden]

Pretty neat. Unfortunately I'm not usually going through Grand Junction. I wonder if we could make a list of delivery services in specific cities which are comfortable doing this.

 

[gmushial]

Maybe for a café car type food, never had that myself. But for the quality of food served in the dining car I frequent, I would be surprised they can get better food elsewhere. Maybe cheaper... but not better.

Bruce-SSR

This is the very point that drove me to this - previously I had looked forward to at least one evening dinner in the dining car: but this last time, with the cheapened-down place settings, the 30 minutes to get served, a waiter that was beyond clueless, and the leather steak for $25... I was planning on bringing my own for this next trip... but the ability to bring on full on restaurant food: got to give it a try. [if we were talking McD or BK etc, then I wouldn't bother - but if you look at what MyFoodTaxi has aligned themselves with... more or less the better restaurants in GJT.]

 

[gmushial]

Pretty neat. Unfortunately I'm not usually going through Grand Junction. I wonder if we could make a list of delivery services in specific cities which are comfortable doing this.

YES. But being from New England, I'd like to give the process a try a few times, see if I have faith in it, and then do such. I'll clearly post my experiences... and if others can make use of the info, so much the better.

 

[gmushial]

A related, and maybe important thought: as I've said above - I've seen people bring track-side bought food on-board; I've seen large pizza boxes come on board; I've seen a gent with a plug-in electric cooler feed himself what I'd have to call (and from what he offered as samples) gourmet foods all the way from SAC to CHI... so there are already people that are bringing food on-board [in addition to MyFoodTaxi's comments that this is old hat]. My question is: is there anything in the contract that I implicitly sign when I buy an Amtrak ticket that bars doing such, but Amtrak has politely looked the other way over the matter, which if more people start doing such, will raise the profile to a level that they'll have to start enforcing the letter of the contract? I can't imagine such is the case, but would be interested in the legalities before investing too much time in such an endeavor. ... any fine print readers here?

 

[neroden]

Nope. Amtrak explicitly allows you to bring your own food on board and eat it.

The delivery services have a small issue, in that they're probably not actually allowed on the platform without tickets. That could be enforced if Amtrak wished.

 

[Steve4031]

A six hour delay will foul up this process. Wonder how it works when the cz pulls into grand junction at 10 pm at night.

 

[gmushial]

Nope. Amtrak explicitly allows you to bring your own food on board and eat it.

The delivery services have a small issue, in that they're probably not actually allowed on the platform without tickets. That could be enforced if Amtrak wished.

I had suspected this and as such was why I asked MyFoodTaxi to meet me in the station parking lot: clearly a public venue. ... w/re the other point: many thanks for clarifying such - that gives me more hope that we can make such a endeavor [your idea of posting a list for the various stations of delivery services] fly.

 

[gmushial]

A six hour delay will foul up this process. Wonder how it works when the cz pulls into grand junction at 10 pm at night.

Actually not.... then hopefully one had made use of the Glenwood Springs providers, or even Denver... the idea here is: to make the "service" flexible, ie, use whatever service at any of the smoking stops, when you want to eat, ie, whatever matches your stomach's schedule... just call them on your cell an hour before, let them know when it looks like you'll be at the pickup point, and then reconfirm that 10 or 15 minutes out. ... but personally I'm one of those that can eat dinner anytime btwn 5 and 10pm... so there is a pretty good chance of making a smoking stop during that window... and if push really comes to shove, then I do a café car something, or even a dining car meal... but at least most of the times, I'll have other options... or at least that's how I see it.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Do local food trucks ever meet the trains?

jb

 

[gmushial]

Do local food trucks ever meet the trains?

jb

I haven't seen such, but my experiences are limited to CZ, CS, EB and SWC... but a) wouldn't that potentially run into the same problems that the Taco Lady ran into, ie, no non-ticketed people on the platform, and b) and just personally, I'm looking for something well above the local taco truck for dinner - for lunch maybe... but generally I bring finger food for breakfast and lunch, but it's dinner that I'm looking for something much better.

 

[Guestlsa]

I have order food in Houston and Tucsun to train . I use grubhub . There is only time where we super late and they had to drop off at the station in Houston . Btw is myfoodtaxi only on California Zephyyer route

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I can see it now. The Gathering "party trains" having pizza partys.

 

[brentrain17]

whatever floats your boats, great to know you can have food brought to the train at various stops but I have never had bad food on Amtrak or a "Leather" steak"

 

[John Bobinyec]

whatever floats your boats, great to know you can have food brought to the train at various stops but I have never had bad food on Amtrak or a "Leather" steak"

But on a long trip over several days, would you want to eat that same Amsteak day after day?

jb

 

[guest_msp]

Here in MSP the "bite squad" bitesquad.com delivers food from various restaurants that don't do their own delivery service. Don't know if they deliver to the platform or what.

 

[gmushial]

whatever floats your boats, great to know you can have food brought to the train at various stops but I have never had bad food on Amtrak or a "Leather" steak"

As I think I posted above: if this hadn't been the case, I wouldn't have been looking for alternatives... but since it did, I am... but I'm very glad that you haven't had to cross this bridge, or felt the need.

 

[gmushial]

I can see it now. The Gathering "party trains" having pizza partys.

Only on a casual Friday... otherwise I suspect they're just too classy to descend to such ;-)

 

[gmushial]

Here in MSP the "bite squad" bitesquad.com delivers food from various restaurants that don't do their own delivery service. Don't know if they deliver to the platform or what.

I have order food in Houston and Tucsun to train . I use grubhub . There is only time where we super late and they had to drop off at the station in Houston . Btw is myfoodtaxi only on California Zephyyer route

As I posted above - I guess I'm the last one to come to this party... and given MyFoodTaxi's comments about "oh sure, we do it all the time"... but I wonder what the take-away is from such collectively? That others have come to find Amtrak food: too limited in selection? Too over priced? Of insufficient quality? Or? For Amtrak, I guess the question is: is this a one of? Or is this a snowball starting its run down the slope, gathering mass as it continues? Or, maybe this plays into the Mica's hands, and is the first step toward the elimination of food services on the trains, and toward semi-structured passenger generated alternatives?

 

[the_traveler]

I can see it now. The Gathering "party trains" having pizza partys.

PIZZA and BEER! I'm in!!!!!

 

[me_little_me]

Pretty neat. Unfortunately I'm not usually going through Grand Junction. I wonder if we could make a list of delivery services in specific cities which are comfortable doing this.

Like the site that lists hotels near the stops?

http://kevinkorell.com/hotels/hotels.htm

OK, who volunteers to run that site? Might even get it funded by the companies listed.

 

[gmushial]

Pretty neat. Unfortunately I'm not usually going through Grand Junction. I wonder if we could make a list of delivery services in specific cities which are comfortable doing this.

Like the site that lists hotels near the stops?

http://kevinkorell.com/hotels/hotels.htm

OK, who volunteers to run that site? Might even get it funded by the companies listed.

One would like to think that a well designed site would run itself, no? Or what are you thinking of in terms of running it? [we have multiple sites which we own that we check in on about once a year or so, or when the monitoring software reports an unexpected change.]

 

[gmushial]

I can see it now. The Gathering "party trains" having pizza partys.

PIZZA and BEER! I'm in!!!!!

No, no... you guys are suppose to be classier than that ... then again: count me in.

 

[Bob Dylan]

The crews on the Texas Eagle#22 often order Bar-B-Q in advance from the Taylor Cafe in Taylor ( next to the Amtrak/UP Station/Bobby Muellers in Taylor is Better) and it is delivered to trainside during the station stop! I've gone in on it when going farther north on the Eagle when riding Coach but never in a Sleeper!