French Toast is back on the Empire Builder, and other menu changes.

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
TraneMan

TraneMan

Conductor
Joined
Mar 16, 2008
Messages
1,147
Location
Rochester, MN
Saw a post on a friend's FB page who is a LSA, and he mention to his co worker that the free coffee, milk, tea, and juice are no longer free with your meal, they are $2.

Also, the salad is not part of your meal, it's a side item.. (That's fine with me, I don't eat salad anyway.. hated to see it go to waste)

As I looked at the menu, saw the french toast is back!! yay!
 
Wow, they must have just changed that as my wife and I rode the EB in August and all those items came with our First Class Meal.

I don't mind the paying, it just irks me that the Government gives Billions of our tax money to every Tom,. Dick and Harry around the world and we can't have decent rail service here in the Good Old U S of A. I Love Amtrak and will keep supporting it. I just hope our Government feels the same!!

Sorry, had to get that off my chest! Guess the Bill for the Coffee got me all riled up, LOL
 
This is not a great move, but it's a lot better than simply deleting them from the menu entirely, like they did with most of the desserts, or the entree salad, or several of the other entrees.

I'm all for charging for them, but $1 would be a better choice than $2 -- sell more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I eat the Salad that is put down for me but if they are going to charge for it, they better improve the quality; McDonald's tosses out a much better Salad for a buck!
 
I don't eat the salad or drink Pepsi but if they ate going to nickel and dime in the diner they better get Coke products and decent tea and coffee as well as better deserts ( except for the Chocolate Bundt Cake! Yummm!!)

How on earth can Joe Boardman let idiotic stuff like this continue to go on?!!!

The Slippery Slope some of us have discussed seems to becoming an avalanche!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just checked the menu on amtrak.com it looks like the changes are in effect. It now shows salad as a side and for 3 dollars. Also the verbage regarding milk, coffee etc being include are missing as well.
 
Well looks like the new menus are out and it has changed from the previous "OR" version to the former definite item version. So no more Pancakes OR French Toast depending on route but French Toast. Also, while it is being discussed in the topic of the Empire Builder french toast, the salad, coffee and tea are no longer included in the meal if your a coach passenger.
 
So for that lousy salad they are charging $3. What a ripoff. Thats is just bag o salad which the chef prolly digs out with his hands and thows 2 cherry tomatoes on and some cuex. I always wonder if they wear gloves down in the kitchen. So, $26 for the steak, $3 for the salad/dressing, $2 for tea or Pepsi. $31 for that meal.

Why have the Dining Car anyway? Those meals are way of of touch for most coach passengers and students. I small talked to a guy heading back to college once and all he had was a bag of trail mix for 2 days. He called it the breakfast of champions. Honest, if they nickel and dime the public much more, I would really favor an enhanced snack car instead of cheap lettuce and lousy desserts. Someone up top mentioned the chocolate bundt cake being wonderful. I am sorry, but mine was like chocolate saw dust.

If they start making fresh lettuce salad greens and keep it fresh, I would go for 3 bucks. In its present form out of the bag, they can keep it. The cost of lettuce is negligable, cherry tomatoes, 2 cuex slices, maybe .25 cents in leafy green stuff. Paul Newman dressing pouches on Amazon.com are 10 pkts for $5.70 or .57 cents each, Amtrak prolly pays . 20 cents each or less. So, if there is .50 cents cost tied up in that salad, thats a $2.50 cent markup for Amtrak. No one will pay 3 bucks for it except sleepers and so far its free still, maybe? We can not get immigration reform passed and the Republicans want to shut down the government again, but they can charge 3 bucks for a lousy bowl of lettuce on Amtrak.
 
I always thought breakfast was the best deal in coach. Not great, but last time I rode it was $7 for eggs and hash browns and that included juice and coffee. The juice and coffee are now extra? Rip off indeed. $25 for a small steak and the salad and coffee are not included anymore in that price? Another idiotic move. Prices are high enough.
 
This shows how those in the decision have absolutely no common economic sense. These moves are aimed at Coach pax, the folks who are already least likely to use the Diner because many are traveling on a budget. And now they want to charge them more, further discouraging them from spending money in the Diner.

The pre-Amtrak California Zephyr offered a Chef's Early Dinner at first seating for Coach pax. It consisted of an entree, potato, vegetable, bread and butter, choice of beverage and dessert and on the sometime in the 60s vintage card I have it was priced at $1.25. The goal was obvious-offer a hearty basic meal to encourage Coach pax to eat in the Diner and as a result generate a bit more revenue.

If current Amtrak management had any economic sense whatsoever they would offer a similar plan at the 5 pm seating.
 
You have to inflate $1.25 from the 1960s to the present day, so it should be $10. But yes, indeed, that would be a solid revenue raiser.

Amtrak management doesn't seem to have any sense regarding the dining cars. The problem was identified correctly in the Performance Improvement Plans: lack of volume. They aren't turning over enough tables and they aren't open enough hours. The solution identified was to eliminate paperwork, to replace "paperwork time" with "serving time" -- which still hasn't been done.

Raising prices simply reduces volume. The person in charge of this is a fool.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Looks like the salad is now being offered like the breakfast meats...an extra that they can charge for.

Noticed also (not a biggie for me) that the lunch items are no longer available for dinner.

I'm fascinated at how "expensive" water is...same as a Pepsi ($2.25) and more than milk, juice, etc.
 
yarrow said:
i assume the reason french toast is back is because it only needs to be reheated not, oh my, made fresh like a pancake
Click to expand...
On the LSL I have seen them actually grill the french toast to reheat. I never thought it was scratch made. So it comes in frozen and the chef keeps it going all through breakfast on the grill. The omlets are prolly pre-made and arrive frozen as well. But, no actual proof of that comment. Anyone that really likes the FT can thank the company that makes it, "French Toast are Us".
 
zepherdude said:
yarrow said:
i assume the reason french toast is back is because it only needs to be reheated not, oh my, made fresh like a pancake
Click to expand...
On the LSL I have seen them actually grill the french toast to reheat. I never thought it was scratch made. So it comes in frozen and the chef keeps it going all through breakfast on the grill. The omlets are prolly pre-made and arrive frozen as well. But, no actual proof of that comment. Anyone that really likes the FT can thank the company that makes it, "French Toast are Us".
Click to expand...
At least on the Heritage Diners and I assume the upcoming V2 Diners you can see what is going on in the kitchen. And to think in their heydays these cars had 4 cooks/chefs back there!
 
What is sad is not the prices but the alternative junk sold in the cafe car. Same crappy sandwiches, same reheated hot dogs, same junk food. At least when traveling coach, you could get one decent meal at, admittedly, a high price. Now you pay that same high price and don't get a full meal. Had they reduced the price to take into account the loss of the drinks and salad, I'd like the idea for those not wanting that much food.

Does the tiny roll come with the salad or with the meal?

Can you now order a salad and dessert without a meal?
 
Usually Joe Boardman is so "bureaucrat careful" in his public remarks

that it's all bland "nothing much" said.

Maybe Mica got him rattled, but he wildly over-promised when he said

Amtrak would eliminate losses on food & beverage service.

Better to have said, "We've ordered 25 new diners. When they enter

the fleet, we hope to eliminate food losses on all our long distance trains

​serving the Northeast, and chop our total food & beverage losses by

about half."

Not sure he'd have easily delivered on that hedged and half-size promise

anyway, but he might have positioned Amtrak to exceed that goal.

It would have pointed out that Amtrak was working on the problem,

and like most of its operating problems, the best answer is more

capital investment. ​It would have set up the need for new equipment

on the Western trains as well, to cut losses there too.

The whole whoop-de-doo about the Billion in food service losses

was typical of the phony issues ginned up by the propaganda mills

nowadays. Mica had to add up 10 years of losses to get something

like a Billion. Against Amtrak's $2.5 Billion annual cost to the feds,

that $1 Billion is shocking. Against the 10 years, it's a lousy 4%.

Anyway, cutting the food losses in half, with the help of the Viewliner II

diners, would have been doable. Now Amtrak is under pressure to do

too much too fast. So mistakes will be made.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top