Piewatch – The Club Bites Back!

Bristol City are to bring in target times for kiosks to serve fans and beef up staff numbers after launching an inquiry into The Incider’s first undercover Piewatch survey.

New vegetable balti pies were also trialled at the Tranmere game yesterday – just days after we called for the club to introduce them.

Commercial manager Richard Gould admitted the queuing times exposed in our unique Piewatch tests on service in the three home stands were “disappointing”.

And in an interview with The Incider responding to the survey, he pledged action in a bid to bring down the maximum time fans were forced to wait at half-time by a quarter - to six minutes.

He said: “We are always trying to provide the best service to the fans. However, there are
obviously areas that we can improve and we will be studying your findings carefully.”

Our pie spies recorded the time it took to queue for food at the start of half-time.

We also measured the core temperature of the pies and coffee and taste tested the meat pies, which emerged with an unspectacular average of six out of ten.

The results, published in Issue Two, revealed supporters who left their seats the moment the whistle blew for half time were forced to queue eight minutes.

Our Williams Stand pie spy had to wait 10 minutes 30 second before being handed his pie and change.

Two of the three kiosks had also run out of any hot pies other than steak and kidney – even though the spies started queuing the moment the whistle was blown.

We demanded action and asked Mr Gould a string of questions about what would be done in the wake of the poor performance by Lindley Catering, which runs the kiosks.

Among the changes we called for were:

• More staff to serve fans quicker.

• Target maximum queuing times to serve customers – just like fast-food restaurants. For instance, McDonald’s tells staff customers must queue no longer than two minutes, then be served within a minute of reaching the counter.

• Replacing powdered milk with individual catering portions of the real thing to improve the taste of tea and coffee.

The club contacted The Incider within hours of our results going online to pledge action.

Mr Gould confirmed the club had studied into the Piewatch findings and would be taking action to improve service.

He told The Incider: “The queuing times identified by Piewatch were disappointing for peak periods, and we are trying to improve the speed of service by increasing the number of staff and improving their training and management.

“We will never eradicate queues at half time because there are so many people trying to use a limited number of kiosk facilities, but we can do better.

“Based on visits to other popular leisure activities that provide similar outlets, such as cinemas, concerts, rugby etc, the very best maximum wait time during a peak period would be approximately five or six minutes.

“Kiosks have not been given target-waiting times, but they are a good idea and we will introduce them.”

He added: “Piewatch indicated that there was a shortage of stock in some kiosks resulting in only a limited choice being available, although the match records from those kiosks indicated that considerable numbers of the entire range were sold throughout the match.

“These gaps in supply were caused by the time it takes to heat the pies, which can be a problem even with our new larger pie heaters, after the initial hot batch has been sold, and the time it takes to resupply from other locations.

“These systems are being looked into to see if they can be improved.

“Some lines will not be renewed after half time if it is thought that they will not be sold, as we want to reduce wastage.

“It is impossible to state whether the speed of service has improved since the kiosks were put out to contract as there are no relevant figures to compare with.

“However, since Lindley took over the operation turnover has increased dramatically. In fact it has doubled – which conclusively states that more people are buying more food and drink, and this is unlikely to happen if service has worsened.”

Mr Gould said the club would recruit extra staff to add to the 60 who currently operate the 16 kiosks at the Gate.

He insisted the club offered a wider hot food range than most clubs, including beefburgers, cheeseburgers, Cornish pasties, cheese and onion pasties, sausage rolls and hot dogs.

The veg balti pie, which was a hit with fans at Brentford, will join three other varieties – meat and veg, steak and kidney and chicken balti.

Mr Gould also pledged action to ensure the hot water was warm enough after complaints to The Incider about tepid tea and coffee served up soon after the gates opened.

But he ruled out milk portions to improve the taste of the hot drinks.

He said: “The standard of service and food is monitored closely both by Lindley and the club.

“I eat from a different kiosk every match, and there are pre and post match meetings to discuss any problems encountered or foreseen.

“The quality of the food and drink is of a good industry standard and offers good value for money for event catering.

“The pies are produced by Shires, who consistently win prizes for their quality. The complaint that tea is served cold as soon as the gates open is not one that has been voiced recently, and we will ensure that this is rectified.

“All the water boilers should be on by 9.45am on a Saturday matchday, although it only takes approximately one and a half hours to achieve maximum temperature.

“The request for milk portions is not one that we can satisfy at the moment as our supplier Typhoo specialise in a custom, ready mixed cup of tea that already contains milk.

“Despite positive comments with regards to safe food temperatures and other areas that were deemed acceptable, Piewatch comments were in part critical and it is those areas that the club must concentrate to provide the best possible service.

“We constantly look at other clubs to see if there are ways in which we can improve.

“Our own away games are an obvious source of information, but even within the last three weeks we have also visited Wolves, West ham and Southampton to see how they operate.

“Having Lindley aboard helps enormously because they have a great deal of experience from servicing over 30 other stadiums.

“There is a limit to what we can do as we are restricted by our old facilities, and we must also get the balance right between maximising profit and providing the best possible service.

“In this regard we are moving in the right direction as the kiosks do provide a good source of revenue to keep the club solvent, and we have been able to improve turnover considerably over the last 14 months.”

* The Incider ‘s Piewatch spies will be back later in the season to carry out follow-up tests and see if the club keeps its promise to improve.

Email us at letters@theincider.com with your views.

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