On mountain food prices

[hammer]

Bottom line I think is that people don't mind paying for quality. If you charge $8 for a burger, make it worth $8. Otherwise, the customer feels gouged. Deer Valley and Stowe were brought up in discussion and I'd like to praise what they do food-wise. Before I went to Deer Valley, a colleague said "look, you pay the same amount to eat a hockey puck at Killington but the difference at Deer Valley is that you get a really good burger." Had a Thanksgiving meal for lunch on china and silverware at DV and didn't feel gouged at all. It was worth $13. A lot of western areas I've been to seem to have a good concept of giving you a good meal for a fair price. Some of their eastern brethren are coming around and I hope that trend continues.

I'll also chime in on DV...it's definitely pricey but the quality is well beyond what you see at most ski areas.

We're lazy so we buy lunches a lot of the time...and about the only place that I would say was worth it this season was the summit lodge at Loon.

Another reference point is theme parks which have more of a captive audience...and while a lot of those can be questionable, I can get better quality/quantity food at Disney World for the same price that I pay at most ski areas.

 

[abc]

When I'm in the islands or out west, I know I'm getting gouged. But I'm paying for convenience, not washing dishes and treating myself to something special.

I don't see that being the case "out west". In fact, on mountain lunch doesn't cost any more than the east.

It's a bit harder to brown bag when you first have to get on a plane! But I've learn over the years, the first thing I do after landing at the airport and picked up the rental car? Make a quick stop at a supermarket!

 

[steamboat1]

It's nice knowing someone who works at the mountain. I occasionally ski with a friend that works at Sugarbush. Sugarbush's cafeteria is high priced with menza menza quality in my opinion. We both go in & order a bunch of things for lunch. When they ring us both up at the register the bill is usually somewhere around $30. The cashier then swipes his employee card & wa-la that will be $12 please. To bad his card doesn't work at the bar.

 

[vcunning]

I think I've seen a PBR or bottle of Moet in your jacket a few times.

Too bad the Gladiator got cancelled. I had you all set at the bottom of Ripcord.

I think logistics plays into it quite a bit. Especially if you look at the prices at a summit lodge.

We tend to "snack" more vs eat at the mountain. We stay fueled with a hot cocoa, apple and a granola bar. We'll usually toss a granola bar and a box of rasins in my coat pocket before we leave in the AM.

 

[bobbutts]

I like to grab a burger or chicken fingers and obscenely large sugary drink from the lodge sometimes, especially if I feel like I'm running out of energy and the car is far away. If I'm going somewhere that I know has good parking I'll often stop at subway on the way for a dry sub for later. Ski bag is always packed with energy bars and other little snacks and drinks that can go in a pocket. Not a fan of stopping in the lodge and dropping off food, so that kind of gets in the way of brown bagging.

 

[Glenn]

I think I've seen a PBR or bottle of Moet in your jacket a few times.

Too bad the Gladiator got cancelled. I had you all set at the bottom of Ripcord.

That's the source of the funny noises coming from my jacket. Funny noises from my pants are fiber related. :lol:

 

[deadheadskier]

Second, when the burgers on mountain compare in quality to a BK whopper, I can be okay with that. But not when it costs 3 times what a whopper costs. I expect to pay more for the convenience of eating right there, but 3 times as much?

Bad comparison.

1. You do realize that Burger King is the 3rd largest hamburger restaurant franchise in the world? Their buying power dwarfs that of even a "franchise" ski resort like Sunday River. It's like the difference between you a GC buying lumber at Home Depot vs what Home Depot pays for the lumber from the factory.

2. The patty size is not apples to apples. Standard burger patty size for an outdoor bbq at a ski resort is 5.3 ounces. A whopper is only 4 ounces. The whopper JR you initial referenced, even less.

3. BK is a volume restaurant and can operate on lower margins than a ski resort can

4. Flavor. The only reason a BK burger tastes good (highly debatable) is because it is loaded with an extreme amount of salt, fillers and preservatives. I'm not suggesting Sunday River's offer is health food, but it's probably a fair bit better for you to eat than BK.

The $7 price you paid is very reasonable for a slope side BBQ IMO.

 

[Highway Star]

Bad comparison.

1. You do realize that Burger King is the 3rd largest hamburger restaurant franchise in the world? Their buying power dwarfs that of even a "franchise" ski resort like Sunday River. It's like the difference between you a GC buying lumber at Home Depot vs what Home Depot pays for the lumber from the factory.

2. The patty size is not apples to apples. Standard burger patty size for an outdoor bbq at a ski resort is 5.3 ounces. A whopper is only 4 ounces. The whopper JR you initial referenced, even less.

3. BK is a volume restaurant and can operate on lower margins than a ski resort can

4. Flavor. The only reason a BK burger tastes good (highly debatable) is because it is loaded with an extreme amount of salt, fillers and preservatives. I'm not suggesting Sunday River's offer is health food, but it's probably a fair bit better for you to eat than BK.

The $7 price you paid is very reasonable for a slope side BBQ IMO.

The food at killington comes out of large foodservice trucks just like at a company cafeteria or school.

 

[deadheadskier]

I guess, at this point, I am more curious as to the profit and sales side of things. If they were to drop prices say 20%, what would happen? How would the margins look? Would they sell enough more to make it worthwhile?

Okay, so the burgers cost $5 instead of $7. You honestly think there's going to be a line out the door over $2?

Anyone who has spent any amount of time managing F&B operations will tell you that it's not a highly profitable business to be in. People do it because they enjoy it, not because they're looking to make huge amounts of money. A buddy of mine operates one of the most profitable free standing restaurants I've ever heard of in ski country and turned in a profit of 25% for last year. If he dropped his prices 20%, he'd be out of business.

 

[o3jeff]

Okay, so the burgers cost $5 instead of $7. You honestly think there's going to be a line out the door over $2?

At $5 if I was hungry I'd probably buy 2, at $7 I'm only getting one and will hit something up on the ride home.

 

[deadheadskier]

The food at killington comes out of large foodservice trucks just like at a company cafeteria or school.

I'm aware of that. And every invoice on that truck has a different price on it depending on the customer.

BK has their own trucks delivering the product to the individual stores. It's a completely different league.

 

[deadheadskier]

At $5 if I was hungry I'd probably buy 2, at $7 I'm only getting one and will hit something up on the ride home.

See that's the thing though, you are already a buyer to begin with. I still don't think that price reduction is enough to convince a brown bagger to buy resort food because they look at that $5 burger price and say, "That's a good deal, but I can still feed my family of 4 turkey breast sandwiches for $5."

 

[gmcunni]

my kid usually protests when i want to brown bag it. my daughter loves the nachos or cheese fries almost as much (more?) than the skiing.

 

[o3jeff]

See that's the thing though, you are already a buyer to begin with. I still don't think that price reduction is enough to convince a brown bagger to buy resort food because they look at that $5 burger price and say, "That's a good deal, but I can still feed my family of 4 turkey breast sandwiches for $5."

Actually out of the 6 times I skied this year I bought food twice(no beverage, I usually have a couple vitamin waters in my boot bag), the rest of the times was soup, sandwiches, chips, candy and beverages we brought from home.

 

[deadheadskier]

I gotta say I am gaining some insight into the food service business here. I never realized the margins were so thin.

extremely thin

I'll share my own personal ski resort F&B management experience......

I worked at Snowshoe, WV as an F&B manager in 2002-2003. Our yearly sales for F&B that year was $7M. My job was manager of the resort's Conference, Banquet and Catering Operations (which would include such duties as running outdoor BBQs like the one you attended that inspired this thread) as well as 3 winter season business units that included a family breakfast and dinner buffet restaurant, a night club and a cafeteria at one of the resort's 3 base areas.

We ran extremely lean on labor, the 8 full time salaried managers all averaged 70 hours per week year round, upwards of 100 during holiday weeks. We worked 60+ hours a week during the off seasons (zero downtime rewarded for 100 hour a week peak season effort) because to have the weekly labor budget excepted by corporate (Intrawest) we needed to lay off basically everyone for 3 months a year and the managers all pitched in to cook, dish wash, wait tables, bartend, etc.

During the off season, I was most busy with business meetings and luncheons during the day. All of my hourly service staff where cut during the off seasons by corporate and the night time salaried restaurant managers came and pitched in during the day to cook, dish wash, wait tables for me. Then they'd go manage their restaurant at night and the managers like me who were busy during the day would go and cook, dishwash, barted in their restaurants.

We ran lean as hell and had typical "ballpark prices" on our products and brought $700K of that $7M in sales to the bottom line for the year.

Almost $2M of that $7M came from the Xmas, MLK and Pres holiday periods. Over 25% of the yearly revenue from only 22 days of the year. We had above average natural snow that season and great weather during the holidays. The year prior, they had bad snow and weather, and did only $6M in F&B for the year and brought less than $200K to the bottom line for the resort. Notice the profit number dropped much more than the gross revenue. There's a shit ton of fixed costs in F&B and you really need to hit on all cylinders during peak periods to maximize profit for the year. One bad holiday week of the year can be the difference between great and good yearly profit and two bad holidays of the year can mean financial disaster.

Weather can affect seasonal business that much. The result of the prior bad year to my time at Snowshoe was 6 of 8 salaried personnel being let go at the end of the season to preserve costs and still be able to make that $200K profit for the year. I don't know if all ski resorts have July 1 to June 30th accounting years, but the two that I managed at did and if they had an off ski season (always because of weather not the economy) then it meant massive layoffs for both line and management staff come March 1st.

Involuntary staff turnover is extremely high at ski resorts during bad snow years. The layoffs are ruthless.
I left Snowshoe after that winter for a better paying job at another ski area. Voluntary staff turnover is also high at ski resorts.

Why?

Because if you're trying to eek out a living in a ski town where the rents are through the roof (never mind even thinking about buying a home) and you take on a management job for the year round income security and health benefits, but you don't even get to ski much (which is what lead you to choose to live there in the 1st place) because you work 80 hours a week all season and are too tired to strap the boards on, well you go for more money. If you're going to be miserable not skiing and working 80 hours a week where the mountain is your office, you at least want to make as much money as you can.

The following season of my "successful" season at Snowshoe was terrible weather wise. Snowshoe did the same thing as they did the season prior to me being there. They laid off 6 of 8 salaried managers. The resort I left for had an equally bad year and 3 out of the 5 year round salaried staff was laid off including myself.

So during a GREAT profit year at one ski resort, I had the pleasure of working 80+ hours a week and barely skiing at all during the season. During a bad season I had the pleasure of working 90+ hours a week and getting fired.

F&B is a TOUGH business. 60% of all new restaurants fail within 3 years. The one's that make it have to be willing to work LONG hours for short profit.

 

[riverc0il]

How about this line then. There were so few people buying burgers and dogs, I suspect due to high pricing.

I can't speak for the day you observed this. But I can say that outdoor grills featuring burgers are almost always the highest volume eating locations at any mountain I visit, by my observations. The limited number of people might have been a factor of simply less people being at the mountain than usual due to late season and poor condition, perhaps? In either case, $15 burger/chip/beverage specials on an outdoor grill is par for the course and usually a happening scene. I think you observed an anomaly not due to pricing but rather something else.

Also, I think you are looking at it the wrong way comparing ski areas to a BK. The more apt comparison, I think, is a sit down restaurant with table service and burgers cooked to order. Ski areas are never going to offer fast food prices. Fast food is amongst the cheapest price you can pay for a full meal. But ski areas can bring their quality up to match their prices, that is at least within the realm of possibility as many ski areas already do.

 

[snoseek]

extremely thin

I'll share my own personal ski resort F&B management experience......

I worked at Snowshoe, WV as an F&B manager in 2002-2003. Our yearly sales for F&B that year was $7M. My job was manager of the resort's Conference, Banquet and Catering Operations (which would include such duties as running outdoor BBQs like the one you attended that inspired this thread) as well as 3 winter season business units that included a family breakfast and dinner buffet restaurant, a night club and a cafeteria at one of the resort's 3 base areas.

We ran extremely lean on labor, the 8 full time salaried managers all averaged 70 hours per week year round, upwards of 100 during holiday weeks. We worked 60+ hours a week during the off seasons (zero downtime rewarded for 100 hour a week peak season effort) because to have the weekly labor budget excepted by corporate (Intrawest) we needed to lay off basically everyone for 3 months a year and the managers all pitched in to cook, dish wash, wait tables, bartend, etc.

During the off season, I was most busy with business meetings and luncheons during the day. All of my hourly service staff where cut during the off seasons by corporate and the night time salaried restaurant managers came and pitched in during the day to cook, dish wash, wait tables for me. Then they'd go manage their restaurant at night and the managers like me who were busy during the day would go and cook, dishwash, barted in their restaurants.

We ran lean as hell and had typical "ballpark prices" on our products and brought $700K of that $7M in sales to the bottom line for the year.

Almost $2M of that $7M came from the Xmas, MLK and Pres holiday periods. Over 25% of the yearly revenue from only 22 days of the year. We had above average natural snow that season and great weather during the holidays. The year prior, they had bad snow and weather, and did only $6M in F&B for the year and brought less than $200K to the bottom line for the resort. Notice the profit number dropped much more than the gross revenue. There's a shit ton of fixed costs in F&B and you really need to hit on all cylinders during peak periods to maximize profit for the year. One bad holiday week of the year can be the difference between great and good yearly profit and two bad holidays of the year can mean financial disaster.

Weather can affect seasonal business that much. The result of the prior bad year to my time at Snowshoe was 6 of 8 salaried personnel being let go at the end of the season to preserve costs and still be able to make that $200K profit for the year. I don't know if all ski resorts have July 1 to June 30th accounting years, but the two that I managed at did and if they had an off ski season (always because of weather not the economy) then it meant massive layoffs for both line and management staff come March 1st.

Involuntary staff turnover is extremely high at ski resorts during bad snow years. The layoffs are ruthless.
I left Snowshoe after that winter for a better paying job at another ski area. Voluntary staff turnover is also high at ski resorts.

Why?

Because if you're trying to eek out a living in a ski town where the rents are through the roof (never mind even thinking about buying a home) and you take on a management job for the year round income security and health benefits, but you don't even get to ski much (which is what lead you to choose to live there in the 1st place) because you work 80 hours a week all season and are too tired to strap the boards on, well you go for more money. If you're going to be miserable not skiing and working 80 hours a week where the mountain is your office, you at least want to make as much money as you can.

The following season of my "successful" season at Snowshoe was terrible weather wise. Snowshoe did the same thing as they did the season prior to me being there. They laid off 6 of 8 salaried managers. The resort I left for had an equally bad year and 3 out of the 5 year round salaried staff was laid off including myself.

So during a GREAT profit year at one ski resort, I had the pleasure of working 80+ hours a week and barely skiing at all during the season. During a bad season I had the pleasure of working 90+ hours a week and getting fired.

F&B is a TOUGH business. 60% of all new restaurants fail within 3 years. The one's that make it have to be willing to work LONG hours for short profit.

This sounds just awful. I've had some pretty bad mgmt jobs but this definitely takes the cake. You should have skipped the mgmt job and just been a three night a week bartende, in town, away fronm the mountain. I've had many summers like you describe, most people can't fathom what its like to work like that.

 

[deadheadskier]

At one point, a franchise owner told me his cost to put food on the counter, it was 17 cents on the dollar.(I think I remember him saying that included labor, but I may be remembering incorrectly. In either case, that is pretty impressive.)That is the only reference point I have had in my life for what it costs to operate a restaurant.

I can believe 17% food cost at a fast food joint that is managed perfectly with zero waste. That number most definitely did not include in labor.

Other previous F&B Management experiences had me overseeing F&B in busy year round hotels in small cities.

Corporate cost breakdown goals were pretty much: 30% Food Cost, 26% Liquor Cost, 28% Labor Cost. So, the gross profit goals were basically 16%. Net are much lower though. The utilities in commercial kitchens are extremely expensive. Equipment replacement costs are enormous. Then you have to market your product. That makes the 16% disappear very fast. You make pennies on the dollar in food service. You get a bad employee or twenty who steal or give away free booze or food (BIG PROBLEM at a ski resort) and you can lose money in a hurry even selling $7 frozen hockey puck burgers.

 

[SkiFanE]

I can't speak for the day you observed this. But I can say that outdoor grills featuring burgers are almost always the highest volume eating locations at any mountain I visit, by my observations. The limited number of people might have been a factor of simply less people being at the mountain than usual due to late season and poor condition, perhaps? In either case, $15 burger/chip/beverage specials on an outdoor grill is par for the course and usually a happening scene. I think you observed an anomaly not due to pricing but rather something else.

Also, I think you are looking at it the wrong way comparing ski areas to a BK. The more apt comparison, I think, is a sit down restaurant with table service and burgers cooked to order. Ski areas are never going to offer fast food prices. Fast food is amongst the cheapest price you can pay for a full meal. But ski areas can bring their quality up to match their prices, that is at least within the realm of possibility as many ski areas already do.

We arrived SR Pond Skimming day at 11:30, after festivities were over. Place was dead by then, noone was buying burgers as hardly anyone was skiing. The 2 weeks before when I bought my outdoor grill burger (for $5) there was a line and wait for them (a nice sunny Friday), which is why I think they rushed mine, to try to get the people served. I think OP got it on an unusual day. If it was sunny, 60* and not Easter there would have been a line.

 

[gmcunni]

Actually out of the 6 times I skied this year