Amtrak dining and cafe service

[joelkfla]

Sorry, I forgot what flexible dining is. Could someone explain again. thanks

Pre-plated, precooked meals heated in a convection oven or, less desirably, a microwave and served in their containers as a frozen meal would be.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Is it just a coincidence that AA distributes the same brand of cookies on their flights?
Perhaps the cookie manufacturer provides them to airlines at reduced cost?

More likely - it’s the type of cookie the airline catering companies offer.

 

[DonNewcomb]

And Japan has a tradition of bento boxes being on sale at the stations, often featuring local specialties. That's how I managed my one visit to Japan, using a Japan East rail pass from Tokyo to Aomori and back.

But you need to buy it before initially boarding the train because at intermediate stops the doors are only open for 90 seconds.

 

[zetharion]

Sorry, I forgot what flexible dining is. Could someone explain again. thanks

Meals that are just a hair above microwaved tv dinners in quality.

 

[Mr.Technician]

Are eastern trains likely to return to traditional dining or is the best we can hope for the pre-COVID boxed meals?

To be fair, those boxed meals were pretty tasty in their own right.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Are eastern trains likely to return to traditional dining or is the best we can hope for the pre-COVID boxed meals?

To be fair, those boxed meals were pretty tasty in their own right.

Supposedly - the Silver Trains will get “traditional dining” back this year. What that is, exactly, remains to be seen but after seeing what they did for the western trains I have hope it will be good.

So “pre-covid” for the eastern trains was flex dining. Sadly I was on one of the first silver trains to get flex dining in October of 2019. I think you are talking about the “contemporary” dining which was the boxed salad options served on the Lake Shore prior to flex. I never got to try those but the photos looked much better in both quality ingredients and presentation.

Here’s a photo of a flex meal from my travels vs. the current traditional dining out west.

 

[joelkfla]

Here’s a photo of a flex meal from my travels vs. the current traditional dining out west.

Except that they don't bother with the Flex plastic plate holders anymore. Even in the dining car, everything was handed to me piled in cardboard to-go trays.

And salads have been MIA around 50% of the time. Excuses given to me by LSAs include:

• The commissary didn't load them;
• They were frozen;
• They were too disgustingly brown to serve.

 

[Mr.Technician]

I think you are talking about the “contemporary” dining which was the boxed salad options served on the Lake Shore prior to flex.

Ah right, that's what it was called. I had it on both the LSL and Capitol Limited in August of 2018.

 

[Bob Dylan]

When the Western trains returned to traditional dining in mid 2021 the only holdout was the Texas Eagle. Without traditional dining and the lack of a Sightseer Car on a 32 hour trip the Eagle is the worst of all the long distance trains

And a Tie for 2nd for the Crescent,City of New Orleans and the Cap!

 

[user 14106]

Ah right, that's what it was called. I had it on both the LSL and Capitol Limited in August of 2018.

The whole idea of contemporary and later flexible dining was to save labor costs both on board and in the commissary by switching to premade meal products prepared by a third party vendor and that the commissary could just order. The food costs for flexible dining are actually more per meal per passenger than traditional dining car service but you’re supposed to make it up in labor savings. The switch of the name from contemporary to flexible came when they expanded it from those first two trains to the rest of the eastern trains. Only the very first menu was all cold salad options. They added the first of the current meals in the first refresh to the contemporary menu based on an overwhelming request for a hot meal option. The first was the beef short ribs that they still serve now. They offered that one beef meal along with the boxed cold meals - and the hot ones would always sell fastest. So they gradually replaced the cold boxed meals with the hot meal each revision culminating with the rebrand to flexible where it was completely the hot options and the last cold option went away. While a minority may have preferred the original choices the switch from the “salad boxes” to the current meals was based on rider surveys and feedback which overwhelmingly favored hot meals.

 

[BarryATL]

And a Tie for 2nd for the Crescent,City of New Orleans and the Cap!

I live near the Brookwood station in Atlanta. Every time I see the Crescent when I drive by on the interstate, I look for the dining car. I came here to see if there was any news and from what I am reading, it does not look good.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

While a minority may have preferred the original choices the switch from the “salad boxes” to the current meals was based on rider surveys and feedback which overwhelmingly favored hot meals.

While that may be true, the original contemporary meals were packaged and presented much classier and they appeared to have better ingredients and were more healthy. I can’t speak for actual experience, only going off pictures and others accounts.

 

[MARC Rider]

The whole idea of contemporary and later flexible dining was to save labor costs both on board and in the commissary by switching to premade meal products prepared by a third party vendor and that the commissary could just order.

Traditional dining is mostly premade food prepared by a third-party vendor, too. The labor savings come mostly from cutting back on dining car staff -- fewer waiters and no chef. They can (sort of) get by with this by serving the food in the containers in which it is heated. The food, if heated correctly, is tolerable, of course, not as good as traditional dining, and all of the menu items are stuff that can all be heated up together on the plate. What's really gotten bad is that they don't even have the reduced number of waiters on staff, so they have to make more shortcuts on heating the food, and they and they have to restrict the times they can serve as they also have to serve coach passengers in the cafe car.

 

[MARC Rider]

The entire problem is a Mica creation in attempting to run the F&B as a separate P&L center. If the train is run as the smallest granularity P&L center all this mental gymnastics pretty much goes away. The cost of running the train includes the cost of providing the services in the non-revenue cars, and the revenue consists of the fares paid and the revenue collected from passengers for services provided that were not included in the fare. End of story. But noooo we need to run every nut and bolt as a separate P&L center and then spend endless hours arguing about how to essentially arbitrarily apportion stuff or not. Just my naive view of the world I am sure.

Be thankful they didn't try to make the restrooms a P&L center.

 

[MARC Rider]

One benefit of high speed rail is that you rarely need more than a simple snack because it's not a slow meandering slog at coal era speeds.


My hometown station sells no food and only receives trains in the dead of night when nothing nearby is open. I'd love to have Milan's "problems."

A couple of the trips they took on the Freciarossa were over 6 hours, I think one was 9 hours. I know when I take the Acela from Baltimore to Boston, I appreciate the meals they serve in First Class, and wouldn't mind the offerings shown in the Italian bistro car if I were in business class.

I suspect that the Milan -Sicily overnight train stops at some remote stops in the dead of the night where nothing nearby is open, yet they seem to manage without a dining car, even though the daylight part of the trip runs through both breakfast and lunch.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Be thankful they didn't try to make the restrooms a P&L center.

Don’t give them ideas or we’ll be seeing coin, uh, credit card operated bathroom doors.

 

[JWM]

A couple of the trips they took on the Freciarossa were over 6 hours, I think one was 9 hours. I know when I take the Acela from Baltimore to Boston, I appreciate the meals they serve in First Class, and wouldn't mind the offerings shown in the Italian bistro car if I were in business class.

I suspect that the Milan -Sicily overnight train stops at some remote stops in the dead of the night where nothing nearby is open, yet they seem to manage without a dining car, even though the daylight part of the trip runs through both breakfast and lunch.

Most of if not all, of the European sleeping cars have a pantry in each car that can prepare light meals, snacks and breakfast. See link to OBB Nightjet menu. Breakfast is included for sleeping car passengers. https://www.nightjet.com/dam/jcr:57df4df9-c7b6-45f6-8adc-7d850bf914b4/speisekarte-schlafwagen.pdf

 

[bratkinson]

Amtrak has been caught in multiple battles since it's inception more than 50 years ago. Initially it had equipment limitations followed by budgetary nightmares. They had to make do with what they had available, and still do, despite out of control cost escalation and inflation since then.

Amtrak did suprisingly well at keeping everything pretty much as it used to be in the "good old days" and as one who's ridden Amtrak almost since day one, I can attest to the limitations of staff, equipment, and Congress have been a non-stop constraint for them from the beginning.

But businesses could survive in the bean counter accounting world that evolved in 1980s and beyond. That was very obvious to me when I was on contract at a 'Baby Bell' in 1984 shortly after the breakup of Ma Bell, aka, AT&T. They had no clue whatsoever what the costs were nor what their profits were other than grand total money in money out. I had little to no idea or accounting at the time of what costs they encountered and what cash flows they had.

Except for employees and inquiring government employees, they were no different than the telephone company people.

Mica and crew only refined things starting with what they figured they thought they understood, food service. We poor passengers have to suffer with the result.

But look at all travel businesses, food is a major major expense against the bottom line. Anyway that businesses can reduce costs, even one penny at a time they will do so.

As much as I miss traditional dining and good meals, it's clear it is not financially possible and claim a clear head. Those of us who cry the loudest about the food service are most likely all at or beyond retirement age. We recall the good meals and sit down dinners etc, we've enjoyed through our lives.

But go to a restaurant that charges roughly $50 per meal on up. How many customers do they routinely have that are younger than the retirement age? How many of you can even find more than a handful of such restaurants, even in a large city? Clearly the under 60 crowd has spoken with their money and eat elsewhere at a lower cost. They are willing to give up outstanding meals and chefs that make them in the name of saving money.

So what can Amtrak do? There's still enough of us old folks clammering for traditional meals to want to satisfy us as we are the ones that buy the sleeper tickets. But once we are gone, who will take our place? Who will buy enough high priced sleeper tickets or expensive steak dinners on a train that cost too much money to ride in their opinion?

 

[Steve4031]

I have taken two trips to Japan to ride trains. The stations in major cities were huge. Many had fast food such as Mcdonald's plus other Japanese food outlets. Each platform had two or three stores selling Bento Boxes and other snacks. The food quality was excellent no matter what you ordered. Even McDonald's. I was able to use google translate to order my usual two cheeseburgers with only ketchup. They fulfilled the order perfectly. IMHO that's amazing because they did not speak English and I did not speak Japanese. The Japanese items that I did try were of excellent quality. But I often did not understand what was available so I didn't try it because I am a picky eater. Because the stations had so many options, there really is no need for food service on the bullet trains.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

But go to a restaurant that charges roughly $50 per meal on up. How many customers do they routinely have that are younger than the retirement age? How many of you can even find more than a handful of such restaurants, even in a large city?

Large cities have a crazy number of expensive restaurants and of course chain restaurants like Long Horn are all over the place. They certainly aren’t surviving on retired seniors - you’ll find them at the Cracker Barrel! Haha.

I think Amtrak was trying to change too many elements at once with contemporary and then flex dining. What we ended up with is, in my opinion, a terrible product on all counts. Especially on the crescent! One of the few positives about flex was the viewliner diners became “sleeper class lounge cars” - which honestly was a positive. But take that away and all you’re left with is a TV dinner. No thanks!

 

[user 14106]

Traditional dining is mostly premade food prepared by a third-party vendor, too.

I think the premade items for traditional are ordered as raw ingredients but prepped before hand in the Aramark operated commissary (sous vide cooking etc). Flex meals are ordered completely plated by a third party vendor. Labor savings is not just on board but also less staff in the commissary as you don’t have the Aramark cooks preparing the sous vide entrees etc. the food costs for flex are actually higher because they are ordered as an individual portion direct from the vendor (which is called New Horizons kitchen.) all Aramark has to do is order them and store them in the commissary deliver them to the train.

 

[joelkfla]

Traditional dining is mostly premade food prepared by a third-party vendor, too. The labor savings come mostly from cutting back on dining car staff -- fewer waiters and no chef. They can (sort of) get by with this by serving the food in the containers in which it is heated. The food, if heated correctly, is tolerable, of course, not as good as traditional dining, and all of the menu items are stuff that can all be heated up together on the plate. What's really gotten bad is that they don't even have the reduced number of waiters on staff, so they have to make more shortcuts on heating the food, and they and they have to restrict the times they can serve as they also have to serve coach passengers in the cafe car.

As I've said before, there's a big quality difference between partially cooked menu items being finished individually in a kitchen, and fully cooked meals in one container being heated in a convection oven (or even worse, a microwave.)

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Traditional dining is mostly premade food prepared by a third-party vendor, too.

Yes and no. Traditional dining Is similar food prep to a chain restaurant like an Applebees.

They are, to me, two very different definitions of the term “premade” and several items on traditional dining are definitely cooked on board.

Even the desserts. A slice of cheesecake with whipped cream and fruit topping is technically “premade” by your definition. But it’s radically different than a brownie served in plastic.

There are no restaurants that serve the equivalent of a flex meal.

 

[user 14106]

Yes and no. Traditional dining Is similar food prep to a chain restaurant like an Applebees.

They are, to me, two very different definitions of the term “premade” and several items on traditional dining are definitely cooked on board.

Even the desserts. A slice of cheesecake with whipped cream and fruit topping is technically “premade” by your definition. But it’s radically different than a brownie served in plastic.

There are no restaurants that serve the equivalent of a flex meal.

Correct. Traditional is raw ingredients ordered by the commissary (Aramark in this case) from food vendors and either commissary precooked with on board finish cooking/heating and preparation and plating, or on board prepared from raw. Flex meals are complete ready to serve meals ordered completely prepared from the vendor by the commissary - basically like a TV dinner in that it's ready to serve although it's a custom product for Amtrak that's not really meant for microwave prep so not exactly the same. Commissary just orders, receives and refrigerates/freezes it, and delivers to train. With traditional meals the commissary is actually acting as a central kitchen. The only similarity is that there are some items that are already cooked but the process before it gets to the train is very different for traditional and flexible.

 

[Lcon]

Closest equivalent to the flex menu would probably be the fair in a modern convenience store. Premade prepackaged heat and serve with either a rapid cook oven or a microwave.