if there is a decrease of good quality, the season dining passes are to blame IMO. With people eating on them 50+ times, the quality and quantity will continue to decrease. They also a factor in the elimination of Winterfest IMO. Season passholders were just eating more meals on their already well used dining plans instead of spending money at the park.
Eatery Upgrades for 2025
- Thread starter MusicEnlightens
- Start date
This is objectively false because that’s not how the internal accounting of the dining passes works. This has been discussed on here before. When a pass member purchases a dining plan, the Marketing department accrues that revenue. Each time a pass member redeems their dining plan, funds are transferred from Marketing to Food & Beverage. In other words, Marketing basically pays Food & Beverage for that meal.
With this setup, your assertion makes no sense. Food & Beverage is incentivized to make their meals as good as possible to continue maximize dining plan redemptions, which maximizes their revenue. It seems more likely that F&B is trying to cut costs just to boost their profit margin, but that has nothing to do with the dining plans in particular.
Food in beverage was but I can see the argument that corporate would not have been so and that might be the reason for the move. I don't believe it's correct but I do understand his logic
It can be if the percentage of guests who eat with it 50+ times are vastly outweighed by the percentage of guests who use it a lot less than that. Which, as I understood it at least a couple of years ago, was exactly what was happening and hence why it was so profitable.
I don't know how anyone could manage to eat 50+ times on the meal plan at Kings Dominion anyway since they literally close for weather constantly. /s
Let's not forget no one goes to the park so no one is there to use the dining passes.
At 20-25 uses, which is more realistic for heavy use, that's only about $4-5 per meal. Maybe the finances work for the park on that, but it seems like those are crowding out more valuable guests buying meals at list price and could be losing money on slower days.
Looks like the funnel cakes moved into border burrito’s building and the new biergarten is in the funnel cake spot
In all likelihood, this post (and the update on the map) seems to indicate that the upgraded Coca Refresh permit that was filed will either be part of, or directly next to the new Biergarten window on International Street. Do you think the Cocoa Refresh station across from KD outfitters (to the left of the KD sign) will still be there, or will this new station replace it? Oddly enough, we went the entire season last year with the new map, which never showed the front Refresh station even existed. Maybe they are trying to open up the front area more for viewing of the night show, or maybe the new Sunshine Corner bar right there will serve nonalcoholic beverages.
I am happily surprised by the post that Biergarten won't just be alcohol, but also have some light German food as well. Oktoberfest was clearly a hit last year. The post also leads one to believe there could be new patio style seating outside of Biergarten, which would most likely be in the open area between Biergarten and Cinnabon. Seating already exists directly by the I-street fountain.
The only time this area is used is during the now-defunct Winterfest, for the reindeer meet, and during Haunt, this area serves as the entrance to Cornstalkers. Because Oktoberfest happens at the same time as Haunt, I imagine this area could be cleared anyway, and possibly Biergarten shuttered completely in favor of the temporary but larger venue in CAG for the event. Win win for the park!
I am happily surprised by the post that Biergarten won't just be alcohol, but also have some light German food as well. Oktoberfest was clearly a hit last year. The post also leads one to believe there could be new patio style seating outside of Biergarten, which would most likely be in the open area between Biergarten and Cinnabon. Seating already exists directly by the I-street fountain.
The only time this area is used is during the now-defunct Winterfest, for the reindeer meet, and during Haunt, this area serves as the entrance to Cornstalkers. Because Oktoberfest happens at the same time as Haunt, I imagine this area could be cleared anyway, and possibly Biergarten shuttered completely in favor of the temporary but larger venue in CAG for the event. Win win for the park!
The park has now lost half of its indoor seating restaurants, unless you count funnel cakes or they expand the menu, and if you count Panda's several indoor tables, which I did, but not including Starbuck's. Two of the remaining ones are right across from each other and are rarely open at the same time. Not sure about "upgrade".
I still see these renovations as upgrades to the structures, kitchen equipment, point of sales, and hopefully the food itself, but I do see your point. Totally understand the frustration people had last year of losing the Country Kitchen to a premium experience. I think losing BB’s indoor seating though was less of a choice and more that the park’s hand was forced. The building needed major work either way so they chose to keep the Mexican food option but move it during while the building was fixed.
If Funnel cake kitchen opens relatively early in the season though, one could argue that moving Burritos across the park permanently to save it from being missing for just a few weeks might not have been worth it. It’s a shame that Mexican food was moved off of international street though, especially when we already lost Panda Express, and Biergarten is being added. My opinion though is that Cactus Grove is popular in either placement, but the new Funnel Cake expansion will do better at I-street than if it had just simply moved to the old Mac bowl building itself. We’ll see if Funnel Cake Kitchen even has indoor seating now.
KD has a big food and beverage balance issue, as the amount/diversity/spacing of food options was designed for a park that had much higher attendance than KD currently gets. People chalk up closed food options to staffing, but I also think that on most days some restaurants would take a loss by simply staffing an unpopular food option to an emptier park anyway. This problem is not one Six Flags/CF created, but rather inherited.
Dogwood Grille is barely open, even after Country Kitchen closed, and when it is open it’s barely attended (and it’s in an isolated part that doesn’t have much food competition, so it really should see more people). Your point about Jungle Market and Outpost is also very valid. I hope that Rapterra’s popularity, and any future Jungle Xpansions or rethemes create a higher demand for food in this area (especially with Tators and the rethemed Chicken Shack there too).
KD has done a nice job of updated food and beverage since 2019, even before that was a large corporate push. I just hope future investment and increased foot traffic can make the work all worthwhile.
Jungle X is completely oversaturated for food options, IMO. KD has 2 indoor seating, 2 counter service, a (rarely open) snack shop, and a dessert stand all within a couple hundred feet. In addition, a seperate drink and icee station, and, finally, a counter service bar.
If they could combine the drink/Icee station, that would be less staffing needed, overall. If they could also combine Taters and the chicken shack to give them that space, it would make the area feel like there are less abandoned buildings there. (Since taters are closed most of the time in favor of the other locations.)
But, I'm also not sure what the kitchens are like to even know if that would be feasible.
Agreed. Chicken shack looks great now with new theming, but I was surprised it wasn’t expanded to eventually absorb tator’s options, or chicken shack just get removed altogether.
A few thoughts.
In my experience m especially in the summer and during Haunt, the park gets very crowded. So, I disagree that the park has consistently low attendance. We know, however, of specific staffing issues they have.
When Panda was closed, the current head chef told us explicitly that Grain & Grill was a long-standing concept her had for an Asia-inspired eatery. So, I do not think the park views that change as having lost a “international” themed option. I would add that I am always in favor of unique restaurants over counter service chains. And in this case, in my opinion, G&G was an upgrade.
I think they may have moved the funnel cake restaurant up front, because of a pattern I have long observed. People seem to get to-go funnel cakes as they exit KD. Because they take so long to make, the line gets very long and very slow at the window on the other side of the fountains. The park is probably losing sales, and adding funnel cake capacity up front may make sense.
I have heard from folks inside the park that the reason Borders was relocated to Candy Apple Grove was because the International Street location, all the way at the front of the park, struggled to generate steady business throughout the day. Sure, it might have drawn some folks at mealtime and at the end of the day, but its remote location meant it wasn't much of a draw. Moving it to Candy Apple Grove put a popular cuisine (Mexican) in much higher-traffic location.
I was also told by the same person that the funnel cakes are being moved to the other side of the International Street to expand their capacity. The current funnel cake stand gets slammed at the end of the night as guests leave, and moving to a larger location means it can handle a lot more people. I think the person also mentioned that more people walk down the east (Borders) side of I-Street than the west (Grain & Grill) side when exiting the park.
So it seems to me like this was a clever move to put a main eatery in a higher-traffic spot and drum up more funnel cake business, and the Biergarten is just a happy bonus out of all of this.
This 100% makes sense, I usually only stopped by Border Burrito when I was OTW in or out, or when I really wanted a burrito.
Has anyone noticed any significant changes to the menus? I know there was a report that the park was transitioning to more standard theme park food, but at the restaurants I checked (Outpost, Firehouse, Grain & Grill’s exterior menu) everything looks the same. The food itself looks the same from what I can tell too.
Lines were horrible and I haven't used my pass.