I see Rebel Yell through the trees on the right glad you have such taste in classics
Flights and Bites
- Thread starter mtpelepele
- Start date
This prompts a good question:
Do you prefer the single station limited options F&B event like this, or the wider scale across the park many options F&B event like BGW?
NOTE - I’m not asking about the quality because I know what the overwhelming answer is going to be. I’m asking purely about the setup.
Do you prefer the single station limited options F&B event like this, or the wider scale across the park many options F&B event like BGW?
NOTE - I’m not asking about the quality because I know what the overwhelming answer is going to be. I’m asking purely about the setup.
I've always loved these more bespoke offerings. Tower Tastings, Haunt Dinners, Bistro 75, Flights and Bites—I think these have all been incredible. Obviously, it gets harder to offer them as demand spikes though. Until that happens though, I think these small-scale offerings are a great way to keep costs and risk low while still building up the park's culinary prestige.
Fair answer. And I got a follow up question before I get to my point:
You make the comment that it’s good while building up the parks culinary prestige. Do you think theres a point then they should abandon doing these because it’s built that their culinary abilities are there?
Question to that - are you thinking in terms of year-round similar offerings, or these things only occurring during slower months?
Neither. I was at KD recently and did the Flights and Bites, and while it was phenomenal, I did have a feeling of “wanting more” at the end of it. I think there’s a “right size” with an event like this that you can do without putting too much stress on the park but offering more to guests.
It seems if they built out the right space and kitchen, then you could have the chef’s menu change periodically, with that being the draw. Victoria’s is probably big enough to do it, but the kitchen has to be really versatile in terms of equipment.
So here's what I'm fully thinking:
BGW's events are too big and the culinary department is spread too thin. KD's is really small and it's "You'll get nothing and you'll like it."
I think there could be a happy medium for KD to grow and have a stand in CAG, OV, and by Dominator. Instead of a flight and snacks all at once like that, you can do a flight of 3 2oz drinks paired perfectly with 2 snacks. You pay for 3 sets. So you can double or triple up with what you like, of you can get all three. I had 3 of the drinks I really didn't like the sound of ahead of time, they would allow me to sub, so I felt like I paid for stuff I wasn't using.
I haven't found their larger, kiosk-based culinary events (like this year's Grand Carnivale) to feel as if they are saying "You'll get nothing and you'll like it." Flights and Bites is not, in my opinion, representative of most of KD's food festivals, and I don't think it is reasonable to extrapolate much beyond it.
The quote was a bit of a CaddyShack joke, but more so I would just like options and flexibility.
My understanding is that Carnival's food selection is dictated by CF and is uniform between all the parks that have the event. If that is the case it doesn't seem like it's a good representation of what Chef and the in park culinary staff are capable of doing.
Yes and no. The CF chefs extensively collaborate on the Carnivale menus for months before the event, so Carnivale is still an authentic showcase of their chefs’ talents. Plus, each chef still has lots of autonomy in how every dish is executed at their park. In fact, a large number of the dishes at the Carnivale events were created by Chef Denis.
Don't know yet. Carowinds has announced there will be a new menu for their beer weekends, but nothing yet from KD.
I don't think they should abandon smaller scale offerings when mass market options begin to (hopefully) increase in viability. I just think those smaller, more bespoke events should become secondary to (and notably more expensive than) the larger scale, primary offerings.
For example, I think there are, and should still obviously be, good, themed, mass-market-targeted culinary offerings for WinterFest. That said, I also think that a premium-priced, full-service, WinterFest dine in the Caprice Room—think the old Haunt Dinners, but Christmas—would be killer and, likely, actually do quite well.
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I’m going to Carowinds this weekend and their flights and bites is ongoing……in Harmony Hall. Just gonna irritate me we don’t have a venue like THAT for something like this honestly.
Since I don’t think KD has the space to build a ground-up version of Harmony Hall, I think retrofitting Victoria’s as a sort of Harmony Hall would be the best option. I would LOVE to see that. The restaurant would have to basically be gutted because of the way Victoria’s kitchen is awkwardly located in the middle of the restaurant with the seating surrounding it, but the floor space (and prime location) is there. They could also slightly expand the building’s footprint by taking over the outdoor patio to the right of the building and potentially by expanding onto the rooftop of the Soak City locker building.
Hmm… I might have to write up a concept for this.
Hmm… I might have to write up a concept for this.
Interestingly, when we were at Flights & Bites, on of the KD staff members at the event mentioned how nice a patio on the rooftop overlooking Soak City would be.
So it would seem. KD could be a world class location if they made use of the hundreds of acres of land they own. and stopped removing things without plans to replace them.