Food & Wine Festival 2022

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Official Event Map:​

22_BGW_Events_FW_Map.jpg

Official Event Information:​

Food & Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, VA

Explore international dishes that are not typically served at the park and learn something new about the countries they come from. Discover great food, wine and more at this year's Food & Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Come for the culinary offerings, stay for the attractions.
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Official Menus:​

Food & Wine Festival Menus | Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Take a trip around the world with your taste buds as you sample different international menus at our Food & Wine Festival event. Your inner foodie will thank you. Check out our menus and see what dishes you would like to sample while during your visit to Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg...
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I'd actually disagree. Our experience for years has been that the F&WF has always been plagued by inconsistent operations and food.

The lines have been longer, since the post-COVID reopening, but other than that, the problems have been systemic since almost the beginning, in my observation.
 
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Random question given how popular Food and Wine is, would they be better off either majorly modifying it or doing away with it?

Like random thought: Given the "backdoor" way to the park in Ireland/Wild Reserve area, could they 'steal' some of the England lot, set up tables, and have Food & Wine as a courtyard like event to pull it out of the park to keep space?
 
warfelg said:
Like random thought: Given the "backdoor" way to the park in Ireland/Wild Reserve area, could they 'steal' some of the England lot, set up tables, and have Food & Wine as a courtyard like event to pull it out of the park to keep space?
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If I understand your suggestion correctly, Busch Gardens Tampa does something similar to this. They have their entire event contained in one area, and it seems that their food quality is much more consistent than BGW’s, in my experience. I would think that Tampa’s layout makes it easier for a chef to travel from one kiosk to another whenever issues arise.

I’m not saying that the layout is the only reason for BGT‘s better quality control, but it might be one factor.

It probably saves space as well, like you said. The biggest downside is that it’s harder to create distinctly themed “zones“ using Tampa’s method when everything is bunched together. For that reason, Tampa‘s kiosks hardly ever have much (if any) theming.
 
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CastleOSullivan said:
If I understand your suggestion correctly, Busch Gardens Tampa does something similar to this. They have their entire event contained in one area, and it seems that their food quality is much more consistent than BGW’s, in my experience. I would think that Tampa’s layout makes it easier for a chef to travel from one kiosk to another whenever issues arise.

I’m not saying that the layout is the only reason for BGT‘s better quality control, but it might be one factor.

It probably saves space as well, like you said. The biggest downside is that it’s harder to create distinctly themed “zones“ using Tampa’s method when everything is bunched together. For that reason, Tampa‘s kiosks hardly ever have much (if any) theming.
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Yea kinda what I'm going for. Just use a space and put it all together.
 
warfelg said:
Random question given how popular Food and Wine is, would they be better off either majorly modifying it or doing away with it?

Like random thought: Given the "backdoor" way to the park in Ireland/Wild Reserve area, could they 'steal' some of the England lot, set up tables, and have Food & Wine as a courtyard like event to pull it out of the park to keep space?
Click to expand...
The other issue I see with this would be crowd control and capacity given the lines we see at tge booths I could easily see a section like that being a major traffic jam and possibly even a safety issue.

One thing that I have noticed and has recently been confirmed is that BGW has been using more pre-made food at the event. While that may seem like a downgrade it honestly in my opinion is a positive as it should help keep a consistent quality and should allow for quicker refreshes on items. I really hope BGW continues on that path.
 
Conversely, I hope BGW reinvests in building a competent, well-trained, well-equipped, well-compensated culinary staff which can build up years of institutional knowledge that will allow them to design more interesting dishes and operate a higher quality, more efficient, more successful event.

The right answer at a premium-priced theme park should never be to import more generic, lower quality goods.

SEAS has begun treating all of these special events as cash cows that they just get to harvest money from once a year. Season after season the company refuses to invest in the long-term health and stability of these offerings—instead chosing to let them rot on the vine.

BGW's Food & Wine felt shockingly lifeless this weekend. Booths have lost theming, music is poorly executed, very few legitimately unique or interesting dishes exist at this point, art of food is gone, chef demos are gone, specialty vendors are gone—the event has just been cut down to its absolute minimum at this point.

It's not a new problem either to be clear. The real Food & Wine kill shot occured in 2019—so we can't even fairly blame COVID for this. A lot of this died before that point.

This event makes the park absurd truckloads of money. It needs to be treated with the same level of significance that it represents on the park's balance books.
 
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Watched them making up a batch of a frozen drink in one of the machines yesterday. When they added the alcohol, it was literally one cup. At that rate they can make 3 full batches of a frozen drink with one bottle of alcohol. That profit margin would be astronomical. It seemed pretty obvious yesterday that the profit margin of the drinks was well beyond the margin with food. Must be why they have so many alcoholic drinks listed for F&W.
 
Zachary said:
It's not a new problem either to be clear. The real Food & Wine kill shot occured in 2019—so we can't even fairly blame COVID for this. A lot of this died before that point.

This event makes the park absurd truckloads of money. It needs to be treated with the same level of significance that it represents on the park's balance books.
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Good post and good points but I would add something to that.

But I would counterpoint, and not in the good way, that if they keep cutting, and people keep coming, what’s their reason to stop cutting?

It unfortunately seems as though wallets speak the loudest here and they are screaming at the top of their lungs.
 
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Doesn't sound like an event to make a special trip for. We'll probably go down soon, but we'll eat at Casa Pearl and avoid the park food. Just out of curiosity, did anyone try the scotch and bourbon tastings?
 
Rothbury said:
Watched them making up a batch of a frozen drink in one of the machines yesterday. When they added the alcohol, it was literally one cup. At that rate they can make 3 full batches of a frozen drink with one bottle of alcohol. That profit margin would be astronomical. It seemed pretty obvious yesterday that the profit margin of the drinks was well beyond the margin with food. Must be why they have so many alcoholic drinks listed for F&W.
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You must not have seen them making the Shark Bite. It was super strong yesterday. Not as in woohoo I got a little extra alcohol strong, but more like almost undrinkable strong.
 
EdK said:
Doesn't sound like an event to make a special trip for. We'll probably go down soon, but we'll eat at Casa Pearl and avoid the park food. Just out of curiosity, did anyone try the scotch and bourbon tastings?
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We will be publishing our comprehensive review this week, and I don‘t think the key takeaway will be that the food is bad. In fact, I think it is a really good year for the event.

The fundamental problem with these types of discussions is that people seem to want to focus on everything they dislike, so the result is a very skewed impression of the event.
 
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Nicole said:
I don‘t think the key takeaway will be that the food is bad. In fact, I think it is a really good year for the event.

The fundamental problem with these types of discussions is that people seem to want to focus on everything they dislike, so the result is a very skewed impression of the event.
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Other than the Alfredo in Italy, correct? :)

My thought with events like this is that it is a good way for folks to try things they aren't used to eating/drinking regularly, but my recommendation would be to seek out local restaurants offering all of these different cuisines. That is the best way to try different dishes, and considering the hell those restaurant owners have been through the past two years, they would really appreciate the business.
 
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