Eatery Gingerbread Fancy (Granny's Fried Chicken)

[bill s]

The issue is that previous managements were all cheapskates who had forgor basic maintenance which gave them short term gains at the expense of long term loss.

Neither you or I will benefit from increased food sales at any park. Only the shareholders benefit from it, unless one is a shareholder of the company that owns the park in question. Increased cash inflows go into executive pay, bonuses, and maybe stock dividends. If they see a major uptick in revenue despite liquidating a sizeable portion of fixed assets, why would they allocate more Capex when revenue is already up without doing so?

Moreover, this is a case of voting with your wallet. Rewarding management for massive removals while trying to distract by overglorifying microfixies like slapping paint on buildings with increased revenue does not benefit me. Why would anyone want to reward behavior they find objectionable? If they install high quality replacement rides then I might Increase my expenditures, not for a fresh coat of paint or foodstuff commodities. Hopefully with all the painting they can also spring for some weed killer to get rid of the poison ivy overgrowth around the park.

This is the same tactics previous management's did. Remove rides but make a big deal performing minute changes like painting and other basics they should have been performing anyway. The previous management also made a big deal about improving food service. They boasted they had tried all sorts of chicken tenders and pizzas from several suppliers which gave us a big laugh at the former GAH forums over the inanity of it.


Dude, I heard this same exact spiel from white knights defending the several previous owners of Six Flags for over 20 years. Surely it will be different for the umpteenth time, right? Man I said a pretty mild objection and you guys get hyper over it. Time to get some thicker skin.

Personally I find El Toro too rough to ride more than twice anymore. Hopefully the retrack will smooth it out though the 3 year pieceal job isn't ideal. Also, don't simp for a soulless corporation like Colliwood's cringy video advocates for. If your gonna simp, at least simp for an actual person, preferably a hotty. But you really shouldn't go though life simping.

I'm just surprised you're so negative against food as you've been for "charm" and against parks just being coasters. I think most parks have more food locations than they need to operate but there should be some good ones. They should be considered an inherent enough part of the experience to not justify pushing the price-demand envelope. And yes it's a reasonable possibility that how profitable the food is will affect the park overall somewhat, or at least the food.

As to "simp" I don't think anyone's doing for a park what some would do for a close person. But I'll say look at what they have to offer and decide if it's worth going. Being mad hurts you more than them. I doubt they'll consider this year much of a metric of performance anyway. Flash could get me there earlier in the year than usual, maybe even get a third visit if operating during Holiday and Toro justifies a second. Hopefully the Toro work will be focused on problem spots throughout, especially as the fuller retracking will probably just start at the beginning or something.

 

[The Master]

I'm just surprised you're so negative against food as you've been for "charm" and against parks just being coasters. I think most parks have more food locations than they need to operate but there should be some good ones. They should be considered an inherent enough part of the experience to not justify pushing the price-demand envelope. And yes it's a reasonable possibility that how profitable the food is will affect the park overall somewhat, or at least the food.

As to "simp" I don't think anyone's doing for a park what some would do for a close person. But I'll say look at what they have to offer and decide if it's worth going. Being mad hurts you more than them. I doubt they'll consider this year much of a metric of performance anyway. Flash could get me there earlier in the year than usual, maybe even get a third visit if operating during Holiday and Toro justifies a second. Hopefully the Toro work will be focused on problem spots throughout, especially as the fuller retracking will probably just start at the beginning or something.

The issue isn’t that I am against charm or sprucing up infrastructure, I am against the false dichotomy of rides vs park upkeep which SF always pushes. Rides shouldn't need to be removed for restaurant renovation to happen. The loss of the skyride and parachutes are a huge detriment to the park's charm and it will take much more than drywall and paint to replace them.

Moreover, I am displeased with the management's patronizing attempt at snowballing fans with micro fixes to obfuscate the millions in dollars of infrastructure that they ruthlessly ripped out and likely will never be replaced. Redzone pulled the same shenanigans when they first took over. Overall I am disappointed, not mad.

 

[Zachary]

Rides shouldn't need to be removed for restaurant renovation to happen.

This is obviously true and I don't believe anyone would disagree. The keyword there is "shouldn't." Parks also shouldn't ever allow their food and beverage programs to slide into such a dramatic state of disrepair and neglect that they require multi-million dollar investments to restore them to a reasonable level of profitability.

Years of poor decisions have pushed SFGAdv (and many other Six Flags properties) into a corner. To ensure their future success and to allow for consistent, future Cap-Ex investment into other areas of the park, the money printers (F&B, merch, up-charge experiences, etc) must be restored. The millions of dollars required to facilitate that restoration have to come from somewhere—and naturally, some of those dollars will, almost inevitably, come from attraction maintenance budgets—possibly even requiring a park to cut some particularly maintenance-heavy rides.

A park should definitely never be in this position—yet here we are. The goal now is to ensure the park is rebuilt, restored, and ultimately managed in such a way as to prevent a regression back to the horrible position it has been in recently.

 

[Nitro230]

Moreover, this is a case of voting with your wallet. Rewarding management for massive removals while trying to distract by overglorifying microfixies like slapping paint on buildings with increased revenue does not benefit me. Why would anyone want to reward behavior they find objectionable? If they install high quality replacement rides then I might Increase my expenditures, not for a fresh coat of paint or foodstuff commodities. Hopefully with all the painting they can also spring for some weed killer to get rid of the poison ivy overgrowth around the park.

Here’s where your logic hurts the park though. The new company has a long term expansion plan in place, a plan that should bring Great Adventure to the standard of incredible parks like Kings Island. But it hinges on the park performing well, if Great Adventure does terribly this year and next year, this plan is likely scrapped. I’ve said it before and will say it again, boycotting the park does nothing but hurt Great Adventure’s future. Six Flags won’t invest money if the park isn’t seeing return on investment.

 

[netdvn]

For the past few years now, half of the park's buildings looked like they were in total disrepair, so any micro improvements made to make the park look less like its been neglected for decades and more like a place where families would be willing to drive an hour out of their way for is a big plus in my book.

Upgrading eateries and improving the food quality is a huge step up too. Most families spending time at the park would be more inclined to spend money on food in the park if it was actually good. That's one of the reasons people rave about Dolly, Knoebels and Knott's.

 

[twoyutes92]

really hoping they take this opportunity to focus on speed and cleanliness. MOST people in the parks just want decent quickservice food basics (chicken fingers and fries etc.) without having to wait forever and eat on dirty tables. feel like the parks haven't been delivering on this. some deluxe food options and variety are nice but i hope they work out getting the basics done well first.

 

[Great Adventurer]

Feels like half if not more of the eateries here are closed today. The Boardwalk area is open and all of the games have employees at them... But every single restaurant around it (with the exception of the small Rita's building) is shuttered. The renovations for Yum Yum Palace are still not complete, so that's closed too. The remaining places are all slammed because of this - the line for Granny's is currently filling the entirety of the queue snake and continuing out the door.

I intended to try one of the new offerings at Granny's, but there were just too many people. I went elsewhere and still wound up waiting almost as long for food as I did for The Flash this morning.

 

[GASM]

Actually pleasantly surprised to hear Boardwalk is open, given all the construction in the area.

 

[The Master]

Here’s where your logic hurts the park though. The new company has a long term expansion plan in place, a plan that should bring Great Adventure to the standard of incredible parks like Kings Island. But it hinges on the park performing well, if Great Adventure does terribly this year and next year, this plan is likely scrapped. I’ve said it before and will say it again, boycotting the park does nothing but hurt Great Adventure’s future. Six Flags won’t invest money if the park isn’t seeing return on investment.

I am not saying to boycott the park, just don't simp for it either like Coiliwood suggests. They have to provide value to earn money, not through vague promises. All the previous owners of Six Flags made similar promises of big plans that never materialized. Simping for a corporation makes said corporation lazy. It instills a belief in management that minimum effort is good enough as there plenty of suckers willing to throw money at them anyway and don't need to reciprocate with worthy customer value, ie inelastic demand. The company needs to be encouraged to not be complacent like their predecessors, that demand is elastic. I think CF already has a complacency issue.

Vacant plots where rides used to be doesn't help the park's appearance either. Rides are the main draw to parks, restaurants are merely a secondary avenue of revenue, not a main attraction. A park needs rides to attract guests so they will be in the vicinity to decide to dine in the park. No only will a lack of rides draw less guests to a park, it can also increase gest dissatisfaction which discurages futher spending. Happy customers are more willing to spend than unhappy ones. Moreover, as Zach pointed out, corporate likely already knows this is going to be a off season due to the controversial removals and not indictive of normal performance.

 

[Zachary]

I haven't watched (any of?) whatever YouTuber's content you're referencing is so I can't speak to that.

Beyond that though, I largely agree with you here @The Master. Rides are the main draw for amusement parks and if a park isn't providing rides and ride-related experiences (key distinction!) that people find desirable enough to justify the costs/inconveniences/etc incurred, they will stop visiting and take their entertainment dollars elsewhere. People never have a responsibility to patronize a business and guests can't be blamed for not doing so—it is ALWAYS a failure of the business if they are not successful. Encouraging people to act against their own interests/inclinations just to "support a business" is an absurd proposition in my opinion. The business must earn the patrons—if you're essentially donating your time and money, you're no longer engaged in a business-consumer relationship and, unless parks start converting themselves to Charities or Public Benefit Corporations, fuck that.

 

[GASM]

I haven't watched (any of?) whatever YouTuber's content you're referencing is so I can't speak to that.

I did just finally get chance to watch the video. It’s probably less in depth than some of the posts here (it goes into every ride removal aside from Air Safari), but it echoes the same reasoning of why it was removed.

As for the whole “simping for the park” thing, he says pretty much verbatim at the end that this is not at all what he’s doing, but that he wants to see the park succeed, bounce back to pre-covid attendance, and no longer be the biggest wasted potential in the chain. I can’t particularly find any fault in that sentiment.

 

[GAcoaster]

I’m seeing shockingly great reviews of the food at Granny’s this season —