Working the snack shack can get pretty hectic. Sure you prep some food before the fans even arrive at the stadium, but it’s ridiculous how quickly you go through food. You can make 50 cheeseburgers and you’ll need more by halftime. On a cold night such as it was on Tuesday, we went through four large containers of hot chocolate and ran out before we the game had even ended. Given we were serving through two games, that’s still a lot of hot cocoa. What I noticed most while working was how fast everything is. You get sudden waves of people just washing in wanting food. Everything gets loud with the customers ordering, and the people at the window shouting back the orders to the people at their stations. There’s no doubt you’re going to leave that cramped room with 10 other people in there with a head ache. It truly is an experience to remember though. The camaraderie of the group grows with every order, but so does the tension. At the end of the night, even though we don’t get paid, and we have to clean up the next day, I’d go back and do it all again. Being able to snag free food at the end of the night from all the left overs isn’t a bad deal either though. Especially because there is so much left over (usually, probably not during football). I remember Tuesday night I made a double cheeseburger topped with chicken tenders, ketchup and hot sauce. I guess the free food part of the night acts as an experimental process as well. So I guess it’s all right that we don’t get paid… I guess. But all in all, just a good old time.

Eric F

Blog For Snack Shack

                Working in the snack shack is a great experience in the real world of cooking as a business. I remember working as a cook back in the day, and it was really difficult because I didn’t have the skills necessary to succeed. But working in the snack shack helped me learn how to work in the high speed environment of a cook.

 

                Last time in the snack shack, I worked as the grill master, grilling hot dogs, hamburgers and cheeseburgers. I learned some valuable tips from pro cook Hoagland that helped me cook burgers and hot dogs correctly. Hot dogs are already precooked when we get them, so the way we cook it is by cutting it in half, and then cooking it on both sides, this helps it heat up faster, and gives a better crunch on the skin, which apparently people enjoy. Then on the burgers, I have to wait until the juice pools on the top before I flip it. To ensure that the burger is cooked all the way through. I’m sure that those tips helped me become a better, and more efficient chef.

Ralph S

The snack shack experience has given me a new perspective on working in the culinary field. Some things that I noticed while in the snack shack was that we never seem completely prepared, we were always running back to the culinary room to get something that we forgot. I think that preparedness  should be something that we should be graded on because it takes time to keep running back when we could have just brought everything up the first time. Another thing that I noticed that we should work on is to clean as we go. A couple times I noticed that there were fries on the floor or on the counter that we should have cleaned up as we got time to do so. I noticed that as the year progressed we began to get better at these things because we would start to fill carts with dirty dishes as we went so that when we closed there was less cleaning to do. I think that we did well communicating the orders to each other especially between the fat sandwich station. I think that communication could be part of the grading because it is important in getting the orders out the most efficiently. Overall I think that we did a good job in the snack shack as the year progressed. I think it was a good idea when we fry some fries before we open so that we are prepared for the rush of people that we get at football games.

Matt B

 

So far this year in Culinary, I have done three different services, all of them football games -- so I am not able to tell you that I sat idly at any of them! Rather, it is quite interesting to see how we act together under pressure, as Friday night football is about as intense as it gets! So we managed to get through all three of them without any major disasters, the hardest variable I find being the type of costumer you get and the sheer number that are there to serve. It takes just one difficult customer, either 'this burger is too pink' or 'I didn't want ____ on this' (Even though they asked for it that way) and then we have the obligation/responsibility to still get it right for them. But while we are now taking three times as long as we should have on this one person, the lines have added ten people!
So having several order takers is a must, something like three to four at max. The rest is fairly simple, being one person at every station, perhaps two at the grill to crank out burgers, grilled cheese, etc. And while they could be the fastest chef in the world, I doubt they would be able to make much of a dent if they didn't keep enough food where we need it, i.e., ample hotdogs in the hot box.
One other thing that I have noticed is that we sometimes have more people than is necessary, to the point that we are tripping over each other, many a near collision I have watched: To get hot chocolate, we need one person. The coffee is (usually) right next to the hot chocolate. The fries are then also right next to the hot chocolate. Rather than have someone for hot chocolate, coffee and fries, why not just have one person? Sure, that person will have to look alive, but that's better than packing the snack shack with people who aren't really doing much.

 That being said, I think definitive positions should be assigned, not the semi-defined groups we have right now, so we can always be 100% sure whether or not we have enough for the upcoming game.

That's all for now!

Sam S

Blog Numero Uno

            So, working the snack shack was, slower than I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure it was guys soccer and a Thursday evening or something. They got a good crowd going, but the snack shack seemed relatively slow, or maybe we were just efficient? Either way things ran mostly smoothly, and I can’t remember any major hiccups or problems that night.

            One thing that I did notice though, was that I wasn’t sure if everyone washed their hands when they got there. It doesn’t really matter for cashiers, but even if you’re cooking and wearing gloves you should still wash your paws before hand. I’m not saying that nobody washed their hands, but I did not notice many people doing it. Maybe they did and I just was busy doing something else, I don’t know.

            Also, I was talking to some people after the game, and they were saying that the French fries were kind of soggy, or just really greasy. So I was thinking instead of transferring them from the fryer to a hotel pan, maybe we could put them in one of those hotel pans with holes on the bottom, so we could let them drain more before placing them in the heater thing. Or we could put a paper bag at the bottom of the pan so that it helps soak up some of the extra grease.

            A way that we could clean up faster is that if it’s slow, before we start closing up a few people could start cleaning. For example maybe they could start stacking pans that we were done using onto one of the carts. And maybe organize the fridge/freezer if it’s looking a little sloppy… They could also put some of the candy and chips away too, which might save some time.

            Also, I am very concerned that security gets free food. It is understandable that the janitors get some because they work really hard at those games, and deserve some free food for their hard efforts. The security on the other hand, do nothing but supervise the perimeters, which wasn’t even necessary at that game because a police man was there. I don’t think they do enough to get free food, and if they want it they should help out and do some dishes or something of the sort.

Hayley N

Snack shack: First time

Working the snack shack on my first night was crazy. It was a Friday night football game and I don’t know how many people showed up it seemed like over 150+. I was working the fat sandwich station and for this, I had to assemble sandwiches with different foods such as chicken tenders, mozz sticks, cheeseburgers, fries, or anything else the customer wanted. And sometimes more then 2 sandwiches would get ordered at a time. It was hectic, but I kept my cool and banged each sandwich out within a min. I had some help throughout the night from people but I really did the heavy lifting at that station. I would occasionally help costumers out with their orders and I would do little things here and there to try and help out the team as best as I could.

 

Snack shack: Second Time

My second time working the snack shack was girls field hockey game. It was slow but a decent amount of costumers. I’m pretty sure I worked the fat sandwich station again but also did the fryer. Things went smoothly, I didn’t need that much help at the fryer because that’s a pretty easy station, and also I didn’t really need assistance at the fat sandwich station. I had everything under control pretty much.

Snack shack: Third and Fourth time

This time it was a double header for me. First we had the highs chool football game that got rescheduled, not that busy compared to a Friday night game but still pretty crowded. I did the fryer station mainly, but also helped out with the customers and getting things to them out of the fridge or if it was candy or burgers I was on top of it. And I also did the cashier for one of the games and that didn’t go over as easily as I would’ve wanted it to. I’m not the best at math, so it took me awhile to get people their change and such. But nonetheless I did the job. In my opinion we should have a calculator or something there that will easily give them change. If not I won’t being working cashier that often. My favorite station by far would have to be the fat sandwich station just because I like making sandwiches for people in general and it’s a really interactive and high energy station.

John L

FB 10/20

The day of football on 10/20 was on a saturday in the middle of the day because it was cancelled the day before. The business was not as good I think because of that, saturday games do not do as well. That day I worked front doing drinks/money and I thought I did a good job keeping the line moving and asking people farther back what they needed. Lebinski was slacking doing the fat sandwiches but he still got them done. There were no problems with the grill or fryer, the hot box was always stacked expect the cheeseburger/hot dog/hamburger box would be empty for 5 minutes at a time because no enough burgers were done at one time. But there were too many people up front at one point when I went to get hot cider for someone I collided with sam when he was walking with coffee and spilt it on me, it was caused by the amount of people in the front and the un ability to move so to fix it next time we can just have a few less bodies in front of the table.

 

GS 10/23

Tuesday, yesterday night For girls soccer it was also senior night which was supposed to mean more business or at least a busier night. But it wasn’t it was the opposite. It was rainy and cold and we had very little food going out. Tom was doing fat sandwiches and was not the fastest person, he would be talking half the time but he still got it done. The lines would come in weird rushes and we would be doing a lot of work for about 20 minutes at some points and then other times just standing around forever waiting. It was so slow there wasn't any problems with running out of food. But next time there is an event and we know its cold and rainy well be sure not to open because I do not think any money was made that night, or if there was it was very little profit.

BS 10/18

On the day of boys soccer on 10/18 the snack shack went well except for a few things. First off it was senior night so it was extra busy which meant a little more work. I was working fat sandwiches and ended up doing around 20-30 that night. We did not have enough cheeseburgers in the hot boxes at sometimes which made the sandwiches slow down. But other than that the hot box was stacked and we did not have any problems filling orders except towards the end when they became very saggy and unappetizing. The front kept the line moving, but I think that was the night the hot chocolate was bad and tastes like someone mixed cider in with it, so next time do not reheat the bad hot chocolate and sell it to people. All together we did a good job the fryers kept up all the way throughout and benji started strong on the grill but faded towards the end when we all started wanting to go home. But not too many problems that night.

 

Hunter L.