FYI: No takeout at Fridays during the weekend.

We visited the park last weekend and arrived Saturday. While hanging out at our hotel, we decided it was time for food. So we called the Friday's at Castaway Bay.

When we placed the call the hostess that answered the phone and said they don't do takeout orders on the weekend. This was a surprise to me, so I asked for a manager thinking I got someone who didn't -feel- like taking an order. He explained to me that the guest experience for those who dined inside was taking a hit due to the takeout orders and that he had received numerous complaints regarding their new policy.

I think this is foolish. As a former kitchen manager, I can't understand this. Its basically saying to me that they don't want my business. I mean, how hard is it to put the food in a container as opposed to on a plate? My suggestion: Hire more staff.

Lets say a restaurant has 100 seats inside, and the kitchen was designed to prepare 100 dinners an hour. If you add take out, lets say an additional 100 dinners an hour, you are doubling the demand on the kitchen. It's probably just a simple matter of quality control in the kitchen prep area. That building is rather old, I'll bet the kitchen is pretty small.

^ - the restaurant is built into a hotel. If the kitchen was designed to only handle people dining in, then someone seriously effed up. Especially since they just did a complete over-haul of the restaurant 3 or so years ago.

No, this policy change sounds more like they need to get some motivation into the kitchen.

So is this only for the Friday's at Castaway Bay?

Fridays at Breakers stops doing take out after 5pm. I was shocked to hear that as said above, do they want my business?? What was the difference if i sat at the bar and when my food came just asked for a to go plate or whatever? Sometimes its hard to sit in a restaurant with twin 2 year olds.

I have no comment on take out but I know that on many occasions we visit TGI Fridays. And we can sit at the bar and eat during the day, but we went once at night and they had a long wait (1 hour 20 minute wait), and this was during an insane august weekend. So we decided to see about eating at the bar.

They declined to serve food to us at the bar as well.

I just go outside the point for food. I don't have time for their games.

According to the manager, this is a policy they enacted with Cedar Point. Other than a franchise agreement with the park to put a restaurant in their hotel, this makes no sense. Does this mean Cedar Point dictates to Friday's (operated by a company that could own a majority of Cedar Fair stock with their pocket change) what they can and can't do with the exception of their operating hours?

Either way I think its bogus.

Also, I'm not sure if this policy is in effect at Breakers. That seems even more foolish for those who just drove X amount of hours and would rather eat in the comfort of their hotel room.

^What.. Sushi! Is it quality?

While I can appreciate that there are certain challenges associated with operating that location, which allegedly does more business in the season than most locations do in an entire year, it has a long history of being very poorly managed. I can't tell you how many times I've had issues there. And unfortunately, the management has been like a revolving door. There were a couple of good years when [forget his name] was in charge of all the franchise restaurants, but they weren't able to retain him as he went off to open some restaurants.

The Friday's menu has become a bit of a nuke-n-fry affair the last few years, which is unfortunate. They've sunk to the level of Applesleeze. That said, when half the stuff is nuked, it should be a hell of a lot easier to prepare too. They really need a guru to run the place, and pay him or her enough to stick around year after year.

I would make the same decision if I had a restaurant surrounded by a gazillion motel rooms. No way would I ask my eat-in customers to wait while we filled orders for people up the street who are too lazy to get out of their swimsuits or too cheap to buy a separate meal for everyone in their party. (Especially if, to begin with, I was as inefficient at handling my dining room orders as both CP Fridays seem to be.)

I agree with Jeff about the overall experience at Friday's, and that would be both locations. I had an experience at the bar at the Breakers location that, if I had been the manager, would have resulted in at least one firing. The food is merely ok, and the menus are abbreviated compared to the Fridays at home. Service? Just terrible. Perhaps something bad happens in the translation from 364 day operation to seasonal.

I don't think I have had a single positive experience with either of the Fridays restaurants up there since...well, since BEFORE Cedar Point bought the Radisson hotel. I gave up on both of those restaurants a long, long time ago, and my experiences ever since when people have talked me into eating at either one have completely failed to change my mind about it.

I can't find the actual description of our experience, but Dana alludes to it in Usenet message-id: <3cc77d1c.227833375@nntp.ix.netcom.com>.

Ah. And gives the date and more detail in Usenet message-ID <722b6k$60o@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com>...

Yeah, that was 11 years ago. It's not that I hold a grudge, it's that when I have been back, it hasn't gotten any better.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Does anyone know if they this policy is extends to Famous Dave's?

I suspect they'd piss off the boaters if they stopped it there. That, and they typically have people on duty at the takeout counter.

A takeout counter! What a crazy idea! It will never work.

Really, 2 extra people on staff during a shift, one to expo and one to run the register/take orders. Maybe $75 for the plywood and materials to build a separate counter, $200 in labor to build and $200 for a new POS terminal and bam! Instant return on investment.

There were nights at my old restaurants where our takeout would exceed $500 in sales.