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Message |
    
Jersey_Boy
Citizen
Username: Jersey_boy
Post Number: 1275
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 12:46 am: | 
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I ate a lobster roll (crab and shrimp were sold out). Even at $1 per bite, it was goooood.
J.B.
I didn't swim for an hour after. |
sac
Supporter
Username: Sac
Post Number: 3596
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 2:08 pm: |
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Maybe you SO folks should lobby for some canopies (is that the correct term?) like the four big blue ones we got at the Maplewood pool about three or four years ago. They are really great! |
Former Cowgirl
Citizen
Username: Formercowgirl
Post Number: 131
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 7:24 pm: |
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CJ: As a parent of a child with a peanut and walnut allergy I highly empathize with you. And to respond to the pp comments about schools, my child's school IS a nut-free school as many schools are becoming these days. If they are not nut-free, many cafeterias have nut-free tables. I also find that adults who do not parent a child with food allergies have no clue how serious it is and are really often unsympathetic. They find the nut-free rule very inconvenient for them.
You would not believe the amount of children with peanut allergies these days. And it's not as simple as preparing your child's food and wiping down the tables. I have to monitor my child' interactions with strange children at the park because there have been instances where a child is holding a peanut butter granola bar and tries to grab my child's toy, hand or sippy cup. I've also been at the dancing goat where children are running wild on the stage, peanut butter sandwich in hand, trying to touch my child.
All of that being said, from a business perspective, if you served peanut butter at the snack bar, i would not trust the handling of the food back there enough to buy anything that was not pre-packaged. (ie. ice cream bar) I imagine many parents of peanut allergic children would do the same.
JMHO |
helen
Citizen
Username: Helen
Post Number: 60
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 - 8:34 pm: |
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I apologize about the snack bar running out of items. I think the response has been far better than we expected. (Last year on our first day we ran out of everything that we had bought for the entire weekend by 5:00pm. And the following weekend I found myself walking through the pool parking lot with a crate of salads that I had just prepared, and which would have fed a large family gathering, when I realized - there's about 1,000 people here, am I crazy??!!) Our manager being out also hurt a bit because the staff really didn't have any idea to call us to get supplies. They thought it was just regular operating rules, to just close when you ran out food! I hope you'll have more faith in us in the future.
The peanut butter issue keeps coming up. Just last night I discussed this again with the managers. The SO manager said he keeps it (with the jelly) on a separate shelf, away from everything else. I told him to even move the jelly because what if the person with the peanut allergy just wants a jelly sandwich. He keeps assuring me the peanut butter isn't touching anything but the bread that they put it on. They have a separate knife for it as well.
I hope this helps,
Helen |
Former Cowgirl
Citizen
Username: Formercowgirl
Post Number: 141
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 12:51 pm: |
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Does anyone know if there are rules pertaining to age limits in the baby and kid pools? I'm starting to lose it with kids (over the age of 6 in the baby pool and teenagers in the kiddie pool) who are oblivious to little ones who have no other place to "swim" than the baby or kid pool. Lifeguards aren't really monitoring them either. Annoys me to have to parent strange children, but I haven't yet said anything to lifeguards or management. thoughts? |
Shanabana
Citizen
Username: Shanabana
Post Number: 732
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 1:18 pm: |
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Helen, I'd love to try more food at the SO pool, but it takes FOREVER to get anything! I ordered a hot pretzel and pizza one day, and it took about 15 minutes to get that, even though the box of pizza was sitting right there, and unfortunately, the pizza was cold. I really am not much of a complainer, I just hope that the group of INCREDIBLY busy and sweet kids in there can find some way to get the food out quicker. The last 2 times I've tried to get a hot prezel again after 6 pm, it's not available.
Best of luck!! |
Crazy_quilter
Citizen
Username: Crazy_quilter
Post Number: 362
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 4:01 pm: |
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Parking at the pool. impossible. boo hoo hoo. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 3560
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 4:46 pm: |
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Had to park way over on Ridgewood yesterday. Cooled off in the pool, and then got all sweaty walking all the way back to the car.  |
ril
Citizen
Username: Ril
Post Number: 572
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - 5:57 pm: |
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helen,
We think the food is great--haven't had to wait very long for any of our orders (we generally don't order stuff that needs to be cooked), and the kids who're working there are very pleasant. A BIG improvement! Thank you!
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helen
Citizen
Username: Helen
Post Number: 67
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 9:40 pm: |
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Hi! I just wanted to keep you posted about the "running out of stuff" situation. My manager went to a town meeting last night and discussed the problem of limited space in the concession kitchen. Apparently, the problem is that there isn't enought storage space and that's why they keep running out. We have extra freezer space in town that the pools can use, but that only helps out with the frozen stuff. Because we have many items that are fresh, the space becomes an issue. I know the pizza is also fresh but I don't know about the pretzels. Even if they're frozen, there would have to be a place for them to defrost as well before cooking.
I'm sure you don't want to hear all of our inventory and logistic details - but I just wanted you to know that it's a space issue and there is some discussion going on about how to remedy some of it. Thanks for letting us know!
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tomp
Citizen
Username: Tomp
Post Number: 70
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 9:49 pm: |
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FWIW, we haven't experienced any running-out-of-inventory problems since the second weekend, but we're usually at the pool Saturday mornings through the early afternoon. I want to say again that we've been very happy with the food and with the staff you have running the place. |
Shanabana
Citizen
Username: Shanabana
Post Number: 795
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 8:36 am: |
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Thanks for the update, Helen. I wasn't trying to be needlesly critical, only constructively. It still takes a long time, there are still no prezels, but I understand that you have a much bigger inventory than the last group that was in there. As I said before, best of luck. |
Just The Aunt
Supporter
Username: Auntof13
Post Number: 5703
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:19 am: |
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Helen-
Maybe the town could turn part of the covered area by the snack bar into a storage area? It is very rare I've seen even half of the total area used. How hard would it be to build a lockable shed with freezer / fridge and shelf space? |
Nancy - LibraryLady
Supporter
Username: Librarylady
Post Number: 3706
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 1:26 pm: |
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great idea, JTA. It really is an underused space. |
Amateur Night
Citizen
Username: Deborahg
Post Number: 1893
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 2:08 pm: |
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Helen -- our last two trips to the pool, that snack bar has run like a Swiss watch! Good job and kudos to your staff! |
MHD
Citizen
Username: Mayhewdrive
Post Number: 4445
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 2:23 pm: |
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Helen,
Would there be any way to have a chalkboard/whiteboard that listed the items that are currently "out"? It can be challenging to finally have a child agree on something to order, only to go order it & find out that there are none left.
Also, would it make sense at all to give each order a "number" and then call that "number" over the PA (or some other amplification), so people can order & then go grab a table instead of huddling by the kitchen on the hot pavement?
Just some constructive suggestions. The food has been great. |
helen
Citizen
Username: Helen
Post Number: 69
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 9:01 pm: |
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Yes, that's just the type of solutions we've, and the town's, been talking about, i.e. using some other storage space for freezers.
As far as going out to the tables, I think they were doing that for a period of time, probably when the crowd wasn't too intense. We have the same problem at Maplewood. We can't staff any more people in the concession because it would be almost physically impossible to move around, yet we'd have to have more staff to run the food out (??) We do it at Orange Lawn and we do have a designated "runner" most of the time, however, we don't have nearly the same numbers coming to the windows. We've talked about using the PA but I don't know if it would just cause the situation to seem more confusing (I'm background noise sensitive and I don't think I would personally care for it...) and I was just talking to someone today who thought we should use some type of beeper/buzzer. I'll have to look into the cost and how easy or not it would be for the staff to use something like that.
In the meantime I'll have to track down those pretzels and somehow get them out there.
Thanks! |
Jersey_Boy
Citizen
Username: Jersey_boy
Post Number: 1450
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:04 pm: |
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Lobster dinner on Sundays? I just missed it last Sunday.
Awesome.
J.B. |
Shanabana
Citizen
Username: Shanabana
Post Number: 800
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:13 pm: |
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Ok, so from what I could tell today, at 2-ish, is that they are posting what's not there on the snack & icecream menus. I saw soft prezels have been duct-taped (sad face), so I went with a ceasar salad instead. Yum. |
helen
Citizen
Username: Helen
Post Number: 76
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 6:43 pm: |
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Yes, I'm sorry to say that I tried to get the pretzels to SO and I don't think it's going to be a possibility unless we get additional storage freezers this year. I believe we got a go-ahead to get another freezer but I'm not sure of the when, where and how part of it all.
In the meantime, there's no place to store the pretzels and we'd need another piece of equipment to cook them. We're also going to look into a pretzel "rotator" for next year - but since we don't have the storage yet, it's still not worth it. (I guess you could say it's a "chicken or the egg" kind of thing!)
I'm really sorry, especially because I like the pretzels myself - they're a great, cheap "filler"! I've been going over to the pool at least once a day to see how the "logistics" of the concession are working as well as the employees. Even though we haven't been able to add pretzels to the menu, we have been able to offer a weekend lobster special (check the flyer next to where you order) and we're now accepting credit cards too.
I'll keep you posted if I get any more info about the pretzels.
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