They’ve replaced the giant posters on the side of St.Marys of a select few players in the new kit as they always do. This season we have Stephens and Welington intimidating our competitors and inspiring our own fans. What a flex.
Food and drink options being upgraded at St Mary's: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/ovg-bring-world-class-food-and-drink-to-st-marys
I saw a job ad somewhere for people to install self service drink machines at St marys so assume we will be getting the pour your own pint type service. When they work they are pretty good in fairness, much quicker than waiting to be served.
Does this mean there will be no bar staff at all now? I can't help having a cynical attitude towards these so called service improvements that are fan-fared in as a major development in the matchday experience when the true reason is to reduce running costs. In any case, world class food and drink from a vending machine might be pushing it a bit. Things may have improved recently but my memory of hot drinks from those things is that they are pretty disgusting.
I'm trying not to be cynical and hopefully there will be advantages for the new approach but changes are rarely made purely for customer benefits. The proof will be in the pudding. I'm assuming puddings will be available.
Suspect they'll be looking to make money off it too. If queue times are less more people will bother presumably.
The bar staff though are clueless. They don’t know what is there behind them and think they have all the time in the world to serve you. They forget that you have 15 mins to serve (and make money) at halftime.
In other news (not strictly related to Saints) it looks like the Kingsland Tavern will be closing. Massive shame that. Only pub on that side of the ground which is closer than town.
They seemed to be students getting a bit of spending money together and having a good old chinwag at the same time. But in my experience, when they did serve you all of them were polite and pleasant. But they are probably cosseted, know all students who won't ever have faced real life experiences, so yeah **** 'em. Get a machine in.
I’m probably more critical as in another life I ran bars and restaurants. I pick up on things more people miss. The flip side is I am lot more understanding to somethings in restaurants, as I know the issues they have. In this case though it is the fact they have zero training and most have just been drafted in 10 mins earlier with a “till is there, drinks behind you, off you go”
Do they not just have people constantly pouring pints and the others doing the till? Not been to St Mary’s for ages but other grounds I’ve been to all do that. Even with a 20 deep queue it moves very quickly
Can't help but feel sorry for these city pubs, with rmthe opening of fan zones and pubs at the stadium
They do, but not everyone has pints. If you throw a curveball like a wine or a non alcoholic beer, that takes them literally (no exaggeration) 2-3 mins to do as they have to turn, find ask someone, confirm etc.
I worked the bar at Gloucester rugby as a teen and it really is not hard. I had zero bar experience yet with even just 1 hour of training you are pretty much good to go. I don't even think you are exaggerating much with "zero" training. I think they show them how the til works for 5/10 minutes and that really is it.
