Grab and go. The term is being applied, with increasing regularity, to a relatively new approach to food and beverage service at many ski areas. The idea is that small, specialty F&B outlets, usually (though not always) in the form of self-contained kiosks or huts, are a great way to offer guests quick options with minimal interruption to their sliding day. In many cases, a skier might not even dismount—just grab a quick bite and dine, al fresco, perhaps on the lift ride up the mountain.

A pioneer of the concept has been concessionaire Waffle Cabin, which introduced its first ski-area-based cabin 14 years ago at Killington, Vt. “Poles in one hand, waffle in the other,” is the way George Stoddard, Waffle Cabin’s vice president of franchise development, describes the company’s operative concept. Waffle Cabin now has installations at well over a dozen resorts, mostly in the East. It has expanded to the point where it has begun franchising cabins to third-party operators.

GOOD UPSIDE, LITTLE DOWNSIDE
Stoddard concedes that “there was skepticism at first” among F&B managers concerned that resort food outlets might lose business to a Waffle Cabin outlet. “But then they could see that people aren’t skipping their operations. After all, these are snacks, not meals.”

From a ski area’s perspective, the concept has a lot going for it. Installation of a 12x14-foot cabin (either on a fixed, semi-permanent site or towed in on wheels) is quick, relatively simple, and done at the expense of Waffle Cabin or its franchisee. No extra staffing is necessary. The independent vendors are responsible for their own licenses, health inspection, and insurance.

The cabins provide a product unavailable from the resort’s main F&B outlets, minimizing concerns about cabins competing with a resort’s F&B operations. The only costs to the resort might be for utilities (minimal, given the building size) and for the off-peak-hour use of kitchen facilities for clean-up. The payoff is a percentage of profits, typically in the 20 percent range. “The income stream goes directly into (a resort’s) food and beverage budget,” says Stoddard. That certainly sounds better than re-configuring and re-equipping a resort’s kitchen, often at exorbitant expense, to produce a single specialty product.

After its initial foray into the independent-vendor world with Waffle Cabin, Killington has since expanded with additional Waffle Cabins as well as outlets for crépes, empañadas, and sushi. All except for the sushi are served from free-standing structures; the sushi is served through a window in one of Killington’s Umbrella Bars.

Some of the vendors are local restaurateurs, and improving relations with the local business community have been an added benefit. “All these folks created niches,” says Scott Harrison, Killington’s director of hospitality, “making a great variety for our guests.” The idea, in other words, is to expand Killington’s overall F&B offerings with virtually no financial exposure.

Jim Todaro, culinary services manager at Windham, N.Y., concurs. Bringing in independent food vendors, he says, has allowed the resort to offer “variety with almost no risk.”

Yet there are potential pitfalls, largely within the context of choosing the right vendors. Waffle Cabin has been successful because it has a proven track record as a responsible partner producing a reliably high-quality product.

“When you pick a partner, you certainly have to vet your partner,” says Jim Bronson, food and beverage director for Centerplate, which runs the kitchens at Jiminy Peak, Mass.

VETTING VENDORS
At Windham, where waffles and sushi are available through independent contractors, Todaro says at least three factors have gone into the choice of vendors. Foremost, he says, is “a concern about the quality and consistency of the product.” Guests are unlikely to recognize an independent outlet as separate from the rest of the resort’s F&B service, and any lapses in quality, cleanliness, or presentation will reflect poorly on the resort and the guest experience as a whole. Thus, says Todaro, it is imperative to test the product before entering any kind of arrangement with an independent vendor.

One of the reasons behind Waffle Cabin’s success has been its “focus on the quality of the product,” says Stoddard. That means manufacturing all of its own dough to assure consistency, and extensive training of Waffle Cabin employees as well as all franchise personnel.

Second, says Todaro, consider products that can simply be made better by an independent vendor rather than by the resort’s own F&B personnel. Bringing in an outside sushi vendor, he says, was largely based on turning to people with “the technical skills not necessarily available in a mountain setting.” That’s perhaps a fundamental business rule: to get a job done well, go to the experts.

Finally, he says, a product should be “so specific” that it is not competing with menu items available in the resort’s other F&B outlets. On this point in particular, Killington’s Harrison concurs. Killington, he says, has declined bids from some vendors because what they were deemed to be offering was “too close to the same product” already available at the resort.

Of course, the kiosk or free-standing installation concept needn’t be something turned over exclusively to an independent contractor. Centerplate, a food-service and catering company, runs full F&B operations at a number of ski resorts, especially in the East. Although Centerplate has from time to time subcontracted some kiosk-oriented services to independent contractors, it prefers to keep everything under its own aegis, according to Bronson, who in addition to his role at Jiminy is regional manager for Centerplate.

LOCATION, LOCATION
Bronson says Jiminy opened the Centerplate-run Powder Maker’s kiosk about six or seven years ago to serve apple-cider donuts, waffles, draft beers, and other snack items outside the main lodge. Located on Jiminy’s base-area patio, Powder Maker’s was created in large part, says Bronson, “to take pressure off the main lodge during lunch.”

Since then, the 8x12-foot building has seen a steady increase in business, and Jiminy has discovered in the process the power of perhaps the strongest marketing come-on for any F&B operation: aroma. “As soon as you come down the mountain, you can smell the sugar caramelizing,” says Bronson. Such an allure can not only draw guests directly to Powder Maker’s but can also stimulate appetites that may end up being satisfied at the resort’s main F&B outlets. “In the base lodge, the concept can get lost,” says Bronson.

Another guiding principle in the kiosk concept is, to borrow the old real-estate axiom, location, location, location. Kiosks make particularly good sense at a large, spread-out resort like Killington; hence the expansion to more than a half-dozen independent outlets, interspersed throughout the trail network. No matter how spread out the resort, guests are never more than a couple of minutes from an opportunity to satisfy their appetites.

At a smaller resort like Jiminy Peak, where all trails come down to the same base area, a single kiosk on the base patio might make more sense. At an even smaller area, a kiosk might simply be F&B overkill. As Bronson cautions, “You don’t want to dilute yourself.”

Still, he sees the kiosk concept growing, comparing it to street food in an urban environment. “I think you’ll see more and more of these specialty foods appearing in other places,” he says. And why not? What F&B manager has ever complained about grabbing and going with risk-free revenue?