If you accept the basic premise that recreation is supposed to be fun, and that the ski business is part of the fun business, then it follows that insuring fun should be an important of any ski area’s approach to its customers. Skiers should enjoy the lift ride, they should have fun skiing and in the ski school, and they should certainly have fun when relaxing over food and drink.
Of course, eating should be a pleasurable experience at any time, but especially when it is part of a ski trip. This is the thinking that has been behind the gigantic food operation at Vermont’s Mt. Snow, where the area’s five different restaurants and assorted cafeterias will serve ten thousand guests on a good weekend, and where some 750,000 meals were served last winter in a not-so-hot season.
Mt. Snow’s food service is handled by Ogden Foods, a division of the giant Ogden Leisure Corporation, one of the Fortune 500 List. Ogden Foods’ Frank Turner stresses that they have not been “wildly unconventional” or “outrageously different” in cooking up fun foods that fit in with the spirit of a ski week or weekend. More often than not, the fun is in the presentation as much as in the food itself. For example, there is an outdoor barbeque every weekend that the weather is warm enough—above 20-deg. is the criterion—featuring a steady supply of chicken, spare ribs, boiled corn and baked beans. It starts at 11:30 and keeps going as long as skiers hold out.
“Presentation” can also involve such things as how a salad is served. At Mt. Snow, Caesar’s Salad is prepared to order and scooped from a huge, antique fern-gathering cart, and served in hand-hewn wooden bowls made by a local craftsman.
Then there is the taking of a traditional food item and making it memorable. The chocolate chip cookie, for instance, that comes in flapjack size. The economics? The customer is induced to buy a higher ticket item, with resultant greater unit profit. But more importantly, an association, a memory, an image has been created—the sort of thing that helps trigger a ski family’s decision to come back to Mt. Snow.
Ogden maintains a bakery on the premises to turn out thirteen varieties of fresh-baked items—both traditional and unusual (fun). So, in addition to rye, whole wheat and pumpernickle, there is cranberry bread and pumpkin bread.
In the same way, there are steaks, frankfurters and cheeseburgers; but there is also Vermont Trappers Stew—a hearty combination of beef, venison, moose, salt pork, loads of vegetables and some burgundy. Again, this gets the area talked about. When he reminisces at the office about his ski weekend, the skier will not only give his usual exaggerated accounts of great downhill runs, but he may also tell about the fabulous (fun) Vermont Trappers Stew he had. It makes for a great story, and that’s money in the bank for the area. That skier is a walking advertisement. And he’s not likely to talk about the cheeseburgers he had at Area X—unless they were very bad.
Some other Ogden touches at Mt. Snow: Filet of Beef Carpetbagger—a combination of beef and oysters; and Moscow Borscht—not the ordinary cold beet concoction, but a hot soup that includes, besides the beets, brisket of beef, fresh pork, salt pork, frankfurters, cabbage, carrots, leeks, tomatoes, navy beans and some other ingredients.
Just as some sailing enthusiasts limit their rum punches to boating occasions, many skiers associate strictly with skiing such fun foods and drinks as cheese fondu, mulled wine and hot toddies—and a ski area should attempt to cater to such ski traditions.
Naturally, what is practical for a huge and varied food service operation like Ogden’s at Mt. Snow cannot be translated directly to other and smaller operations, but the principle can: that it is good for the restaurant’s profit, good for the area’s profit, good for generating the area’s repeat business and very good advertising for the area to be known for good food that is served well in a pleasant atmosphere.
And to make it all memorable for the skier, it should be fun!
