I don't understand the concept of "rent free". The food service car, its mechanical equipment, cleaning, depreciation, and supplies all have to be paid for. Maybe some or all of these costs will be absorbed by the Company, and maybe they will be absorbed by the Contractor. It could be done either way, but these expenses must be paid, and at the end of the process the bill collector doesn't care where the money comes from. Maybe you can create more efficient methods of providing food at lower cost, and maybe you can't. But these expenses will still be there to be paid in some way.
Eliminating the FDA inspectors and their pesky (and expensive) rules isn't a viable option. In my experience, they make State inspectors look like tyros.
Tom
Schlimm:
Sorry, but the menus for SNCF and DB tell us nothing about the conditions under which those, meals are prepared, or the rules that regulate the process. So they don't really add any clarity. At least one State food inspector heard about the rules Amtrak employees have to follow, and he told me he could never enforce such strict rules in a stationary restaurant in his State: He would be closing restaurants left and right and provoking the ire of owners, employers, patrons mayors, and city councilmen all over his County. To expect FDA to relax its rules is probably a fantasy. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by the way, and I'm not saying SNCF and DB operate under more lax rules because I don't know. But I wonder. And if the sanitation rules are different, I wonder what is the cost impact.
The whole idea is to provide a decent service through an outside contractor. My suggestions are designed to improve the service while redcucing the expenses to Amtrak. The car remains Amtrak property, so it would wear depreciation and maintenance as a railcar. The maintenance and cleaning of the interior would be worn by the contractor, as would doing what is necessary to pass FDA inspections.
I do not see what is so hard to understand. The current Amtrak LD food service is not especially good on most LD trains and loses too much money (high operating expense) and the law still says it must break even. The choices are try something like this (perhaps the SNCF or DB model) or face vending machines or even total elimination.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
ACY Schlimm: Sorry, but the menus for SNCF and DB tell us nothing about the conditions under which those, meals are prepared, or the rules that regulate the process. So they don't really add any clarity. At least one State food inspector heard about the rules Amtrak employees have to follow, and he told me he could never enforce such strict rules in a stationary restaurant in his State: He would be closing restaurants left and right and provoking the ire of owners, employers, patrons mayors, and city councilmen all over his County. To expect FDA to relax its rules is probably a fantasy. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by the way, and I'm not saying SNCF and DB operate under more lax rules because I don't know. But I wonder. And if the sanitation rules are different, I wonder what is the cost impact. Tom
The menus are just to give a sense of what menus are elsewhere.
I am more familiar with DB. The sanitation and cleanliness and crew attitudes exceed my experiences on Amtrak.
Without knowing the regs that DB and SNCF operate under, I can't respond to that.
I'm not sure what expenses are borne by Amtrak and what ones are borne by the Operator in your plan. I understand that the costs of purchase and maintenance of the RR car are borne by Amtrak. But does that include the costs of purchase, cleaning, maintenance, and replacement of the mechanical equipment that is devoted to food storage, handling, preparation, and service? This would include refrigerators, freezers, steam tables, warming drawers, convection ovens, coffee makers, grills, the additional plumbing required, etc.? Amtrak diners (Superliners, anyway---I don't know about others) don't have deep fryers due to safety concerns. These items are not essential to a railroad car per se, but they are essential to a diner, and they are a major part of the whole milieu that makes diners expensive to operate. Remember, if you want a replacement convection oven for a dining car, you can't just waltz down to the local appliance shop and buy one off the shelf. This is an expensive proposition. The cost must be paid, whether it's by Amtrak or the Operator, and it will show up on the bottom line in some form.
Any modifications to the cars, whether at the behest of Amtrak or the Operator, would have to be approved by an Equipment Modification Committee (I may be misremembering the correct name of the body). That's not a quick or easy process because mods can affect the weight of a car, the electrical draw, and many other things, intended and unintended.
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schlimm Here are some links to menus from the food services of the SNCF and DB trains: http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/restauration/Carte_Bar_TGV.pdf https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/zug/bordgastronomie/monatsaktion.shtml
Here are some links to menus from the food services of the SNCF and DB trains:
http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/restauration/Carte_Bar_TGV.pdf
https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/zug/bordgastronomie/monatsaktion.shtml
I am not arguing with you and saying it can't be done. I am merely disputing that 100 cold sandwiches and no lease on the railcar takes you to profitability or a demand curve that is sustainable over time.
ACYEliminating the FDA inspectors and their pesky (and expensive) rules isn't a viable option. In my experience, they make State inspectors look like tyros.
I also have zero experience with FDA. Only City, County and State rules. They are very substantially strict during an inspection. I had to go through a three week General Manager program before I could buy that fast casual sub shop and 60-70% of the course was learning and memorizing food handling rules and actually working in a existing franchisor owned location.
The shift in school was 12 hours a day in some cases, my feet swelled up from standing and walking that long on concrete as I was not used to it......needed to get cortisone injections. I did everything from run the griddle during a $400 an hour surge period, ran the fryer, cashier, service line, prep.....everything. At any rate, loved the course and learned a lot. Then had to pass a 40 hour lecture style instruction to get my serv safe certificate. Then had to pass occupancy and fire inspections. Then after paying $1500-2000 in permits, I could start to serve the public. BTW, in addition to the permits with 10 employees. Workmans Comp insurance = $1500, Liability Insurance = $4500 (have to cover min insurance requirements of landlord) Even though the space was leased, property taxes on all equipment and furniture in the leased space = $2500. Remember also with Labor costs your not just paying an hourly rate or salary your also paying the employer share of employment taxes.......which raises the labor cost beyond a simple "Oh I only need to pay $8.00 an hour" It's $8 an hour plus employer share of taxes for that employee. Thats why I snicker at these $15 an hour national minimum wage proposals........lol.......thats the rate before adding employer taxes on top people!!! Good luck staying in business!
I had an excellent relationship with the local Food Inspector scored 94 out of 100 points and he told me that if he had to pick somewhere to eat he would eat at my restaurant. Not all the credit goes to me, I took over the place from a Vietnamese couple and they had very high cleanliness standards which I just had to maintain. Have to say though, you have to be there everyday supervising to pass a health inspection because the 18 to 25 year age group just does not care as much as they should. They think that what they do at home is good enough for the public. I had to inspect the place daily when I was not working to ensure they kept to the standards or they would deviate. My point in saying all this is. You cannot operate with just one or two employees you need supervision (management) or your health standards will suffer.
Oh yeah one more thing. New and decent computerized point of sale system to track inventory usage, gross sales, CC charges, cash payments, refunds, etc.....approx $6,000 to $8,000 (plus maintenence and support contract). Also tracks orders and sends them to a kitchen or griddle bump screen for the cooks. Add in an office PC say $1200 with decent software to access the POS and pull the numbers into Intuit Quickbooks so you don't have to pay a CPA $4,000 a year to sort through a mess.
Yeah here is a good story that will gross you out. I also hired from other Restaurants in the local area like McAlisters, In and Out Burger, Chili's. Some of their former employees whom I presummed were trained properly I caught picking up food after it had fallen on the floor, not rewashing their hands or changing sanitary gloves after itching their hair, not washing the dishes or pans properly.
Scary stuff.
Also, employee theft at my location ran about $800-900 a month. That was steep because I was not there all the time and my Assitant Manager was ethically challenged. Had an argument with a local bible thumper who told me "Well you have to fire those people right away". Reality is different let me tell you. Fire the Assitant Manager without a replacement and guess who will be standing in his place seven days a week? Fire an employee that takes $60-80 from the till every so often and you have to calculate whom will train his replacement, how long to hire a replacement, training costs while the new employee learns the portion sizes (it takes about a month per new employee to learn the proper portion sizes of everything you sell......meanwhile they are giving away too much and driving your food costs higher).
So employee termination is more an owner calculation on how much they can afford to lose via embezzlement vs how fast and the disruption it will cause to replace the person.
On portion sizes, new employees usually give away too much.....which raises your food costs......Imagine selling 6-8 oz of fries when your portion should be 5 oz........over hundreds of customers, it adds $$$ up. So training is not as simple as showing someone once how to make a sandwich you have to demonstrate and remind on exact portion control and this is why you see small wieght scales in most fast food restaurants like Fuddruckers, Jimmy Johns, etc. It is used to train the new employees in portion sizing. If portion control gets out of control you'll see it within 2 days if your onsite a lot. You'll notice, Gee we are going through frozen french fries fast. Or Gee, Ranch Dressing and Katshup is flying out the door. So nightly eyeball inventory is also important to catch improper portion control.
I would expect this is not visible or a large problem on Amtrak because turnover is lower and the kitchen and prep area is out of view of the public.
The other item about firing people too quickly is you have to have a business case on paper to fire someone. Employment at will is a nice concept but guess what happens if you practice it and fire someone without case in the state of Texas. They run off and attempt to collect unemployment. The Texas unemployment fund approaches you via a letter and asks dates of employment and why the person was fired (all the facts). If you do not convince them the person was fired fairly...........guess who is paying a large portion of their unemployment compensation after termination. Thats right!!! You are!!!
Guess who pays an Employees Child Support and has to interface with Child Protective services..........YOU DO!!! And make sure that payment is timely. Sure you deduct it from the employees check but it's you that writes and cuts the check to the specific state agency and mails it. See how fun it is being an employer?
CMStPnP schlimm Here are some links to menus from the food services of the SNCF and DB trains: http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/restauration/Carte_Bar_TGV.pdf https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/zug/bordgastronomie/monatsaktion.shtml I am not arguing with you and saying it can't be done. I am merely disputing that 100 cold sandwiches and no lease on the railcar takes you to profitability or a demand curve that is sustainable over time.
100 cold sandwiches? Maybe in your sandwich shop but I am suggesting a variety somewhat like the SNCF or DB menus, Americanized. If they can do it, why not Amtrak or the US?
schlimm CMStPnP schlimm Here are some links to menus from the food services of the SNCF and DB trains: http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/restauration/Carte_Bar_TGV.pdf https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/zug/bordgastronomie/monatsaktion.shtml I am not arguing with you and saying it can't be done. I am merely disputing that 100 cold sandwiches and no lease on the railcar takes you to profitability or a demand curve that is sustainable over time. 100 cold sandwiches? Maybe in your sandwich shop but I am suggesting a variety somewhat like the SNCF or DB menus, Americanized. If they can do it, why not Amtrak or the US?
Is SNCF or DB meal sevices profitable - ON THEIR OWN, or is their expenses covered by the profitability of the transportation services in the overall package?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
For what it's worth, I don't know about too many State sanitation regulations. The State I mentioned is generally considered pretty good in the overall scheme of things. Two neighboring States have so few inspectors that the regs are just about meaningless. There may be some State(s) where the regs rival the strictness of FDA regs, but I'd be surprised if there is any State where the regs are more stringent. Any train that crosses a State line is subject to FDA regs with regard to food service. There was at least one now-defunct dinner train that allegedly closed down because the proprietors were expecting to have to comply with State regs, but they discovered they would have the extra expense of FDA regs because the train briefly curved into an adjoining State, and right back out!
One more slippery little critter in this can of worms. (Please forgive the inappropriate & unappetizing metaphor)
P.S. CMStPNM: We have something in common. My crew consistently scored well over 90% in FDA inspections, usually between 95 and 100%. When training new hires, we had no mercy, holding them to the very highest standards. That was rough --- a sharp & steep learning curve for some. More often than not, FDA violations involved mechanical issues resulting largely from the age and condition of the car. We weren't penalized for those things, but the Mechanical Dept. certainly was.
BaltACDIs SNCF or DB meal sevices profitable - ON THEIR OWN, or is their expenses covered by the profitability of the transportation services in the overall package?
It's hard to say. They lose money, but not much compared to the total business, which is profitable.
"For 2013, Deutsche Bahn (DB) reported its revenues increased by 3.7 percent last year to total 39.3 billion euros ($50.7 billion). Net profit soared by 11 percent to 1.48 billion euros, making it a record year for the rail operator. [Includes freight]
The company said the surge in earnings and revenues came on a marked increase of passenger numbers. Last year, a total of 2.7 billion people traveled on Deutsche Bahn trains, 49 million people more than a year earlier.
"We're in the black in all our business segments," the head of financial operations, Richard, Lutz, said in a statement."
I looked a DB's first integrated report, 2014. It indicates long distance (intercity ) trains carried 129 million passengers (350,000 daily), with passenger revenues of 4.034 bil. Euros; EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) = 212 million Euros; EBITDA = 546 mil. Euros; margin = 13.5%.
Food operations are not reported separately, but in 2009, they generated about 88 mil. Euros in revenue and lost just over 10 mil. Euros. Mitropa, a wholly-owned subsidiary of DBAG, operates the foodservices on DB and also for SNCF, the Swiss Railway and Austrian rail. They also operate sleeper car services.
ACYP.S. CMStPNM: We have something in common. My crew consistently scored well over 90% in FDA inspections, usually between 95 and 100%. When training new hires, we had no mercy, holding them to the very highest standards. That was rough --- a sharp & steep learning curve for some. More often than not, FDA violations involved mechanical issues resulting largely from the age and condition of the car. We weren't penalized for those things, but the Mechanical Dept. certainly was.
It's something you have to watch every single day and the employees think you are picking on them unless you approach them right about it. Best way I found to train them was to tell them, items waist level and above that are stainless steel have to maintain a sanitized state along with your hands. Once you break the rule with your hands everything you touch has to be either thrown away or resanitized. Likewise with cross contamination. Anytime they dropped a sandwich at the toppings bar or dropped cooked meat into a container I told them NOT to fish it the meat out of a container. Throw away the whole container and treat it as contaminated. Sounds expensive but my food source was largely bought via the RESTAURANT DEPOT commissary chain and was remarkably cheap as compared to COSTCO or non-business related produce suppliers plus their produce was always in excellent condition with no bruising or rot. 24 heads of ice berg lettuce in pristine condition for about $20 a case. Try and get that at a supermarket or COSTCO. You can get close but need to make a special deal with the supermarket manager........which we sometimes did with the local Kroger but their produce was a lot crappier than RESTAURANT DEPOT (you can buy and shop there if your public and/or are curious.....just can't buy without an account setup).
For the record the state has rules and I never saw a state inspector. Food inspections were done by the City you were in using state rules as well as city rules. City inspector would never announce he could pop in anytime or even undercover. He was very friendly and alleviated nervousness by saying "I am not here to shut you down, I am here to find issues that we will both work on to correct, if I find issues". But if he does note a deficiency if it is in the "critical" column and it is not fixed by his next unannounced visit he has the power to padlock the doors.....without any recourse to prevent it AND that alone can halt your cash flow for up to a week. In many cases it is enough to run you out of business because they also print the story in the local paper.
And schlimm is partially OK because the lessor is responsible for some items like the water heater, garbage collection, electrical distribution. I think all I paid energy wise was $50-75 for Natural Gas for the FF each month. The rest was covered by the lease. Sounds like a good deal but they were charging $10,000 a month, plus the contract was loaded with contingencies including profit sharing once my revenue hit a specific point AND future leasehold improvements like building a future parking garage which I would not benefit from. So the lease at a mall is largely a license to financially rape a small business. It is always best to own your own building. Also, if you sign up or the vendor does with a franchisor that hits cash flow because you have to pay usually a 5+% royalty on gross sales. When you have a small business everyone has hands in your pocket because they think you are loaded with cash. Even Wells Fargo my banker was taking as much money as it could from me in fees. My two Wells Fargo favorites: 1. Cash Deposit Fee for too many cash deposits made in a month (limit was 5). 2. Incomming Wire Fee for any incomming money transfers to any account. What Credit Union charges for that? Then there were fees to hookup Intuit Quickbooks and use it to download transactions from the bank to your PC and post to ledger accounts. Yup, no charge for the Corp CC to do that.....only the Bank.
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