Alice in Wonderland Family Park
The Case
Alice in Wonderland Family Park has been voted The Top Dorset Visitor Attraction - but as a primarily outdoor venue it suffered from bad weather days and a closed winter season. On top of that, it had become so popular that its Alice Cafe could not cope with demand and people queued out the door on most days!
The constantly-expanding 14 year-old park was operating during Easter to September each year and became a victim of its own success - it did not know when it opened its first real catering venture in 1996 that it would soon be serving up to 2,500 people a day.
Carford installed the first kitchen at Alice Cafe (80 covers including an outdoor patio) nine years ago to replace a refreshment tent - and it still performs well.
The SolutionThe park has recently been expanded with the launch of Wild Thing! - an exciting, £1,000,000 themed 'next generation' indoor play centre. Aimed at 2 - 12 year olds, it is open all year round, with 10,000 square feet of interactive play equipment and fast food dining, and is probably the most up-to-date adventure complex in the
Carford Group was called in to design and install the entire catering facility and an exciting servery to fit in with the themed complex. Its design staff worked closely with the park owners to produce an efficient kitchen and fun counter that would attract visitors for both refreshments and food.
Equipment included: Carford stainless steel tables, extraction and counter; Zanussi 6-burner range, chip scuttle, griddle, microwave, dishwasher and refrigeration;
The Result
The all-weather complex has succeeded in encouraging visitors even on bad weather days when formerly numbers would have been very low or non-existent, and the new dining area takes pressure off the original cafe.
Now catering makes up a healthy 25% of the attraction's overall turnover with 60% of visitors heading for one of the two dining areas. Satisfaction of diners is extremely high.
And despite its popularity, Wild thing! has not impacted dramatically on the business of the original Alice cafe (just enough to reduce the queuing!), so catering turnover has virtually doubled and is expected to reach as high as 1500 hot meals a day in the main season.
Children's parties were identified as a growth area, so three party rooms were included in the complex, each served with food and drinks from the main counter.
Catering manager Annie Newport formerly owned her own delicatessen shop, run a hotel and worked in the pub trade, so she has worked in the catering sector for 30 years. She recognises the special catering demands in the tourism sector and firmly believes the biggest need is to get the price right for the audience - and you have to like the public, which in this case includes children of all ages.
