Interview with Gregory Kobunski, Director of F&B at Lake Erie Crushers
“Food’s hotter; drinks are colder; fans are happier.”
When implementing FanFood, Lake Erie Crushers got creative with how they want to incorporate mobile ordering into the stadium. Instead of setting the entire stadium of 5,000 seat capacity up for concession mobile ordering, Director of F&B Greg Kobunski started with the sit-down dining area on the terrace. Prior to FanFood, the area was served by six waiters per shift. On busy nights, the serving staff would soon feel overwhelmed as they had to serve multiple tables at the same time.
“Initially we sought out to alleviate the pressure on the serving staff, but instead of investing in individual computer[self-service kiosks] in the stadium, we thought every fan has a computer in their pocket — their phones!” Greg said.
Now when fans sit down at a table, they will see a notice on the table asking them to download FanFood and order from their phones. When the order is ready, a waiter will bring the food to the table.
“[We require] less labor with FanFood, that’s the big thing,” Greg said. “We used to have 6 servers every shift to take care of all the tables — now we have 3 on most nights, and maybe 4–5 on busier nights.”
Not only that, fans are much happier about the shorter wait time as a result of a faster, more efficient service.
Happier fans tend to buy more — and we have data to prove that. Concessions revenue per cap has been increasing since Lake Erie Crushers implemented FanFood.“Instead of the server running out to the table, back to the kitchen, make the food, bring it out…now servers only need to get the order from the app, process it then bring it out.” Greg said. “Fans are pleasantly surprised by how quick it is from ordering the food to receiving it on the table.”
The foolproof design of the app also seems to be getting quite some traction among the fans, as the technology aspect of the product is made so easy to use. Greg calls it “ridiculously easy,” and that “anyone who’s ever used an app can use it.”
The same user-friendliness applies to the concessionnaires’ venue dashboard operation as well, as the technology helps to streamline the entire concessions management process, from receiving orders to getting them out to the fans.
“The tracking is fantastic: FanFood is kind of like a manager that lets you know exactly who’s gotten food and who hasn’t, also where the food is at and what food is being made,” Greg told us.
What’s more, this is only the beginning of Lake Erie Crushers’ partnership with FanFood, as Greg and his team prepares for a larger scale adoption of FanFood across the stadium.
“We haven’t tapped into the potential of what we can use FanFood for,” Greg said.
The stadium will soon be ready to roll out FanFood for all fans attending the games — up to five thousand of them. That means all who come to the games would be benefitting from the convenience of the services. Or in Greg’s words:
“Food’s hotter; drinks are colder; fans are happier.”