I was down at Citi Field last night for a hot night of baseball. Getting there early after my last appointment, I was pretty amazed that there were no vendors outside the stadium (even as late at 90 minutes before the game started). The only way to get a drink was to go over to the bar on the far side of the stadium.
Perhaps there are zoning laws I am unaware of, but to me this stinks of poor HR and operations management. By an eyeball count, there had to be at least 500-1000 fans outside the stadium about 2 hours before game time. Even if the Citi Field crew hired two staff people to run carts on each side of the stadium to come in at 6pm instead of game time, they could have sold hundreds of water bottles and hot dogs before people went in the door.
Do staffing decisions like this affect your bottom line? What can you do to stay open a few minutes later or start a few minutes earlier to get some sales that you would have missed?
I can recall many instances where even staffing one person 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late helped capture sales we never would have if we were so strict with our staffing.
So my message to the Mets and Citi Field; put out a water cart before the game, please!
