Attended the fans forum at Dhillons this evening so thought I'd post a summary here.
Really impressed with what I heard, there is a clear desire to listen to supporters and keep improving. There is no doubting the commitment and the substantial investment that has been made. They now employ over 70 local people across their venues.
These are the main points:
- They acknowledge that queues remain the biggest challenge, so they will be adding two extra bars for the next home game; there will eventually be 5 bars in total. They are also going to change the way people queue at the main bar by creating a lane system.
- As part of wider plans to promote the venue as a family 'fans village', they will be opening a 'tuck shop' at the next game selling pop and crisps to kids.
- On the same theme, they will be using outside areas for activities, for example creating a small playing area and running competitions such as beat the keeper to win a pint etc.
- On the beer quality, they acknowledge there have been some issues. They will be serving more of their own brews soon, eventually 50% of the offering. They are working to improve quality as much as possible even to the extent of testing multiple types of plastic glass to find the one that works best with the beer they sell (they are unable to switch from plastic because of the police).
- On pricing, they will be holding pricing as it is for the foreseeable and will avoid any price increases that are normally applied at this time of year within the industry. They will also look at promotions and offers where they can.
- In addition to special offers, they will also be introducing a loyalty scheme for season ticket holders, so there will be discounts for loyalty card holders on drinks as well as things like free room hire at the Sky Blue Tavern.
- They will soon be adding two more projectors in the outdoor areas showing live games; this will be in place for next season and for the world cup.
- There are looking for partners to offer food on matchdays. The original companies they worked with were far too expensive so they have temporarily brought it in house why they review the food they offer and how they offer it.
- Once Covid is out of the way there will be much more involvement of the club at the SBT, with players and Mark Robins making regular appearances there.
- One really important thing to note is how they work in close partnership with the club and pay the club royalties, so if you drink at Dhillons or the SBT, this is directly benefitting CCFC.
- They were recently approached by Birmingham City to create a similar venue close to St Andrews, but declined the offer.
Really interesting evening, glad I went.
That's a great summary .It looks like Dhillons are really trying to impove and deal with any negative feedback.I'm 72 now but if I was 20 years younger I'd be all over this and don't understand the negativety .