The Great Escape Sends Restaurant into Orbit

One of my pet peeves about theme parks is food. Most parks offer the same old bland junk. For shame! There is a rich and grand tradition of delicious treats at classic amusement parks. I'm not talking about gourmet cuisine (although the Disney and Universal parks prove that it is possible). Think of Nathan's hot dogs at Coney Island, frozen custard at the boardwalk piers, or the fresh-cut Potato Patch fries at Kennywood and Lake Compounce. The food is almost as much of a reason to visit the parks as the coasters. It's an indelible part of the amusement park experience. Today, parks get a frozen slab of chemically enhanced dough, tasteless tomato sauce, and cheese that is indistinguishable from the wax paper on which it is served. Then they warm it up and have the nerve to call it pizza--and the audacity to charge up to $6.49 a slice for it (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Six Flags Great Adventure). Another questionable park trend is the proliferation of chain restaurants and fast food joints such as Subway and Papa John's. Case in point: The Great Escape in New York is replacing its fine, in-house, sit-down restaurant, Trapper's Adirondack Grille, with a Johnny Rockets. Blah. Instead of delicious cooked-to-order meals in a unique and location-specific setting, the new restaurant will serve the same bland hamburgers available at any of its gazillion locations. What's special about that? Sorry, Six Flags (corporate owner of The Great Escape), but I think this is a boneheaded move. What do you think? Click on comments below.

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