Spectator Dining And Shopping At The Venues

Venue concessions leave much to be desired in terms of service and product, but the price is right. The most expensive item is a box lunch for 20 yuan, or approximately $3. Or you can get an egg — I’m not sure what type of egg — for 2 yuan, or less than 30 cents. “Warm” beer is 5 yuan (less than $1). At first I ordered a sausage, thinking it might be a hot dog, but they handed me something round and yellow in shrink wrap. Needless to say, I handed it right back.

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The box lunch was very interesting. It was a rice dish that came in various flavors, but you didn’t get a choice of which flavor, just whatever they pulled out from storage. The box lunch was also packaged for self-heating, but for most people figuring that out required assistance. Once you pull a cord to initiate the heating system, the steam that’s produced is so hot that I saw some people get burned. I doubt this type of system would ever be allowed in the U.S. for legal reasons.

At the 1988 Seoul Olympics they served Ramen noodles and had huge containers of hot water (near the condiment area) for people to prepare their noodles. This seems like a more efficient concession item, but the box lunches were selling so fast that they ran out in some venues.

It appears that the work area of the temporary concession stands are rather small for the quantity of food served. The products on the menu were not on display and there were no pictures, so trying to communicate your order to the non-English-speaking staff was extremely difficult. The staff also had no menu convenient to them that you could point to. Most of the product was stored in the same boxes in which it was delivered and placed on the floor of the concession stand. When you asked for something, they simply pulled an item out of the box. In my case, they had to pull out each item until the right one was found. I wanted a Snickers bar, but when something like Oreo cookies came up, I decided to stop the hunt and bought those. I also tried their ice cream, which was good, but the cone tasted like paper.

In the temporary concession stands, cash was collected in fanny packs — no cash registers. I wonder how reconciliation is handled at the end of the night. There are, however, cash registers at concession stands within the permanent sports venues. At the gymnastics event on Saturday, much of the concession food was sold out midway through the event. In Athens, the concessions also had their challenges, but the food was great once it was served. There they served gyros and the meat was barbecued, which took a long time.
On a side note to the concessions at the sport venues, we noticed that the Beijing zoo had a much more American concession menu, including a Texas hot dog and a California hot dog. I didn’t want to try both to find out the difference.

Coca-Cola has some interesting beverage dispensers on the Olympic Green. They are basically large refrigerated containers. A green sign is clearly marked on the container saying “Clean Refrigeration.” In 2002, Coca-Cola received some heat about its refrigeration units not being environmentally friendly.

As far as merchandise, I understand that there is a superstore on the Olympic Green, but I haven’t found that yet. Right before you enter the Security Control to enter the Olympic Green there is a little store. At first I thought it was a black-market store since there was no signage and the store front was less than desirable. Upon entering you could see that it was somewhat affiliated with BOCOG as most all the merchandise was officially licensed. Unfortunately, the display of items left much to be desired. Many display cases or hangers were half empty and various products were mixed together, leaving a very disorganized feel.

Interesting Way Of Numbering Seats

I forgot to include one other note from the opening ceremony. Our seat numbers were 1 and 2, so we were excited to have aisle seats. To the surprise of all foreigners, seat 1 is in the center of the row, or at least it is in the Bird's Nest.