The end of an American tradition
Amtrak, reinventing its dining service, is killing off the dining car
Harrison Keely’s fondest memories of riding Amtrak all include snapshots of the dining car. The shiny silverware and white linens. Enjoying thick slices of French toast covered with powdered sugar and drenched in syrup while taking in the scenery. The friends made over a slice of cheesecake.
“There’s something fantastic about dinner in the dining car,” said Keely, 32, a writer from Brasstown, N.C., who swears by the Amtrak crab cake and steak dinner. “You get to meet other people and hear so many great stories. It is to me one of the best parts about traveling.”
That experience is about to change. Amtrak says it is reinventing its dining service on long-distance trains, killing the traditional dining car to create more “flexible” and “contemporary” dining options.
The carrier says the change, starting this fall on the one-night routes east of the Mississippi River, is driven by the desire to save money and lure a younger generation of new riders — chiefly, millennials known to be always on the run, glued to their phones and not particularly keen on breaking bread with strangers at a communal table.
With the transition, Amtrak is doing away with the traditional onboard kitchen, switching to serving prepackaged meals and easing restrictions on the traditional serving times. The change allows the railroad to cut costs associated with cooking aboard and keeping up with the white-tablecloth service that was once known to rival high-end restaurants and clubs.
Amtrak isn’t labeling the change the end of the dining car, but rather an evolution more in line with the demands of this era.
“It is part of an evolution,” said Peter Wilander, who oversees Amtrak’s customer experience. “The concept is to provide service the way our customers want rather than have everybody conform to one service delivery.
“Some people really like [the dining car] and view it as sort of a nostalgic train experience,” Wilander said. “Some people, especially our new millennial customers, don’t like it so much. They want more privacy, they don’t want to feel uncomfortable sitting next to people” they don’t know.
It’s that demographic, he said, that Amtrak wants to attract with more contemporary car designs and food options.
For now, the changes are only on Amtrak’s one-night routes on the East Coast. The “flexible” dining service for sleeping car customers starts Oct. 1 on the Cardinal (New York-Chicago), City of New Orleans (Chicago-New Orleans), Crescent (New York-New Orleans) and Silver Meteor (New York-Miami). The shift will happen next year on the Silver Start — a 1,500-mile route from New York to Miami.
For passengers, it will be the end of freshly prepared meals aboard. No more eggs over easy or the favorite Railroad French toast. No more steak cooked to their liking. Travelers will no longer need to make reservations for the breakfast, lunch and dinner service hours.
Passengers in roomettes and bedrooms, considered premium riders, will have the choice to have meals delivered to their rooms. If desired, they will be able to use a new version of a dining car, open exclusively to them, with booths, but no white linens. Eventually, Amtrak said, it may get rid of the booths altogether and create a more contemporary lounge setting.
The new menu offers a variety of prepackaged meals; for example, red wine braised beef and chicken fettuccine. In the morning, passengers will be able to pick up a pastry and coffee from a buffet-style continental breakfast.
Coach riders will eventually be able to buy the meals offered to premium riders, but in the cafe car.
Wilander said the food standards aren’t taking a hit, but rather, he said, the meals will be more consistent while the ingredients remain of “high quality.” He said the process of preordering and preselecting meals will allow Amtrak to maintain tighter controls of inventory, resulting in savings.
The railroad anticipates the change will save it about $2 million a year.