DNPS blasts into the future with Space Center makeover

Nation's Restaurant News, June 5, 1995 by Suzanne Kapner

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - Delaware North Parks Services, or DNPS, plans to invest $40 million over a three-year period to launch the Kennedy Space Center and Spaceport USA into a galaxy dominated by state-of-the-art foodservice and interactive exhibits, company executives said.

DNPS - a division of the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North Cos., a $1 billion concern that owns and operates foodservice at Stadiums, airports and parks - wrested the 10-year, $600 million contract from incumbent TW Recreational Services, a division of Philadelphia-based Aramark.

As the new concessionaire, DNPS is teaming up with four internationally known companies.

DNPS will spearhead a team consisting of Edwin Schlossberg Inc., the mastermind behind many of America's interactive exhibits; Johnson Controls World Services, a worldwide supplier of facility service and control systems; Coleman Research Corp., a programmer and supplier of space-age software; and Robinson Lake Sawyer Miller, an international marketing, advertising and public-relations firm.

While those companies concentrate on transforming the space center into a "living breathing museum," DNPS will update the two foodservice outlets.

DNPS president Dennis J. Szefel said $5 million has been allotted to renovate the food, beverage and retail facilities.

The Space Station Cafe will be transformed from a lazy-Susan-type operation into a multithemed cafeteria, with display cooking in a simulated space station bay that highlights NASA designs and equipment replicas.

The company will use all in-house brands, because "we wanted to control the theme and menus and keep it consistent," Szefel said. Concepts slated for the new cafeteria include a gourmet deli and grill, a stone-baked pizza station and a rotisserie chicken dinner outlet.

The Shuttle Bay Cafe will get a similar face-lift at its double-line buffet setting.

Szefel said design of both cafes would feature a futuristic, high-tech theme. "The design phase is critical, because we want to ensure that the image doesn't wear or tire," he added.

Price value is another area the company hopes to upgrade by improving the quality of food products. "The hot dogs will be 100-percent beef on a fresh-baked bun," explained DNC spokeswoman Germain Reinhardt. "That's where the price-value relationship will improve."

In addition to state-of-the-art foodservice, the Spaceport will boast a plethora of interactive exhibits. Szefel said Plans include a full-scale model of a NASA space station where visitors could explore and access current NASA data as well as a space exploration mission that would allow visitors to test equipment and plan a trip to Mars. The grand opening of all new exhibits is stated for November 1997.

Szefel said improvements in the food and services should double the amount of visitors who journey to the Spaceport each year, raising the number from 2.1 million in 1994 to 4 million in three years.