The Minden City Council approved a contract with Party Express Catering to handle concessions at the Minden Recreation Complex.
In a letter to the City of Minden, Jimmy Hall, owner, expressed his interest in accepting a request for proposal by the city for concessions during sporting events at the recreation center.
“Party Express Catering has been providing quality food and beverage service in the form of catered events for well over a decade,” Hall said in his letter, “and is well capable of operating the food and beverage service. In addition, Party Express Catering has successfully operated the service the year prior to this proposal. We intend on providing a quality, affordable variety of hot, fresh food, snack foods, snow cones, funnel cakes and beverages.”
During the last year, the city conducted a test to lease out concessions, and mayor Tommy Davis says it’s a win-win all around.
“I thought it would work well from the beginning, because I knew that even if we broke even, we would be better off,” he said in July. “We’re going to do more than break even, because we’re actually going to have some income from it for the city.”
The test phase will end Oct. 31, and the request for proposal called for a minimum of $1,000 per month for concession rights and privileges plus a six percent charge on any monthly proceeds exceeding $16,500 of gross receipts.
In the fiscal year 2013-14, city clerk Michael Fluhr, in July, said $56,156.98 was spent on concessions alone. This does not include the salaries or what is paid to concession workers. This is only the cost to run concessions. They spent a total of $1,218,467.09 on recreation, which includes salaries, repairs and everything it takes to run the city’s recreation department.
Revenue for the fiscal year 2013-14 was $81,392.93 for concessions. The total revenue for parks and recreation was $128,402.93. In that fiscal year, parks and recreation accounted for 17 percent of the city’s total expenses, according to the financial audit ending Sept. 30, 2014. The city’s biggest expense is public safety, accounting for 35 percent of the city’s total expenses. General government was at 26 percent, sanitation and health, 7 percent and highways and streets at 9 percent. Public works accounts for 5 percent.
The contract begins Nov. 1 and ends Oct. 31, 2016.