Theme park food made from scratch.
That’s the new concept behind the renovated dining space at Sangerfest Halle, the largest indoor food venue at Six Flags Fiesta Texas.
Here, you’ll find chuck roast spinning in a vertical rotisserie and German pork loin being sliced at a carving station.
In the kitchen, chicken tenders are hand-breaded and brined. All of it fresh. None of it thawed or prepackaged. Everything is prepared under the direction of the park’s first executive chef Rudy Martinez.
“We’re going away from all the frozen patties,” said Martinez, who arrived at Fiesta Texas in August. “We’re going away from all the frozen, pre-packaged food.”
The one item not made from scratch is pizza dough.
“But we have a good artisanal stone-baked pizza,” Martinez said, “that we top off with all our fresh ingredients.”
Sangerfest Halle reopened on May 9 following a multi-million dollar renovation, the largest restaurant refit since Fiesta Texas opened back in 1992.
The renovated space includes an expanded menu, a redesigned ordering area and a fully remodeled kitchen.
“Our new scratch kitchen is filled with all new equipment and two state-of-the-art rotisserie machines,” said Martinez, who previously served as executive chef for the San Antonio Spurs. “Along with multiple ovens and a triple decker pizza oven, we have flat grills and charbroil grills, including six fryers to help keep up with our hand-breaded chicken tenders. It’s huge and keeps us in the kitchen excited.”
Fiesta Texas also has updated Pete’s Eats in Rockville, which reopened earlier this year with a fresh menu and an updated interior. Additionally, soft drink stations were upgraded throughout the park.
The Sangerfest Halle food court is located in Spassburg, a park space celebrating German heritage. In addition to chuck roast and pork loin, the scratch menu includes grilled brats, steak fries, garden salads, fried brussel sprouts, pretzel rolls, fried apples, parfaits and cinnamon streusel.
Renovations began three years ago. Construction occurred in stages. To keep the dining space open, a construction kitchen was built along with a temporary food service line.
Before renovations, Sangerfest Halle had different serving stations for pizza, German food and Tex-Mex. Now patrons move through a single line for all food offerings.
“As a family, you potentially could have been waiting in multiple lines, which made for a very long experience,” said Jeffrey Siebert, Six Flags regional general manager. “And then, after you got your food, you’d have to stand and wait for the rest of your family to join you before you could go and pay. So we got rid of that model.”
New furniture in a remodeled dining space will increase seating capacity by 300.
“We wanted to build a facility that had a much larger capacity,” Siebert said. “This has always been a German-themed experience. Fiesta Texas was originally designed to pay tribute to the culture and people of San Antonio. The city was heavily German settled, so that’s why we have Spassburg. But we also have a whole Mexican tree village that pays tribute to all the different cultures that have called San Antonio home for generations.”
The arrival of Martinez in 2024 reflects a new trend. An increasing number of theme parks are hiring executive chefs. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida has one. So does Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
Martinez brings 14 years of experience. He cooked for the Spurs when they called the AT&T Center home. He’s worked for St. Mary’s University, his alma mater, preparing food for the band, athletic events and Oyster Bake.
“It’s been a really big dream of mine to work in a theme park,” Martinez said. “What I’d like our guests to know is that we’re bringing in a higher standard of service and we’re bringing a better quality ingredient. We’re cutting fresh fruit daily. We’re making fresh fruit cups daily.
“We have to keep up with today’s trends. It’s not all ‘order a deep fry’ and put it on a plate. We’re marinating our pork loins. We’re marinating our chuck roast so that we get the tenderness we need.”
Martinez is on the move. Checking on workers in the kitchen. Refilling trays of veggies in the food line. Greeting new customers in the dining space. Trying not to break a sweat.
“Being that we’re in the middle of Spassburg,” he said, “it’s Oktoberfest all the time.”
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