"It's not a good time for us to be turning down revenue, but it's great marketing for concessionaires," Mr. Barna said of the free entrance days, "so we tried to strike a balance".
But he said the manager, two bartenders and the waitresses -- who work for a concessionaire -- did not believe that Mr. Koch (pronounced Cook) was who he said he was.
"Your legs are going to be numb after the next two hours," said John Berry, 47, livery manager for park concessionaire Xanterra.
"We wanted to get away from typical arena fare," said Clete O'Connor, the general manager for Delaware North Sportservice, the concessionaire for the modern, metal-shell stadium, which seats 25,000 fans.
Ms. Garrett got her job through a neighbor in Wood-Ridge who worked for the Giants concessionaire, she said.
Delaware North Companies became the primary concessionaire for Yosemite in 1992.
Known as the Tea Room, it was operated by a concessionaire for the next 50 years, serving lunches featuring Hampton Imperial Crab (backfin lump meat from the blue crab, baked and seasoned with spices) and other Chesapeake Bay seafood delicacies, served with a glass of sherry.
If you are applying for staff or concessionaire work, hiring managers want to see that you are an outgoing personality with a tireless love for working with people.
The parks department has said in its request for proposals that "the incoming concessionaire shall retain existing employees by seniority within each job classification".
As a matter of practice, the corps does not try to determine the market value of its property, even in the more than 500 existing deals in which corps land is directly leased to private concessionaires for a fee, said Dennis A. Hogan, chief of real estate for the corps' southwestern division, in Dallas, which oversees the Tulsa district.
