F&B always work in progress

NATIONAL REPORT – A rooftop bar can be utilized as a breakfast/lunch space. A breakfast restaurant could be transformed to serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktails and potentially triple the revenue. Constantly re-imagining current F&B space to better serve guests and improve ROI is a keystone of hotel profitability.

For instance, executives with Indigo Road Hospitality Group in Charleston, South Carolina, realized that the rooftop bar at The Flat Iron hotel in Asheville, North Carolina, which affords 360-degree views of the city, was significantly under-utilized. It was open only at night, functioning as a bar and lounge.

In March, they shifted the hotel’s breakfast offering from the first-floor lobby restaurant, which offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to the rooftop, dubbing it the Rooftop Caffe. “It created a better feeling. We looked at the ambience from the guest perspective,” said Gabriel Perez, COO of Lodging at Indigo Road.

The menu remained the same, but by simply shifting the location of breakfast to a different atmosphere, breakfast sales tripled. Lunch is also offered on the rooftop when there is high guest occupancy or events.

Whenever we see an opportunity to make a change, we will at least try it. I would encourage operators to think from a guest perspective first, and then as an operator.

Gabriel Perez

Share this quote

“We are not fixed in our ways,” Perez said. “Whenever we see an opportunity to make a change, we will at least try it. I would encourage operators to think from a guest perspective first, and then as an operator.”

Another operation, a casino hotel in Wisconsin, also tripled revenue when it switched its main restaurant, which focused on Mexican cuisine, to offer American cuisine for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and revamped the restaurant’s bar offering.

“Most hotel casino guests stay two to three days; they will only go to a Mexican restaurant once,” said Izzy Kharasch, president of restaurant and hospitality consulting firm Hospitality Works, which spearheaded the project. “We wanted to modernize it, and knew it was an opportunity to appeal to local clientele who aren’t even staying at the hotel.”

The new menu and the “elevated” atmosphere with new lighting, the additon of tablecloths and more, allows guests to have an elevated experience. At the same time, food and beverage is “price sensitive” to the local clientele in a rural community, Kharasch explained.

To that end, Hospitality Works created a new cocktail list, which includes eight signature cocktails for $10 each. Whereas cocktail prices in Chicago range from $18 to $20 on average, the signature cocktails offered a value to the local community, producing a significant uplift in liquor sales, according to Kharasch.

Additionally, the broader American cuisine menu along with offering breakfast at an earlier time — 6:30 a.m. versus 8:30 a.m. — tripled sales at the restaurant.

Sage Hospitality’s new Mercantile property at Denver Union Station also benefitted from a reimagination/re-design of the hotel’s restaurant. The operators closed the 1,500-square-foot cafe area for about six weeks during a slower season in March.

“There was an underutilized portion of the space, a cafe with a walkup counter, which required a different view from a design and operational perspective,” said Justin Fowler, COO of Sage Hospitality’s Sage Restaurant Concepts. “Our goal was to reimagine that space so it was less separate from the a la carte environment and more of an extension of it.”

Sage bought new FF&E and lighting and transformed the space into a sit-down cafe environment. “Sometimes travelers have a two-hour wait. If they want to come and have a pastry and a cup of coffee, or lunch or dinner items, they can enjoy them at their pace,” Fowler said.

Sage realized “immediate” ROI — a 5% to 7% boost in F&B revenue in the first 90 days.

Profitable tips

But it’s not always necessary to change the location or theme of the restaurant, bar or breakfast cafe to be profitable. There are some simple tips that Kharasch and hotel operators recommend.

We are very intentional with what we offer our guests. We create spaces where the hotel benefits from the restaurant [and] the restaurant does not need the hotel to be successful.

Gabriel Perez

Share this quote

First, ensure that front desk staff, bellhops, and every staff member at the hotel recommends the hotel’s restaurants and bars to guests. When Kharasch and his staff ask a hotel’s concierge and front desk staff where they should eat for dinner, 100% of the time, the staff recommends restaurants outside the hotel.

“The staff hasn’t been trained and sometimes the employees don’t like the restaurant,” Kharasch said.

Invite all the front desk staff — including bellhops — in rotation to have dinner at the restaurant, Kharasch recommended. “More often than not, they have never eaten at your restaurants,” he explained. “Once they start recommending the restaurant, that shift alone can produce a 10% to 15% sales lift for the hotel’s F&B.”

Another major miss by most hoteliers? Marketing restaurants, bars and other eateries in guestrooms. “Often there is no menu or marketing in the room — nothing that tells you how great the restaurants are,” Kharasch said.

He suggested paper copies — not QR codes — of menus in every hotel room in a visible location. “Put menus on the pillow or standing up next to the bed,” Kharasch suggested.

Restaurants and bars have to be thought of as an independent operation within the hotel, Perez added, with their own branding and motive. Conversations about the independent F&B space should be had two to three years before the opening of the hotel, he advised.

“We ask, ‘How can we make this cohesive and thoughtful?’ We are very intentional with what we offer our guests. We create spaces where the hotel benefits from the restaurant [and] the restaurant does not need the hotel to be successful,” Perez emphasized.

Indigo Road designs F&B space to appeal to the surrounding community, with the goal that guests from the community will be the major source of business for the outlets, Perez said. “It’s the only way we can be successful in our hotel restaurants. Seasonality happens in the business regardless of market,” he noted.