Ms. Terry

Food & Beverage

Food & Beverage: Key to Overall Revenue

By Susan Terry, Vice President, Culinary Operations, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts

At every turn, what we do or don’t do really matters. Customers are increasingly raising their expectations of our F&B “offerings”. Whether it’s a single traveler, a professional meeting planner booking a group a year in advance, or a family traveling on leisure, the TOTAL sum quality of your food and beverage experience can make or break that customer’s final decision to stay with you.

Certainly location is important, but also important is the variety and BALANCE of your food and beverage offerings. When we look at balance, we ask ourselves the question “Is there something available for everyone? Have we taken into account our customers behaviors and needs and ensured that their needs are met?” Particularly in facilities that might have limited outlets, operators must find ways to keep their customers satisfied inside their walls by creating experiences that are authentic, interesting and worthwhile.

During their stay, your customers have varied needs. One morning they might be running late and the next morning they might be tired and looking for a bit of comfort. Knowing your customer, their habits and then anticipating their needs will drive customer loyalty. This also means that you need to be nimble and think on your feet. Programming may need to change or evolve throughout the year as your customer changes. As an example; business hotels often see an influx of families over the summer and if they are not adjusting their programming to target the needs of those families then they will not only lose the immediate business, but chances are that if given the opportunity, that family will not re-book again. Similarly, during these months, operators can’t ignore their core business and must find ways to provide areas that a person traveling on business can “get away” from an unusually busy hotel and find a nice quiet place to do work, answer calls or a bit of peace and quiet.

The first step in assessing your Food and Beverage environment is to conduct a reality check.

Delve into the core details of your hotel and answer honestly. Questions like:

• What type of hotel is this? Is it predominately a business hotel, a leisure hotel or true combination of both?
• What is the style of your hotel? Is it sleek and modern, traditional or rustic? This often gets overlooked by F&B operators who try to introduce trendy influences into their operations. If your hotel is a rustic lodge in Northern California does it really make sense to try to introduce a Pan Asian outlet within its infrastructure? Your hotel’s style is as important as location and core customer. Outlets and their offerings need to flow in a manner that makes sense and is intuitive.
• Who’s your customer? This is hard one, but the answer should lie in what type of customer dominates the business make up of your hotel.

Once you’ve answered the core questions, then ensuring that your programming is balanced is a matter of connecting the dots. For Example, if the answer to hotel type is business hotel, then as you drill down a bit further you will easily identify that the following programming attributes are important:

• Quick and efficient
• Areas to network
• Areas to work and recharge any electronics
• High connectivity

Taking it one step further under a business hotel environment to the customer question, you will easily determine that the following attributes are important:

• Offerings that allow them to keep on their routine. Most business people travel more than 40% of the time and are looking for the basics, particularly at breakfast. Items like healthful options

• A well put together grab and go component. This can be accomplished in many ways but it’s got to be easy to find, fast to get through and moderately priced. If you don’t hit these three key targets then they will simply pass on by. A side note here – QRS had identified that any programming that takes longer than 2 minutes to obtain is TOO LONG. 2 minutes.. think about that!

• In room food programming that is actually good. Influences of health and nutrition, ability to customize and identifiable choices. Use the K.I.S.S. rule. Simple steaks, simply prepared fish options, quality sandwiches, hearty soups, etc. will help to boost your In Room sales.

• A great, well put together bar. Sounds obvious, but most hotels have missed this mark too. Creating an environment where your customer can bring clients back to and feel good about it, or meet colleagues and unwind at the end of a hectic day. We’ve got many factors already on our side like a safe environment, having your customer already “close to home”, confidence in the quality of your brand…these are things we get by default. But if they are not paired with comfortable seating, appropriate lighting (too dim or too bright, both are bad), some basic style or vibe, decent light snack offerings and tolerably priced drinks, then they will never come.

So then to finish up our Business Hotel example, we have style and to some extent location. For the basis of this example, let’s pick the location of.. Austin, Texas. In your assessment, research what your area has to offer. Austin, Texas is a vibrant city with a strong culture of music, theatre and art. Additionally, they have a very high population of healthy eaters. This is a community where these things are very important and as such, you have the benefit of having small producers that provide great quality products that you need to show your customer. In addition, your hotel might be middle of the road traditional. Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t serve some great all natural pasture raised beef BBQ. What it does mean is that you can’t serve it on picnic tables with brown paper. It just won’t make sense unless you have an overly thematic restaurant. If you want your business traveler to be happy, show them a few, well thought out local products but don’t forget to surround them by the items that are familiar. Showcase your location, but in a manner that is in keeping with the core integrity of your hotel.

I’m hesitant to suggest that we need to be all things to all people, but there is a touch of truth in that. We certainly need to think in complexity to our programming. Your customer wants familiarity and quality. Sometimes they are looking for an experience that might look like a high energy club or a fine dining restaurant but more often than not, they are looking to have their needs met in a way that feels right. The basics still hold true, a great cup of coffee, the opportunity to try a dish that they can’t make at home, the world’s best chocolate dessert… these are the types of things that people appreciate and remember. To create brands within your brand can help.

For example if you have a great casual Italian restaurant, to create a sub brand of that restaurant that revolves around the most authentic pizza experience and then deliver it in a way that is counter to the experience in the restaurant, can help to trick your customer into feeling like there are more options available to them. Operators repeat their programming over and over and then wonder why their customers are walking down the street to the local (and not so good) restaurant. The reason why that is every time the customer opens a menu, they see the same items! The same sandwiches, the same soup, the same appetizer. In room dining must be its own experience from your full service restaurant. You must have new, fun options at your bar or market. You cannot just regurgitate the same food over and over again!

Does the quality of your f&B make a difference in your hotels overall success? Absolutely! But more importantly, the lack of quality and variety in your F&B programming will cripple your hotels ability to drive average rate, compete in the market for RevPAR share and maintain captures. We don’t have to be fancy; we just need to be smart. We have to know who we are, who our core customer is and then simply do a good job. It’s not about the volume of your content, but rather the quality of it. Less is more, keep it simple and do it well. This will keep your customers coming back.

As vice president of culinary operations for Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Susan Terry is responsible for strategic development of food and beverage concepts for full service and specialty restaurants in North America. She is also responsible for the development of catering event materials and menus. Most recently, Ms. Terry served as director of culinary operations for Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, responsible for national programming, training, goals, procurement, food and beverage standards and franchise support. Prior to that, Ms. Terry was the senior executive chef at Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington D.C. In that role, she oversaw all food and beverage operations for the 900-room hotel, including five food and beverage outlets, 24-hour in-room dining and the hotel’s Kosher kitchen. Ms. Terry can be contacted at 312-780-5709 or susan.terry@hyatt.com Extended Bio...

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