Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #329: How To Develop a Successful Hotel Food & Beverage Program | with Ami Alexander
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #329: How To Develop a Successful Hotel Food & Beverage Program | with Ami Alexander === David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Don't forget to follow, like, subscribe, and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Steve, who do we have on the program? Steve Carran: Yeah, David. Excited for this one. We have on Ami Alexander, the managing partner at Barrel Aged hospitality. Thanks for joining us, Amy. How we doing today? Ami Alexander: Awesome. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. David Millili: All right, great. So we're gonna jump in. We're gonna do a lightning round. We're gonna get to know you better, talk about your career, and then dive into some industry topics. Sound good? Ami Alexander: Sounds great. David Millili: All right. So when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Ami Alexander: That's a great question. I've always loved travel, so I would imagine some sort of a, you know, I think when you're little, you know, you want to be well-known, you want to be able to travel, you know. So I think I don't, I loved the idea of maybe being a singer or being an actress, somebody that could travel around and get to know different, you know, different people, different places. David Millili: Okay. That's good. All right. What's something that you wish you were better at? Ami Alexander: Cooking. David Millili: Okay. What's a luxury you can't live without? Ami Alexander: Great pillows, great linens. The bedding is important. David Millili: I hear you. So name a person dead or alive that you'd like to take to lunch. Ami Alexander: Oprah. David Millili: That's a good one. Give us something that's on your bucket list. Ami Alexander: Love to climb the Great Wall of China. David Millili: Uff. Steve Carran: Well done. Well done. Now we're gonna dive into your background, a little bit about what makes you tick. So you grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. How did growing up in Anchorage shape you into who you are today? Ami Alexander: I have a love for the outdoors. I think a lot of people enjoy the outdoors, but I really sort of thrive there. I feel a spiritual connection to being outside, and that we have really dramatic periods of light and really dramatic periods of darkness. So I've always felt drawn to the moon and the sun and sort of more astrology, I think, than more people I think are into astrology. I'm, I think more the scenic side of it and just being there for a great sunrise or a great sunset reminds me of home. So I moved around a lot. I didn't spend too much of my life in Anchorage, but I will say that I definitely attribute my love for nature for where I started. Steve Carran: Very cool. David Millili: So what led you to choose business as your degree at Wagner College? Ami Alexander: Well, there was a lot of different things I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't sure that there was one career path that I wanted. And so I knew that wherever, you know, whatever industry I ended up in, I wanted to be really good at running that business. And so it made sense to me to just sort of look at a more of a macro major, and that's where I ended up with business. Steve Carran: Very nice. So one of your bios, you describe yourself as an incredible eater and points traveler. What's one of the best meals that you've had, and do you have any point travel hacks? Ami Alexander: Oh, so many good point travel hacks. I get stuck talking about this a lot actually, because it's one of my favorite things to do as sort of a pastime is keep up to date with, you know, the best credit card deals and point hacks and you really have to pay attention to it because they change every month and every couple months in a big way, and every year all the programs are rehauled. So you have to look at it. But, to answer your original question, one of my favorite meals, I mean, it's hard to not think about the greatest restaurants in the world and the times that we get to dine there. I think about Gaggan in Bangkok. I think about The French Laundry in Napa. You know, there are so many wonderful restaurants, but to be in presence of like one of the, you know, best culinary, you know, talents that we have on Earth is I think always going to be a highlight for me. Steve Carran: Have you ever talked to Brian Kelly, the points guy? I feel like you guys would have a great— Ami Alexander: I know Brian. I know Brian really well. I know him right when he was starting out, and I was really into points sort of before social media and before he sort of launched his entire, you know, online mecca and all the things that he does. But he was one of the early sort of innovators in this of becoming a presence and a guru and certainly someone to this day that I always reference, you know, for that type of stuff. But the reality is, is if you travel a lot for work, you're racking up points, you know? And so it's silly to not use them. And for a long time, I was a road warrior and constantly on the road opening restaurants, and so I would stack my points and use them, you know, for my family trips. And if you're smart, you can go a lot further and stay a lot nicer. Steve Carran: Absolutely. Well, next time you talk to him, mention that you're on the podcast. He's been on it as well. So— Ami Alexander: Oh, great. I will. Steve Carran: Share that as well. So, that was great. So now we're gonna dive into your career, how you got to Barrel Age. So after college, you went to the Hakasan Group as director of operations. What did you learn in those earlier days that you take with you at Barrel Aged Hospitality? Ami Alexander: Hakkasan was a really special place to start my career. I was technically at the Fontainebleau Hotel down in Miami. They placed me at the restaurant Hakkasan, which was, I think, a stroke of luck. I was really interested in fine dining and in luxury hotel management, and that's why I sort of cut my teeth there. But what was great about Hakkasan at the time, there were two restaurants, and there was a huge expansion plan. They were going to open restaurants all around the world, and I really fell in love with the brand and the concept, and this was not a simple concept, right? It wasn't an American Italian restaurant. It wasn't a, you know, simple seafood restaurant. This was fine dining Cantonese, and in the early 2000s. So there wasn't much of it back then. We had a, you know, 500-plus page wine list, 28 signature cocktails. I mean, a really, really in-depth program. And I think what was so incredible about eventually going on and opening restaurants for them around the world was the dedication to the training period, and how we would bring people in from all around the world with, you know, depending on where we were opening, very experienced people in the service industry to, in some cases, you know, people on J-1 visas who have not only not worked in a restaurant, but maybe never even dined in a restaurant. So really taking someone with very little experience and expecting them to open, you know, a Michelin-rated restaurant where there's a lot of questions being asked. You need to know every ingredient. You need to know, you know, every single thing that's in every dish, allergies, how things are cooked and prepared, using, you know, sort of cooking utensils and methods that are not common or seen in, in maybe your own home. So I think just the commitment to the brand, the commitment to having consistent service, and making sure that everyone on the floor knew everything that they needed to know to make that sort of experience come to life for our guest, is something that I certainly have taken with me, you know, every step of the way. Steve Carran: That's great. And I found out a pretty crazy story that when you were 22, you moved to the Middle East to help open Hakasan in Dubai. And one week before opening, the general manager became sick, and you had to lead the pre-opening and launch the events. And then while the paint was still drying, you learned that the royal family of Dubai and 20 guests were coming for lunch the next day. Tell us about that and how you pulled it off. Ami Alexander: It took a lot of looking myself in the mirror that morning and saying, "We're gonna get through this," you know? I used to have a saying in our sort of staff lineups when we had a really tough shift coming our way, like, "Remember, it's just dinner," right? It's just dinner. We're all gonna get through it. We're not performing surgery here. But the reality is the stakes were really high. We were opening this restaurant in the Middle East, and the team was huge. I had—in Miami, the restaurant I was running, I think I had three managers, you know, reporting to me, and in Dubai it was about 20. So we had a huge team, and the general manager of the restaurant, I was the assistant general manager. He was very experienced, opened restaurants all around the world, and he had a medical issue and was hospitalized. Luckily, he was okay, but he was out for the first two weeks of opening. So, you know, every opening's the same. You plan, you plan, you plan, but at the end of the day, there's always someone on a ladder getting something fixed the hour before your first guest is walking in the door. Like, that's just how it is. And it was no different that day, except for we got the call that the whole entire royal family was coming down and they would be our first guests in the restaurant. So, yeah, I had to take a minute, go to the bathroom, look myself in the mirror, maybe splash some water on my face and just say, "Remember, it's just dinner. We're gonna get through it." And you know what? It was an incredible experience. The team had trained for six weeks, and we knew what we were doing. We felt prepared. So, it's curveballs are a part of the job, right? Steve Carran: Absolutely. David Millili: So you then went to the Sydell Group and Montage International working your way up to VP of food and beverage operations. So what led you to focus on the food and beverage side of things? Ami Alexander: Well, it's interesting. When you work for a restaurant group, you know, you really consider yourself on a part of every team, right? So we have a lot to do with development. We work with our marketing teams and our PR teams. And then when you move into a hotel space, it's like, "What discipline are you?" And you're like, all of a sudden you're just food and beverage. And so I think naturally, I find myself working across all mediums with everybody, because at the end of the day, it's all about the guest experience. But when you're in a hotel environment, you are really focused on what just the food and beverage experience is. And so, I love that. I think obviously you've got, you know, very important parts of a hotel, rooms, and overnight, and groundskeeping, and, you know, housekeeping, and there's so much that makes it happen, which I think is part of the fun for me. You know, you are part of a larger experience and a bigger brand story and narrative. And, as somebody who loves to travel and loves hotels, it's fun to be in that, in that space. You know, focusing just on food and beverage is also great because we get to really own a certain space. You have a lot of resources that are at your fingertips, that you may not have coming from just a restaurant group. And I think what's been really fun is the way that hotels sort of view food and beverage has changed so drastically in the last 10 to 20 years with sort of the introduction of the lifestyle hotel and what that means, right? I think before you really wanted to have your restaurant and your hotel sort of speak to the international traveler. You would have a very, like, continental sort of offering. The pool bar and grill was what you would expect, right? Maybe you've got a great taco, a great burger, this club sandwich. You know, it was really kind of copy-paste for a long time. And in the last 10 to 20 years, that has really shifted. We want to see a lot more of the local story coming through at your hotel experience. You want to know that there's a great chef. You want to know the story of the chef. You know, you want there to be a real draw, not only for your hotel guests, but also for locals. That's important. And so coming in from sort of like a lifestyle restaurant group to the, back to the hotel world, and Sydell Group at the time was really championing this, like all of their hotels. Andrew and the team, where they were so focused on creating like an equally compelling narrative around food and beverage, and really rooted in the local community and what people were doing there. And you wanted to sort of be able to feel the sense of place throughout the dining experiences at a restaurant. And so that was really fun. And getting to do that in cities across America was one of the highlights of my career. Steve Carran: Very cool. Very cool. In 2023, you became managing partner at Barrel Aged Management. What made you come to Barrel Aged Management? Ami Alexander: Well, I had opened a lot of hotels. Think about eight hotels with Sydell Group, another eight with Montage Hotels, and that was all done, you know, in under 10 years. So it was just a lot of openings, a lot of development work, but then also operations. You know, was with Montage through COVID, which as we all know, was sort of a, you know, it's a dark spot on the rear view mirror. A lot of closing and reopening and working around, you know, the financial implications of that. And I really enjoyed working for both groups so much, but it just sort of became apparent to me that there was a lot more that we could do in our space. And personally, I'd had two kids and was ready to travel a little bit less and sort of pick my projects. And so Barrel Aged was, is an amazing company and a lot of resources that we, you know, we work with. We have incredible chefs, incredible mixologists, great branding teams, and we really get to pick our projects. So I was sort of watching this company grow, quite literally within my home. My husband is the founder of Barrel Aged, and watching this company grow and really picking projects that were so fun, and redoing food and beverage spaces in Paris and opening the first luxury hotel in Tribeca, and just kind of coming in and as a sort of third-party partner, we get to come in and be super impactful really quickly. We sort of pitch what we see, what the vision is ahead of time, so there's just immediate alignment in what the job is and the scope. And so that was part of it. You know, with Hakkasan, I was building the same concept for eight years around the world. With Sydell Group and Montage, there was a lot more creativity in what we were building based on where we were, but at the end of the day, still very beholden to the brand standards of those brands, which I loved. But it's a little bit fun to get to pick different projects and one day be working on a hi-fi lounge in London, and the next we're re-concepting a, you know, Icelandic restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland. So there's just the, the, the... You know, there's just a wide variety of projects that we get to work on, and so that's sort of ultimately where I've landed and been really happy to be doing that for the last couple years. Steve Carran: How'd your husband come up with the name Barrel Aged Management? Ami Alexander: That's a good question. I think I have to ask him that. I mean, you know, I think the idea that things get better over time is something that we love. The best restaurants, the best bars, you know, sort of withstand time, but they also change over time. When you barrel age something, you know, you do it for the long haul. You know that over time it's gonna get better and better, but you can still sort of, you know, take tastes of it throughout its lifetime and it changes and it grows and it becomes more mature and more interesting and more layered. And I think we thought about, you know, not only is that true with hospitality, but it should also be true with our company. And so it's just always stuck. And of course, BAM is our abbreviation, Barrel Aged Management, BAM, and that's nice and easy to remember for people. Steve Carran: That was a good answer. I just thought it was 'cause he's a bourbon fan or something like that. Ami Alexander: No. David Millili: That's funny. All right. Well, for those who are not familiar, tell us more about Barrel Aged Management. Ami Alexander: So we are a luxury and lifestyle, primarily hospitality company. We work with developers, hotel management groups, restaurant operators to either bring their vision to life or to help stabilize a business. So a lot of times we get brought in way ahead of a project and a developer or owner doesn't know what to do with the space programmatically. So how many restaurants should there be? What should the concept be? We've been working a lot in the membership club space as of lately. So should there be a membership club? What does that, what does that pricing look like? What is the strategy to go to market? And so we come in and we help decide what the programming should be. We make sure the underwriting makes perfect sense. We work early on with designers and kitchen planners to, you know, organize the space, make sure that we've got a strong plan from a design perspective. We'll work with the branding agencies on narratives. As we get closer to opening, we'll start, you know, resourcing talent, and if it needs to be a third-party food and beverage partner, a lot of times we'll work through that RFP process and put forward who we think would be the strongest fit. And that's really on the development side. On the operations side, we sort of work as a white label food and beverage department, so we can come in and really oversee the entire program. And a lot of times hotel companies don't have, like, a large food and beverage team. It just doesn't make sense for them to have it. They, you know, will have people on property that are managing the property and the outlets, but very little oversight from a corporate standpoint. And so the benefit of bringing us in is that, you're not paying for three, four, or five people. You're really paying for what usually costs one, but you're getting the breadth of our entire organization and rolodex. And so we can come in and say, "You know what? Maybe you've got 10 properties in your portfolio. Well, these two really need help from a culinary standpoint." So we're gonna just bring in somebody for maybe it's 30 days, maybe it's six months, to really help get this program where it needs to be from a quality standpoint, standards. Maybe it's just organization and adding the right technology so that we can manage things and we have right reporting. These properties over here are, you know, the team is strong, but financially it's not performing, and so therefore we're gonna go and look at the branding. Is it the right actual concept for the space? Do we need to refurbish it? You know, if you are a hotel company with 10 hotels, a lot of times different owner groups or different management groups, some are older, some are newer, so they're all in their own life cycles, right? And they're all in very different markets. I think it's tough to come in and apply a one-size-fits-all approach. We really analyze every single business within an organization and say, "How can we deploy our resources to get it where it needs to be?" Steve Carran: Very cool. Very cool. So now we're gonna dive into the industry thoughts section of the podcast. So I saw a stat the other day, 61% of travelers now pick their hotel based on the restaurant in that hotel. So obviously food and beverage is becoming more and more important for hotels. So what advice do you have for hotels on how to develop a successful food and beverage program? Ami Alexander: I think people are looking for that lifestyle component we were talking about. They want a stay that aligns with, you know, their personal values and aesthetic and what they're interested in. You know, we have a client that has cinemas in all of their hotels, and I was at the bar chatting with the guest and asked him, "Why did you pick this hotel?" And he said, "Oh, I love that there's a cinema here." And I said, "Did you go to the cinema?" And he said, "No, I didn't, but I just love the photos." And it's, you know, it's true. It's like you may find yourself really looking over the spa images a lot or reading the menu, and even if you don't have time to go, you just want to know that this is a place that's gonna feel, you know, sort of akin to what you're interested in. I think that a lot of times you do know that you're gonna maybe enjoy the restaurant, so having a place where you're already excited about eating kinda takes the, you don't have to think about where you're going or... That certainly is helpful. You know, the traveler of today is much more interested in design and look and feel and, I think authenticity. So if you have a restaurant that isn't maybe, you know, a chain and is instead something that has been curated specifically for that hotel and that hotel guest, that's something that's really interesting to today's traveler. Steve Carran: Absolutely. David Millili: That makes sense. So what do you think are the major hurdles for hotels on the F&B side and how are you help solving them? Ami Alexander: Yeah. Well, it's no secret that it's getting harder and harder to turn, you know, larger margins in food and beverage. The cost of food, the cost of beverage, coupled with the fact that people are drinking less alcohol. I think, you know, people are eating less with the rise of GLP-1s. So the price of, you know, hourly wages and salaries has gone up, you know, tenfold in the last five, six years. So in some cases tenfold, in some cases not that much. But we used to have, I think, a bit more of a handle on profitability, and what that does is allows us to do the things that are more interesting to guests, meaning a higher budget for entertainment, live music, florals, you know, the sort of the things that make it feel really fun and interesting. And I've seen, across the board, a lot of that being squeezed in the last, you know, couple of years. And even projects that were sort of underwritten 10 years ago, the cost to actually build today is so much higher and to get furniture and shipping and all of it. And so, you know, the businesses are more stressed than seen in the past and therefore, I think we have to be more intentional with how we do program. A hotel that, you know, 10 years ago may have had four or five restaurants may now only want to have one or two, or be really thoughtful about how they do that. Maybe they have three, but there's a centralized kitchen and therefore one team. And so the planning stage of how do your back-up houses connect, and what kind of kitchen equipment do you have on the line, and how easily can we get to each space? All of that is so, so important because it's going to speak to the longevity of, like, the financial success of an entire project, not just in the beginning, but for its life. So, you know, that is something we work way more earlier on a project than I think ever before because developers know, "I don't want to make this mistake. I want something that I know is gonna be profitable, that I know is gonna be, you know, lean, easy to run, but that also is gonna resonate from day one with my guests." Steve Carran: Agree. So what advice do you have for hotels on how to scale successful hospitality their successful hospitality brand across multiple markets while still keeping their identity and really what makes that hotel brand special? Ami Alexander: I think the number one advice is know your brand. There are some brands out there that I think truly don't know themselves yet, or they're in infancy and they haven't done these sort of, they haven't gone through the process of saying, what is core to our brand? Meaning, what is essential to the guest experience? What's essential to the employee experience? How do we want to, how do we want to be viewed within the market against our competitors? These are really important questions, and I have been in rooms with the senior executive teams where the answers have been different. And so I think, you, at the end of the day, if you are a hotel owner or a brand owner, you are gonna hire somebody incredibly good at managing your operations, and incredibly great at marketing, and incredibly great at people and culture, and all of the different mediums, but you've gotta make sure that you're setting the tone for what are the brand standards. Because, at the end of the day, if that room is in agreement, then the company, it trickles down and everybody knows what the North Star is, and what the fundamentals of the brand are, and what the brand pillars are. And that is really, really key because as you go to different markets, you do have to evolve for that market, right? It's essential. You have to give your guests a sense of place. That is what they are looking for. That is what they value. You think about the old days of, like, the Westins and the W, and how, you know, every check-in experience was the same, and you have the good morning carpet in the elevator, and the good evening carpet in the elevator, and anywhere everywhere is the tagline, and, you know, and the green soap at the Westin that was always by the tub. And, you know, consistency is important still. People look for that and they feel comforted by consistency. But we know that guests today want to feel like there is some personality and some ties to the local community, right? So it, me personally, I would love a bath soap that is from the city, right? And maybe there's a story of, like, how long this company has been making bath soap and why it came to be a partnership of the hotel. It tells me the hotel cares about the community. It tells me that I'm experiencing some of the community, even if maybe I don't have the time to go out and do all the things I want to do. Maybe I get to buy it and bring it home, and now it's a little souvenir from my trip that reminds me of my trip. So I think, you know, it's really important that you sort of say, "Here are the things that must be consistent and that are non-negotiable to our brand," because once that's defined, you can say, "All right, well, here are the things that now are not so important that they're the same, and we can have a little bit of fun," right? When maybe we go and we look at the minibar and we know we gotta have Coke and Diet Coke, and we gotta have M&M's, but the other 80% of the minibar we're gonna leave for local snacks, and local sort of things that you can explore. And so I think it's really important to define how much do you want to, you know, control and make sure is the same and consistent, and how much do you want to leave for sort of discovery and adventure and connection to the place? Steve Carran: Love that. David Millili: Yeah, it's great to hear you say that because we've—it's been a reoccurring theme that is, I think both Steve and I enjoy about the ties into the community for these hotels, which is so important. So it was great to hear you talk about that. So what are the big opportunities developers should be looking for in future hotel and retail spaces? Ami Alexander: Well, I think the where people are developing has changed quite a lot. And COVID is, was certainly a huge instigator in that, right? We are seeing a lot of development in, not even in tier two, tier three, tier four cities, but kind of in very new places. We're looking a lot at like the Panhandle in Northern Florida and sort of the southern by the Gulf of Mexico there. We're looking a lot at projects in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, South Carolina, like along that coast. And I think more people are looking to be off the beaten track. They have more time to get there and get back with sort of remote work and more time that they can spend away. So this need to be like a Thursday to Sunday or a Friday to Monday trip is sort of not as important anymore. And, you know, and so I think there's a lot of interest in new places, and I love that. It's exciting and it's fun. At the end of the day, I would say it's still really important to tie in what's local. And so they should be looking at kind of the movers and shakers in those markets and who's relevant, who's interesting. Where do the locals go is always something I ask because that's kind of something that you have to keep in mind and, you know, you really want to be able to draw like a local guest just as much as a hotel guest. Steve Carran: Yeah, I agree 100%. So we have a lot of hoteliers that listen to this podcast. What's one thing they can do tomorrow that will increase their food and beverage experience? Ami Alexander: That's a great question. I would say, if you're a hotelier and you have restaurants that have been open for a while, I would challenge you to walk the spaces, as I've challenged my team to walk them, if not daily, then once a week, with new eyes, fresh eyes. If you had carte blanche to do whatever you wanted tomorrow, what would you do? And then, ask the team, "What do you see? What are your priorities here? What's in the space?" And I'll, you know, I'll give you a great example. Like, the best people I work with are sort of people that are always reimagining their space and always creatively thinking of new ways to offer something to a guest. You want your core experience, meaning your core menu, your core cocktails, your core service staff, you want all of that to be really strong. But people today are looking for collaborations, partnerships, programming. All of that is really, really important, and it speaks to your level of engagement and creativity. If you have a terrace that just sort of sits as a terrace, like can you partner with a wine company and make it a rosé garden for the summer? If you've got a, you know, a bar space, can you partner with a beer company and turn it into a beer garden once a week? You know, what are you doing for, you know, on your slowest night of the week to drive traffic with locals and community? And you know, I would say, like I mentioned, some of the smartest people I've ever worked with are really good at this. And a great example is I was given a tour of a private membership club that does really, really well. And he walked me over... this was the executive chef who I'd worked with before, and he was giving me a tour. And he walked me over to the coat closet and said, "Open it." And I opened it, and it certainly was not a coat closet anymore. They turned it into a candy room. And so this self-service, old school, with the turns, and you can make your own candy. And it was a total amenity, completely complimentary for the membership. And this was a space that had been open for over a decade. And just going around and saying what can we do to add more, and how can we take every usable square foot in this space and make it something that's memorable, interesting, profitable, whatever it might be. It's really important to do that, and if you become stagnant, and you're just coming in and opening and closing, and you're not ever thinking about offering something new, in my opinion, you're already one step behind. Steve Carran: Well said. David Millili: Now I'm hungry for some candy. All right, so what advice would you have for someone who's looking to get into hospitality? Ami Alexander: You know, it's a labor of love. I think we've all sat across from somebody in either an interview or an exit interview and said like, "Maybe this isn't your calling," right? You, I think at the end of the day, you really have to love hospitality. You have to love the act of service. It has to be something that's inside of you to, to really, to host, to serve. We deal with people at all different walks in life who are having a great day, who are having a bad day, who are good communicators, who are not great communicators. Like, you deal with all of it. So, I would recommend that you have high energy, that you enjoy being social, that you enjoy, sort of being out there, right? We don't always have a back of stage for a lot of people. You are on stage from the moment you walk in and sort of start your shift. And so, the way you carry yourself, the way you smile, how you present to the world is really important. But at the end of the day, you have to really love service because that's what we're doing. And it's not always glamorous, and it's not always... it sometimes can feel like a thankless job. But if you really love what you're doing, then I think you find a lot of fulfillment in that. And at the end of the day, whatever you do, and advice I would have for anyone in any field is do something that you feel fulfillment at the end of the day because that's what's gonna drive you to do your job well and to, you know, ultimately love your life. David Millili: Good advice. Steve Carran: Right. Yeah, well said. Well said. Well, Amy, this has been a fun conversation, but we've been asking you questions this whole time. So this is where we turn the tables and let you ask David and I a question. Ami Alexander: Oh, I love that. Okay. Well, I have the opportunity to listen to a few of your recent podcasts and can't wait to go back and dive more into them. But what sort of trends are you seeing based on all of the different experts you've brought in and conversations you've had recently? David Millili: You can go first, Steve. Yeah, sounds good. I mean, I think like— Steve Carran: Food and beverage and the experience side of things has been huge. We do an episode of Hospitality Hot Topics, and that's where I got the stat of 60% of travelers now booking because of F&B. And I think people are finally, you know, hotels are really focusing on that. So, you know, I recently went to a hotel, and it's not a ginormous hotel, it's about 300 rooms, but they have like, I think four food and beverage options at that one hotel. And, you know, I... So I think people are, more hotels are kinda leaning into that, and I loved what you talked about, being part of the community and being that differentiator for hotels. Like when I go to a hotel in Wyoming or Montana, you know, I want to eat a steak that comes from a ranch from Montana, right? So really leaning into kind of the experience of the hotel and kind of the F&B side and focusing on the local aspect. So I think you kinda hit the nail on the head already. David Millili: Yeah, I think you, I mean, you know, go to an experience that we had as a group. We were at the, we were filming the Warwick, Melrose Dallas, and you know, we asked the bartender, like, "What's your specialty?" And a lot of times you just don't do that. You just sit down and you order your glass of Cabernet or you order a beer. And he said, "I make a really good old fashioned with tequila." And I'm like, "I don't like old fashions," but I'm like, "I like tequila." And I'm like, "Let's just try it." And not only was he so excited to make it for us, it was delicious. And then he said, he asked us, "Are you gonna be back tomorrow?" And we said, "Yeah." And he's like, "I'm gonna bring my smoker from home." It wasn't even from the bar, it wasn't even from the restaurant. So tying in just the, like everything you were saying about the experience, the community, 'cause I think what people want now is I don't want to be in a hotel room and feel, not know when I wake up if I'm in Berlin, London, New York, Miami. I want to feel like I'm in Miami or I'm in New York. I want to feel something. So I think you nailed it. I mean, that's what people, that's what we need more of, I think, in hospitality, more of this, you know, wanting to take care of people and wanting the establishments to take care of you, like if you were going to their home, not like where you feel like we, we did a... We interviewed somebody earlier and we were talking about this whole, you know, how there's no hospitality in hospitality in a lot of places. They just don't care about you. And so that's, that's my long-winded answer. Ami Alexander: Yeah. And we do see less staff on the floor than we did before because of all the things you talked about and how hard it is to, you know, be as profitable. And I think before if you were a fine dining restaurant, you could easily only hire people that have at least five years of fine dining experience on their resume, and those days are gone. So, you know, my advice to people running hotels and restaurants is you need to hire for personality and character, and look for that hospitality bone. Like, do they really love what they do? Because if they don't have the technical skills or they don't have the experience, that certainly can be learned. Whereas teaching somebody to really care about making a drink and, you know, really excited to deliver it to you and look at your face while you try the first sip, and if you don't love it, I'll make you another one. You know, that is so, so important and so much more valuable than somebody who maybe has been doing this for 10 years and, you know, hey, I'm never gonna have a mistake with this character. But at the end of the day, are they going to engage with our guest? Because that's what people want. Steve Carran: Absolutely. And my eyes lit up when he said a tequila old fashioned. I love tequila, I love old fashioned, so I had a couple of those and they were delicious. Ami Alexander: Yeah, tequila in anything. Any cocktail can be subbed with tequila as far as I'm concerned. David Millili: Yeah, Steve's being modest. Steve Carran: I love-- David Millili: Couple. Steve Carran: Oh, man. Well, so this whole conversation, our producer Jon, he's been listening in the background. We're gonna kick it over to him for the final question before we get you outta here. Ami Alexander: That sounds good. Jon Bumhoffer: So we've had a few conversations recently with folks who run independent hotel brands, I think Palisociety and Salt Hotels, and both of them kind of said something to the effect of what you're talking about here, where they want-- they have a food and beverage operation that they want to be the spot where locals go on the weekend or on the weekday, and not like that fancy, like anniversary or special occasion place. They just want to be the spot where the locals go just, you know, casually. And I thought that was really interesting, so it was very good to hear your side of kind of putting some framework and some advice behind that, and kind of hearing what you had to say to kind of build that out for our listeners. I think that's really cool. Now, you've seen a lot of hotel food and beverage, hotel food and beverage. I'm wondering-- And you gave a lot of really good advice to have successful, you know, programs. What are some things you see hotel food and beverage operations doing that you wish they would stop doing? Ami Alexander: This is a great question. Coming from the food and beverage side, which I'll answer first, you know, I think if you are going to build a concept, you really have to be dedicated to that concept, right? So if there's a Japanese restaurant on property, I don't want to be having pancakes and, you know, omelets there in the morning. I think you... Or I do, but I want there to be like a shisho syrup, and I want the omelet to be with foraged mushrooms and, you know, like, a- and soy. I think you just want there to be consistency in the concept. I think a lot of times you get these, these spaces and that they become, like, too cute in their name and too cute in the ideology around... You know, it's like you get these names that are like The Farmer and the, and the Bride, and you're like, "What? But okay. But what is it?" It's like the concept's a little too cute, but then at the end of the day, they just create this, like, Americana version of their three-meal restaurant because maybe it's the only restaurant they have. I think that has to stop. Like, if you're going to commit to a cuisine, you gotta do it. If it's gonna be a Japanese restaurant, I want the plates to be from Japan. I want there to be, you know, a curated sake menu. I want it to feel like the thread is there and it's real. I want the chef to be trained in Japanese food, if not Japanese. And so, you know, I think that's really important. A lot of hotels, you sort of will read online like that it's, that it has this really interesting story, and you go there and you're like, "That didn't really feel real." That felt like somebody made that up in a branding and marketing meeting, and as it landed, it got really changed by operations or by whoever to become something a little bit more watered down and diluted, and that, to me, is unfortunate. You know, I don't love to see that. I think we talked a lot today about, like, how expensive it's gotten to run these spaces, and it's an unfortunate reality because people are what make our industries come alive and make people feel special and ultimately are what deliver service. So it's unfortunate, but when I look at the hotel side of things too, you know, I hate to see, like, the arrival experience not be what it needs to be. When you pull up to a hotel, like, if you're like me, I mean, I'm almost 40. I'm still excited to get to a hotel. I'm still excited to walk in the front door and, like, check in and get my key and walk into my room for the first time and I travel a lot, and I travel a lot for business. It's not always fun. But I still love that first moment, and when you get there, if there's nobody at valet or there's nobody there to open the door, or there's 10 people in line to check in at the front desk, like that is such a shame to me. I'm a big advocate for, like, how can we make this work in terms of business model and feasibility structure across the entire economy of the hotel to make the arrival experience, like, perfect? Because it matters so much. David Millili: No, it makes sense. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where you'll get to let people know how they can find out more about Barrel Aged Management and how they can get in touch with you. Ami Alexander: Great. Well, we have a website, barrelagemanagement.com. We also have social media, and you can find us in both places. David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thanks for joining us. Ami Alexander: Thanks for having me. Steve Carran: Thank you.