FSR October 2022

e path to a successful hotel restaurant will vary from business to business, but incorporating any of the following build ing blocks can help hotel concepts go head to head with standalone establishments. FOCUS ON LOCALS e first step in creating a modern hotel res taurant is going after local diners. Resorts, isolated locations, and properties rooted exclusively in tourism are among the few exceptions, but the vast majority have to curry favor with people who will never appear in the hotel's guestbook—simply because they live nearby. “I think reaching out to the locals is the most important thing on any proj ect, whether it’s a standalone or in a hotel,” says Cullen Wyatt, restaurant develop ment director for e Indigo Road Hospi tality Group. Based in Charleston, South Carolina, the group comprises more than 35 properties, primarily in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic. Up until a few years ago, Indigo Road worked exclusively in the res taurant space. is foundation is proving especially valuable now that the group has expanded into the hotel sector. And as Wyatt points out, if a restau rant attracts patrons from the surround ing neighborhoods, business wouldn't slow to a crawl every time guests check out. He adds that it would be a "dream scenario" to have a hotel that's always busy because the restaurant, in turn, would always be busy. But that's clearly an unobtainable goal. “ e good news about a restaurant being in a hotel is that you should have more foot traffic on a regular basis than a standalone restaurant," Wyatt says. " at being said, it’s 100 percent the most important thing to us to be a restaurant that the community surrounding it wants to dine at on a regu lar basis. If we rely strictly on hotel guests, it wouldn’t work." Covid made that point abundantly clear when reservations plummeted. On-site con cepts with a strong local following could buoy their hotels, even if it were through takeout or al fresco dining. On the flip side, restaurants that were as vacant as their hotels became extra deadweight—and that can be the case in non-pandemic times, too.

THREE SAINTS REVIVAL

30 OCTOBER 2022

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