6.1 INTRODUCTION In discussing the ways that hotel organiza-tions have changed, we pointed out that in earlier times food played a significant role in the organizational structure and product service mix of hotels. It has been speculated that the preeminent role played by hotel foodservice in society became significantly di-minished with the onset of Prohibition and during the 1920s. People stopped going to foodservice establishments where they couldn’t “get a drink.” Prohibition gave rise to compe-tition from street restaurants that operated sub rosa as speakeasies. These restaurants were not constricted by the visible, public na-ture of hotel dining rooms. This diminished role was compounded in many ways by the depression years of the 1930s and the war years of the 1940s. In general, it was difficult for most hotels’ foodservice to recover from the effects of 235 hotel foodservice was little more than a nec-essary evil. For many operations, this became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and hotel foodser-vice floundered for many years. This situation has been reversed in recent years. Of the many factors mentioned earlier that forced organizational change (market segmentation, return on investment, demo-graphic shifts, and so forth), it seems that re-turn on investment has played a dominant role in this turnaround. The double-whammy issues of construction cost and return on in-vestment expectations of people outside the hospitality industry strongly suggest that space devoted to foodservice should con-tribute at least its share to the profit structure of the modern hotel service system. As a result, hotels seem to be willing to try anything to capture additional revenue, prestige, and competitive advantage. Among the tactics addressed in several of the articles and essays included in this section are part-nering with restaurant companies, outsourc-ing a hotel’s foodservice, new catering and beverage management strategies, celebrity chefs, and rethinking the entire role of hotel food and beverage. - FOOD Over 35 years ago, Allen Hubsch (1966) sug-gested a number of ways to revitalize hotel food and beverage service that have proved eerily prescient. Among his suggestions were: • Hotel food and beverage facilities must become profit centers—no more a neces-sary evil! • Food and beverage management calls for new and increased professionalism and less reliance on the old chef–maître d’ model. 236 Chapter 6 Food and Beverage Division • Food and beverage outlets must become amenities that produce room-nights. • Hotel food and beverage units must adopt street restaurant philosophies; mer-chandising, advertising, decor/ambience, menu, and service must compete with lo-cal competition. • Food and beverage can be used to fill marginally profitable space in rentals, storage, or production areas. • New food and beverage outlets can lever-age existing facilities like storage and kitchens by spreading fixed costs over a wider sales base. Hubsch’s article, now considered a classic, is among the suggested readings for this section. Robert H. Bosselman is the director of the Dedman School of Hospitality and Ded-man Distinguished Professor of Hospitality at Florida State University. From his perspec-tive, looking ahead to the future state of hotel food and beverage operations, Bosselman provides an in-depth analysis of the way the hotel food and beverage organization has changed over the last eight to ten years and offers tantalizing clues and examples that echo the prescriptions proposed by Hubsch. He also addresses the structure of the organi-zation, interactions of food and beverage ele-ments within the lodging operation, operating ratios, and potential trends in this major—and expensive—operational component. Dominic Provenzano is director of opera-tions of the Downtown Marriott at Key Cen-ter in Cleveland, Ohio. From the perspective of a previous position as director of food and beverage, he provides front-line detail of how Bosselman’s theory of food and beverage plays out for the food and beverage director. In a major research effort that began in 1998, Laurette Dubé, Cathy Enz, Leo Re- naghan, and Judy Siguaw of the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University studied the best practices of hotels in the U.S. lodging industry. In their words, “The goal of this research was to surface and summarize practices of use and value to the entire lodg-ing industry” (Dubé et al., 1999, 7). Siguaw and Enz summarize several of the practices from that study that have been developed by hotels to achieve the “strategic charge of prof-itably meeting customer needs” (1999, 50). The authors describe how top hotels integrate the ideas of restaurant design and conceptual-ization with all of the variables that affect the quality of the food and the experience for the guest. The concept of outsourcing was men-tioned earlier in the context of how some ho-tel companies are rethinking the role of hotel food and beverage and how to maximize in-vestments in facilities, furnishings, and equip-ment for foodservice outlets. According to Strate and Rappole (1997), because hotel restaurants have often been managed as a secondary function, owners and operators are questioning the conventional wisdom about how hotel food and beverage is conceived and managed. They state that this new focus on hotel foodservice results in innovative con-cepts and strategic alliances with well-known restaurant brands. In their article, they ana-lyze this trend outlining historic antecedents of the practice and use the Texas firm Bristol Hotel Company as a case study. Few would argue that should a hotel choose to do its own foodservice, a first-class executive chef is essential to allow a hotel or-ganization to compete effectively for food and beverage business in today’s market. It is, however, fairly clear that chefs today do not have the dominant role they had a century ago. Given the importance of the food and beverage function, as established by the fore-Section 6.1 Introduction 237 going articles, the chef is nevertheless an inte-gral part of the competitive strategy and a full-fledged department leader. He or she is no longer purely a technician. This individual must have developed a significant range of managerial skills to complement the technical and artistic training we have come to expect from an executive chef. The appearance of ultra-high-profile celebrity chefs adds an-other interesting variable to the food and bev-erage director’s mix of challenges. If a hotel commits much of its food and beverage strat-egy to the talents of one famous person, it can enjoy a significant competitive advantage but also become hostage to that person’s whims and personality. Many high-profile hotels in Las Vegas have “name” chef programs, and in many major population centers, top chefs have made their hotels destination venues due to their fame in the kitchen. Patti Shock and her colleague John Ste-fanelli highlight the importance of the ban-quet and catering functions of hotel food and beverage in their piece, updated for this edi-tion. With the increased national attention and focus on the importance of conferences, conventions, meetings, and events of all kinds, foodservice professionals who specialize in planning and serving meals and beverages to large groups of people are increasingly important. The authors note, “Although on-premise catering is generally the second-largest source of revenue for most hotels, following sleeping rooms” and “often the highest visibility the hotel has on a local level,” banquets and catering are still too of-ten ignored by hotel school curricula. In this article, we partially address this lack. Catered affairs represent a significant contribution to the profit picture of hotel food and beverage service. The efficacy of a hotel’s efforts in selling and servicing the group business market may very well be the difference between profitability of the food and beverage function and some less desir-able outcome. Shock and Stefanelli explore the organization, personnel, and processes of the catering department and give the reader an in-depth view of catering execu-tives and banquet organizations. The article includes Internet addresses for additional information. It is the revenue and visibility importance of the catering function that makes the ener-getic essay by Rich Benninger so intriguing. From rising at 6:00 A.M. or so, thinking today is the day he will “get everything done” in the catering and convention services office of a 5,000-room resort hotel casino in Las Vegas, to hitting the sack after midnight, Benninger gives the reader an insider’s view of life in the fast lane of Vegas catering and convention services. As executive director of catering and convention services at the Caesar’s Palace Resort Hotel and Casino, Benninger is uniquely positioned to provide these insights. BEVERAGE In any hotel that has more than one formal bar, there is usually a separate function within the food and beverage department called bar or beverage management.Ideally, that office coordinates all matters that concern liquors, beers, and wines. The beverage manager is re-sponsibile for purchasing, receiving, storing, and issuing liquor, wine and beer inventory, and quite obviously has the managerial re-sponsibility to control that inventory. Additionally, the beverage manager: • Hires, trains, schedules, and controls all beverage and bar personnel. • Promotes the various beverage depart-ment services. 238 Chapter 6 Food and Beverage Division • Coordinates the requests of other depart-ments that require beverage services—for instance, banquet and catering, room service, chefs, management. • Assures that his or her department is in compliance with federal, state, and local laws and regulations. The beverage manager administers or manages up to four types of bars. The front or public bar is that in which the guest can, if he or she so desires, interact with the bartender and other service personnel. There are provisions for guest seating at the bar itself, which may be part of a restaurant or a separate room or area. Separate tables and stand-up areas may also be available for bev-erage service. A front bar may or may not in-corporate entertainment. A service bar is a hidden bar designed for use by the hotel’s food and beverage service staff only. It may serve one or more foodser-vice areas and/or room service, and it is de-signed specifically for efficiency and economy of service. In most cases, speed is considered the essential ingredient in service bars. Ser-vice bars typically are centrally located in the back of the house, out of guest view. Portable bars are designed for maximum flexibility and can be used in conjunction with beverage sales associated with guest activities anywhere in the hotel or on its grounds. This may be extended in resort areas to include recreational areas. A new facility popular in many hotels is that of the in-room bar, mini-bar, or honor bar. While sometimes the responsibility for in-ventory of these bars rests with room service, the beverage manager in most cases is also deeply involved in their design, marketing, and control. In many ways, the beverage manager’s job can be compared, in terms of historical stereotype, to that of the housekeeper. Often the beverage manager has worked his or her way up through the ranks of beverage server and preparer and through experience, longevity, and interest becomes the beverage or bar manager. There is reason to believe that in many ways this pattern is changing. Like many other areas of hotel management, the beverage management function now faces a range of issues that are more sophisticated and complicated than traditional beverage management problems of the past. It may be that the beverage managers of the future will have to bring to their job a level of manage-rial, organizational, and administrative so-phistication that was previously unnecessary. The issues, responsibilities, and structural management of the hotel’s beverage function are analyzed and discussed by Valentino Lu-Section 6.2 Managing Food and Beverage Operations in Lodging Organizations 239 ciani, professor of beverage management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Lu-ciani’s essay, reprised here from the third edi-tion, draws on his industry experience, research, and teaching beverage management and provides a view of how the modern bev-erage manager has evolved from his or her historical counterparts. The planning, preparation, service, and management of food and beverage in modern hotels have changed significantly since the first edition of this book was written. The es-says, research, and commentary presented here are chosen to illustrate the breadth and depth of this process of change. The reader who is interested in hotel food and beverage should be able to synthesize an accurate vi-sion of the practices and realities of this major operational division of modern hotels.
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