1. Plan A: Bistro C
Morphing outlet into B&C success
is Clarion’s call, page 36
hotelfandb.com January February 2013
For Hotel, Resort, and Casino Food Beverage Operations
HotelFB
TM
HotelFB
TM
The bare facts of Playboy’s BC beauty, pg. 19
Pastry making on buffet display, pg. 26
Where are frugal FB dollars best spent? pg. 12
Royal Caribbean’s global wine menus, pg. 32
2. 36 Hotel fB | January February 2013
id-Scale
orph
enu
MClarion’s Bistro C branches core
outlet menu to BC without adding
labor or equipment. By Denny Lewis
Cuisine
Menus
036-41_CM_ClarionC.indd 36 1/12/13 11:11:24 AM
3. continued on page 38
When Director of FB for Choice Hotels Tom Prykanowski
was tasked with creating an FB identity for the Clarion
Hotels brand, not only did he face the challenge of starting
a culinary program from scratch, but he also had to find a
suitable solution to the mid-scale hotel FB dilemma.
Cuisine
Menus
Historically, mid-scale FB had mostly meant only partially succeed-
ing in meeting guests’ expectations while constantly losing
money by stocking, staffing, and stretching beyond a
property’s revenue resources.
In creating Clarion’s Bistro C concept, Pry-
kanowski discovered a balanced and streamlined
answer to satisfy customers’ needs and to produce
good food efficiently, economically, and with mini-
mal labor, initiating a program that is scalable and
flexible enough to become a banquet and catering
profit center for any franchise.
“It is a struggle to make money on mid-scale
FB,” says Prykanowski. “When it comes down to
it, most people just want to punt.” In fact, that had
been the game plan until Prykanowski began redefin-
ing Clarion’s FB status. The typical Clarion might
have had a few snack items in a sundry shop and
would outsource catering for meetings and groups. At
best, franchises would ask caterers for 10% price shar-
ing, and often they would forego charges altogether. To
make matters worse, costs for Clarion’s complimentary
breakfast could mean that FB for any property would be
perpetually in the red.
Gather ‘Round
Dan Sweiger, head of domestic brand management for
Clarion and Quality Inn, who had been managing the overall
brand repositioning for Clarion, knew FB would be the
critical element to reframe Clarion’s identity. Along with
Prykanowski, Sweiger set his sights on the “gatherings market,”
where he thought Clarion could optimize its market share.
photographybyVitoPalmisano
4. 38 Hotel fB | January February 2013
“Whenever the reason for the trip is
to ‘gather’—meetings, family get-to-
gethers, parties—that accounts for 70
to 90 million mid-scale rooms a year,”
says Sweiger. “The rest of the hospital-
ity world is running away from mid-
scale FB, but we see an opportunity
and a sweet spot emerging.”
That sweet spot is the bullseye
around which the Bistro C concept is
constructed: focused service. Feed-
back from guests and research data
had shown that while the limited-
service offerings they had previously
provided were less than satisfying
to guests’ expectations of a mid-
scale brand, full-service was more
than what potential guests actually
desired in most cases.
In addition, guests would rather
come out of their rooms to get their
meals and perhaps enjoy them in
a more public setting than have
them delivered by room service.
So, instead of an onsite restaurant
that tries to produce something for
everyone, guests would prefer a well-
thought-out, less-expansive menu of
good-quality, fresh, well-prepared
foods and a comfortable place to
gather, relax, and eat.
That realization of true guest
expectations opened the door to great
possibilities for Clarion’s transfor-
mation. The idea was to create an
integrated lobby outlet that added
energy, conveyed a sense of place,
and could supply food and drink that
landed somewhere in the fast-casual
target area between Starbucks and
Panera. Prykanowski worked with
designers to carve out usable space
in Clarion lobbies—thriftily retain-
ing as much as possible of what was
already there—and to assemble
versatile small-footprint kitchens.
FB managers and chef/consultants
engineered recipes for a flexible menu
that would cross-utilize ingredients,
minimize waste and preparation time,
and appeal to a wide range of tastes.
Commercial kitchen design consul-
tants customized cooking equipment
to ensure foolproof, quality results
Cuisine
Menus
To optimize the ability to sell BC to corporate meeting planners, Clarion has cre-
ated a customizable online ordering tool. Dan Sweiger, head of domestic brand
management for Clarion and Quality Inn, calls it a “behind the scenes” marketing
resource, an online portal template to which franchises can input FB offerings and
prices to generate an online menu with high quality graphics and reliable usability
that can be presented to potential guests to drive sales.
The interactive menu planner allows coordinators to choose FB (and even audio-
visual) options and see what prices will be. Clarion has invisibly consolidated options
within the tool to simplify the task for meeting planners. That is, each Clarion has
licensed caterers to whom they can outsource items or meals that are beyond the
property’s FB capabilities. Many of those items that are commonly requested are
listed on the property’s catering menu and can seamlessly be ordered from Clarion
without need for the planner to make separate arrangements. —DL
continued from page 37
Interacting With Planners
036-41_CM_ClarionC.indd 38 1/11/13 10:14:56 AM
5. continued on page 41
for non-culinary operators and to cut
cooking times down to astoundingly
low minimums.
C’ing the Light
After six months of planning, the
prototype Bistro C was rolled out in
April 2012 at the Clarion Inn Water-
ford Convention Center in Elmhurst,
Illinois, near Chicago’s O’Hare Air-
port. With over 20,000 square feet
of meeting space and 104 rooms at
his property, franchise owner Pritesh
Gandhi was hungry for a way to
claim FB revenues.
“We saw revenue walking out the
door every day,” says Gandhi, “plus,
we were losing as much as $6,500
per month by giving away breakfast.”
Like many other Clarion locations,
the Elmhurst property was outsourc-
ing all catering for meetings or func-
tions. Gandhi was happy to make his
property the beta-testing site.
What Gandhi found was that his
new FB outlet can capably operate
with one FOH employee at a service
counter and one BOH employee
cooking in the 15- by 25-foot kitchen,
with a weekly schedule of seven FB
employees. Breakfast sandwiches and
burritos can easily be cooked to meet
morning demand. The grab ‘n’ go
box is filled with snacks, drinks, and
baked goods from local vendors—
muffins, chips, cut fruit, water,
sodas—all popular items recom-
mended by local convenience store
retailers from their knowledge and
sales experience. Service is continued
into mid-morning hours but usually
halted for lunch; midday hours are
easily arranged when necessary. For
the evening daypart, service features
a “greatest hits” menu of salads,
burgers, quesadillas, and pizza, as
well as a fully stocked bar.
Prykanowski, Sweiger, and Gandhi
all credit technological advances in
cooking for a large part of the con-
cept’s viability and versatility. While
food costs often edge up to as much
as 35% because of some semi-prepped
ingredients, limited labor costs help
to right the equation. The use of in-
duction ranges and other push-button
appliances allow one staff member to
Cuisine
Menus
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8. continued from page 41
able to serve maybe 60 to 100 [people]
at a time, but we’ve been pushing the
pedal up to 300 for catered meetings,”
he says, “and all it takes is a couple
prep hours the night before and 1 ½ to
2 hours to cook immediately before-
hand.” Gandhi allows only in-house
catering now for groups up to about
250, depending on food choices. For
the Elmhurst property, that has trans-
lated to new revenue of $8,000 to
$10,000 per month from catering.
Obviously, staffing for serving
large groups is very different than for
daily operations of Bistro C alone.
Prykanowski has countered staffing
concerns by always scheduling a core
of employees for lower, “everyday”
volume, then adding in trained staff
from other hotel departments when
necessary.
“We trained all employees at
Elmhurst—including maintenance
and housekeeping—to be able to
operate Bistro C,” says Prykanowski.
“We want them to be able to wear
many hats and jump behind the
counter to help out if we need them
during a 20- or 30-minute rush.”
Those extra trained staff can become
the auxiliary service and prep staff
needed to “flex up” for banquets and
catering.
The flex in the Bistro C lobby
layout is critical, too, for the trans-
formation of Clarion common areas
into a functional gathering place
around the bistro. The designers
have planned a loose, multi-purpose
configuration of lounge, dining, and
work areas that welcome guests in
and can flow together or feel sepa-
rate as guests wish. When possible,
the counter server is encouraged to
come out and serve guests in the
various settings. “I just saw a group
who came down from their rooms to
share appetizers and bottles of wine
and stayed in the lounge area most
of the night,” says Gandhi. With an
appealing gathering setting, even
wedding parties have begun to plan
informal functions around Bistro C.
Hard Money and Intangibles
Prykanowski and Sweiger predict
that most Bistro C conversions will
Cuisine
Menus
EXPEDITE
ELEGAGAG NCE
YoYoY ur bevr bevr erage service
should go beyond fufuf nction.
036-41_CM_ClarionC.indd 42 1/11/13 10:17:44 AM
