Some hotels are looking to combine the job of executive chef and food and beverage director as staffing issues, inflation and changing consumer behavior have taken on a whole new flavor.

Adaptation is the name of the game, according to a cross section of executives and analysts. Danny Py, vice president of food and beverage for management company First Hospitality, said management has had to adapt after a record year in 2019 when the thinking was that the sky was the limit for food and beverage. That might mean breakfast served in grab-and-go fashion, scaled-down menus and meals where there are “fewer plate touches” — where meals are easier to execute, but "still deliver on quality and consistency. “

"Not every plate is getting the tweezers treatment,” Py said.

Sean Largotta, a partner at the Gansevoort Hotel Group, which operates Gansevoort Meatpacking NYC in New York, said the hotel underwent a $30 million renovation and rebrand during the pandemic and introduced multiple new food and beverage outlets, each with its own distinct personality.

He said finding experienced staff across all of these new venues — specifically after travel bans and indoor dining restrictions were lifted — was difficult, but almost a year later, “we are in a much better place.”

In fact, it seems the Great Resignation may be receding. Richard Garcia, senior vice president of food and beverage for Remington Hotels, said “the floodgates have opened” in the last few weeks with streams of resumes coming in. And now it’s not just the resumes but the prospects that are showing up. In the past, interviews were scheduled but prospects were no-shows.

But there is still a challenge in filling mid-level positions, Garcia said. Senior leaders are available, and at the lower level, employees started to return as well. The gaps are in the middle — qualified line cooks and servers, middle management and bartenders.

Peter Yeung, managing director for Walker Hotels, which operates boutique hotels in New York, said restaurants have been running short-staffed for the last two years, primarily at the line-cook level although salaries have been raised by 30%. And even when there is a hire, that person might leave shortly after signing on “for an extra few dollars down the road.”

The good news is Walker has a “hands-on” executive chef and sous chef who often work as line cooks, and dishwashers might double as prep chefs, Yeung said.

“Everyone does a little of everything as it is all hands on deck,” he said.

Testing and often rapid implementation of innovations has been the name of the game for many hotel restaurants. Of course, reducing days or hours of operation, limiting menu offerings and grab-and-go options are ubiquitous.

“We decided early on that it was better to focus our team on a more limited menu that we were confident we could execute well every day,” said Steve Smith, COO of San-Diego based management company Eat. Drink. Sleep Hospitality.

But there are a wide range of creative solutions. For instance, Bjorn Hanson, adjunct professor at the New York University School of Professional Studies' Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, said some multi-unit operators have tried a commissary format where meals for multiple locations are prepared off-property but the savings vs. logistical challenges have not been positive enough to pursue.

Another possibility is deploying an “area chef” so there is not an executive chef at each property, Hanson said. And some hotels have experimented with making their facilities available as “ghost kitchens” for outside suppliers if they are scheduling fewer days or hours of operation. There have also been attempts to transform the experience, such as developing specialty beverages or theme nights that can emphasize elements of the operation but that are less staffing-sensitive.

Patrick Berwald, senior vice president of food and beverage for Pyramid Global Hospitality, said he and his team are taking cues from freestanding restaurants, such as flexible work schedules, including a 40-hour week. Another initiative has been to introduce automatic gratuities for servers and even service charges for cooks.

Remington has turned to more disruptive solutions, Garcia said. One is working with platforms that provide workers on a shift basis. One supplier Garcia is in talks with has over 440,000 employees “sitting on an app waiting for work.” Remington will be able to rank employees and they in turn can rank Remington.

“This has changed the game so much that if I don’t get into it right now, we’ll be way behind," Garcia said.

Charlie Palmer, the celebrity chef who is launching a hotel brand called Appellation, said at some of his less formal restaurants, a “relaxed service model” has been introduced, where fewer staff are needed on the restaurant floor. For instance, utensils and napkins are presented at the center of each table, so resetting tables takes less time and servers can focus more on creating a positive experience for guests.

Innovation is extending to the very “hierarchy” of the kitchen staff — as with combining the role of executive chef and food and beverage director. Berwald said that combined position, while a useful temporary tool, is not a long-term play but something done out of necessity and that can work well in a smaller property. He said an executive chef is creative and has a vision and a good marketing outlook while the food and beverage director has the technical and strategic capacities and is on top of “the numbers.”

“It’s a left brain, right brain kind of situation,” he said.

A number of Remington Hotels do not have an executive chef, Garcia said, but not because they cannot be found. In business travel properties like airport locations, he said, an executive chef might not be what is called for.

“It’s typically hard to tell the aspiring Emeril ‘Here’s a menu that you need to serve,’” he said.

In these cases, a kitchen manager might be hired who will deliver a menu developed in the corporate office. That might save upwards of 25% on salary, Garcia said.

And Remington might combine the roles of chef and food and beverage director in locations where there is limited or non-complicated beverage service. That allows for the elimination of an executive salary position. That system will not work at luxury properties, Garcia said, or at hotels with restaurants designed for outside patrons who are not hotel guests.

Devin Burns, vice president of rooms and food and beverage for Omni Hotels & Resorts, said organizational charts have had to be reconsidered to get a better understanding of what the impact is for each position and what matters most to restaurant organizations. For example, in the past there had been a general manager and assistant manager for each restaurant. Now that structure might differ depending on the restaurant so that a casual restaurant might not have both those positions.

“We’ve been able to come back smarter with organization charts so it fits specific locations," he said.

Another significant change is that while in-room dining had been serviced by separate staffs in separate kitchen facilities, in many hotels all meals come out of the restaurant, Burns said. That will not be the case at resorts where a separate facility for serving food in rooms, at pool decks and so forth might be called for.

Aimbridge Hospitality has focused on creating programs with partners like HSS, a hospitality staffing provider, said Paul Lynch, vice president-food and beverage. One example is an overnight cleaning service that comes to a restaurant weekly to address the necessary deep cleaning aspects of the kitchens. This boosts staff morale, allowing them to concentrate on their primary role of delivering great food and exceptional experiences to guests.

In some cases, properties share a multi-unit chef who provides the creativity and executive functions, while daily functions are taken care of by supervisors who are “growing with our industry,” Lynch said. This provides culinary training opportunities, he said, “as we deepen the bench of our culinary teams and set them up to find success.”

While hotels have looked to freestanding restaurants for inspiration, Palmer’s arrival into the industry will bring a major restaurant operator into hotels. The first two Appellation locations are scheduled to open in 2023.

“Unlike most luxury hotels that have separate operators for accommodations and [food and beverage] services, Appellation’s management fee includes [food and beverage] management and Charlie Palmer [food and beverage] licensing — resulting in lower costs, greater efficiencies, and better cohesion," said Christopher Hunsberger, Appellation's co-founder and a longtime Four Season executive.

The hotel group shares resources with its sister company, Charlie Palmer Collective, “which gives the hotels expertise, resources and support at a fraction of the cost,” Hunsberger said.

Culinary is at the core of Appellation’s DNA, Hunsberger said. The brand’s revenue-management process is built around maximizing earnings, not just rooms revenue. For that reason, Appellation expects 70% to 80% of hotel restaurant revenues to come from non-guests. The operator’s promotional strategy, he said, creates appeal to locals, as well as generating revenue from guests staying overnight at other hotels in the area.

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