F & B
The
CEO
Rohit Sachdev takes the long view when it comes to hotels and hotel dining . “ Hygiene standards will need to be maintained and demonstrated , and hand sanitizers are here to stay , but I don ’ t believe you ’ ll be checking the temperatures of guests 12 months from now ,” he says .
Though he is optimistic , Sachdev , CEO of restaurant and hotel designer Soho Hospitality , believes hotel F & B operations need to adapt and leverage their strengths — not only to survive the pandemic but to remain competitive with independent restaurants .
“ Hotel restaurants were already struggling , and then the pandemic hits , and countries go into lockdown ,” he says . “ Markets will open again , but it ’ s going to take a while , and F & B revenue is going to be further constrained , so I think hotels will need to reinvent themselves .”
One way is to revamp underused culinary spaces . “ Cloud kitchens are restaurants with no storefront and do delivery only ,” Sachdev says . “ Customers cannot get their food ( from these restaurants ) any other way than delivery .”
This goes hand-in-hand with another paradigm shift : “ Dining out now means staying home and ordering from a restaurant ,” he says . “ If you want people to dine out at your restaurant , you have to have
YOU HAVE TO GIVE PEOPLE A REASON TO GET OUT OF THEIR PAJAMAS .
ROHIT SACHDEV
more than just food and beverage . Now , you have to have an entertainment component . You have to give people a reason to get out of their pajamas and head out to dine in restaurants .”
One example is a dining establishment that morphs into a nightclub as the night goes on , or where the chef cooks tableside and interacts with diners while they eat .
“ The experience can be anything , but it has to be authentic because gimmicks don ’ t work today ,” Sachdev says . “ It has to be something that is envisioned as part of the overall restaurant or dining concept ideology .”
APPETITE FOR RISK Along with operating even more efficient-
ROHIT SACHDEV CEO
SOHO HOSPITALITY BANGKOK , THAILAND
ly , with smaller menus and staffs , chefs and F & B managers need the autonomy to respond quickly and take risks . “ A lot of hotel groups have got very large organizations , so implementing change management is not an easy task ,” Sachdev says . “ We ’ re seeing a lot of hotel groups give ( chefs and managers ) a lot more freedom , and their compensation is tied to the outlet ’ s performance .”
Technology can also help hotels and their F & B departments . “ There ’ s a lot of analytical technologies out there that can predict your supply chain requirements based on consumption and usage , and there ’ s a lot of innovation ( in technology ) that ’ s coming into the F & B industry ,” he says .
But nowhere is technology more important than in consumer metrics , Sachdev points out . “ We have a feedback form in our restaurants that we give to all of our customers ,” he says . “ If a customer ranks us below any key performance thresholds , the restaurant manager and my director of operations are immediately alerted . If something went wrong , we can implement service recovery .”
This is especially important because restaurants are not yet operating at full capacity . “ You used to have 100 customers ,” he says . “ Today , you have 25 customers . You need to make sure you ’ re delivering a wow to each of those 25 customers . That has to be your guiding line . You ’ re going to have to scale down before you scale back up again .”
26 hotelsmag . com September / October 2020