lifeasdaddy

Lonely Planet guide book writer admits he made it up.

I thought Lonely Planet guidebooks were over rated.  This could be one reason.

lifeasdaddy - The best spot in the house - hoteliers take note.

David McMillan writes about a hotel's "Downtown" here. "It is that little piece of space whre small groups gravitate when your occupancy is low." 

Hoteliers real and aspiring read and take note.

lifeadaddy - The conflict that creates high quality restaurants.

David McMillan writes a great blog about hospitality management with a focus on hotels.  I've just been catching up on his back catalogue and came across this post HOW SAD THAT WE DENOUNCE PEELING AND FLIPPING where he talks about how "... I discovered that only when conflict exists between kitchen and restaurant staff does quality exist."

Thinking back on my own time working in hotels and restaurants I have to agree with him.  When everyone in front and back of the restaurant are cozy with each other the output tends to be ordinary, mediocre and bland.  When there is creative tension quality rises.

I guess that's a warning for husband and wife restaurant teams which almost always find the two halves of the partnership working on opposite sides of the business.  One cooking, one hosting.

lifeasdaddy - Blackstone buys Hilton

For US $26 bil.

Here's the Chicago Tribune's take.

lifeasdaddy - Ko'Olina Lagoons. The best beach for children on Oahu, Hawaii.

I won't go into much detail about those beaches we found inappropriate for kids this week, I'll just tell you the best we found.  This is for children under 5 years with limited or no swimming ability.

      I add this caveat:  I believe that children need to be supervised constantly, continuously, and 100% of the time while in the water.  This level of supervision includes the beach I am about to name.

The Ko'Olina Lagoons are a set of 4 man-made (woman made?) seawater lagoons which are protected from waves by rock breakwaters.  The beach is made of fine sand and is gently graded.  Here's a pic of Edward practising his swimming.

The lagoons are surrounded on the land side by a master planned development comprising the Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa, a timeshare condominium development and the Ko'Olina Marina.  As such it is a gated community and when approached by road a security guard at the shack will ask your reasons for visiting. Each of the lagoons has a small amount of free public car parking - around 20 spaces each - which were full each time we visited.  Apparently the public car parking fills by around 9am each morning.  When the public car parking fills, the guard turns away beach goers.  The trick is to tell the guard that you are going to eat at the Resort restaurants, and also visit the beach.  The guard will issue a lagoon pass.

At Lagoon #1, the first on the right hand side as you drive in, there are reasonably clean amenities blocks, and open air beach side showers wash off the salt water.  There is also foot access to the Marriott resort where you will arrive at the Poolside Grill.  We had lunch at this casual dining outlet twice and both times were very pleased with the food, beverages, and especially the service.  (Thanks Ryann)  Here's the menu, and you can see that the prices are higher than McDonald's, but quite reasonable for this type of hotel and environment.  Importantly, parking in the hotel/resort car park is free with a spend of more than $25 in the resort's food & beverage outlets, so if you park in that car park (probably your only choice) then be sure to take your car park entry ticket with you and have it validated by your server upon payment.

Contrary to what may be read elsewhere on the Internet, there are no lifeguards on duty.

See this Google Map for a satellite view of the lagoons which appear as crescent shapes.  You can zoom out on the map to see driving directions, and it's position relative to the rest of Oahu island.

It's about 25 or 30 minutes drive from Waikiki.

The kids loved having a swim amongst the gentle waves and building sand castles on the sand.

lifeasdaddy - "People don't quit jobs, they Quit Managers"

^ According to David McMillan, in this blog post about the labor shortage in the hospitality industry.

Read the whole thing here, which also includes his 10 point international action plan.

lifeasdaddy - Bed & Breakfast in a Frank Lloyd Wright marvel?

Fancy staying overnight in a Frank Lloyd Wright house?  The Muirhead Farmhouse has surely got to be unique in the B&B category.

I love the style of their website too. 

How do I know about it?  Because Terry Teachout told me so.

[ Added:  Mr. Teachout also mentions 4 other Frank Lloyd Wright houses in which you may spend the night here. ]

lifeasdaddy - Leadership in Hospitality

David McMillan has a great blog about hospitality, with the subtext promoting his hospitality consultancy.

Here's his top ten attributes of a leader.  I agree with every one.

Here's a good one. 

"Bar-Fly Extraordinaire" Long before MBWA was deemed to be effective, this Luxury Hotel operator was the first and last customer in his own hotel bar where he personally knew every patron and from where he built the heart of his hotel's patronage. Losing a fortune on his arrival in this great European Capital, this hotel's value was rebuilt from the bar outwards on the strength of this great Irishman's liver. Also one of the best standup comedians I have ever known

It reminded me of Herbert Nussbaumer, not the drinking and the comedian part, but the accessibility to guests. He was a  long time General Manager of the Wynyard Travelodge in Sydney's York Street, a hotel now known by a different name.

Every morning from Monday to Friday for a minimum 30 minutes he would stand in the hotel lobby at around 8.15am greeting and farewelling guests.  He had no need to sit in his office and read guest feedback cards or emails, they just told him then and their about their stay.

Hotel guests loved being able to speak to the GM every morning.  And he loved being able to fix up something that had gone wrong before the end of the guest's stay.

lifeasdaddy - Great hotel marketing website.

Terry Teachout mentioned recently that he was going to San Francisco and staying in a boutique hotel.

His hotel was the Hotel Adagio, part of the Joie de Vivre Hospitality group.  JDV hsa got a great looking website, and is distinguished by a gimmick of matching your personality to a hotel in their group via their Hotel Matchmaker, Yvette.

It also has a section where "locals talk about this neighborhood" - in this case Donald Graves.

I like it.  It seems to give you a good insiders view about good places to go, see and eat at.  Helps in getting restaurant reservations before you hit town.

lifeasdaddy - 40 is the new 30. Dollars that is.

In the hotel and restaurant business, there's a thing called menu engineering.  It's about the analysis of items and pricing on a menu to obtain the most profitable mix and creating a better selling document.  It's a combination of art and science.  One of my former mentors Andrew G. Bayliss was particularly good at it.

The New York Times had a fascinating (fascinating to me that means) article this week Entrees Reach $40, and, Sorry, the Sides Are Extra by Jodi Kantor.   

[For Australian readers, note that in an American restaurant and entree is a main course dish.  American appetizer dish = Australian entree.]

Apparently the bracket creep of menu pricing is based upon the principle that when you get over the shock of the price of the most expensive item on the menu, you'll more easily order the 2nd most expensive item on the menu.

My favourite quote:

“Just putting one high price on the menu will take your average check up,” said Gregg Rapp, one such consultant. “My mom taught me to never order the most expensive thing on the menu, but you’ll order the second.”

Read the article here.