In my travels this year, I have observed and enjoyed a variety of hotel food and beverage options provided in innovative ways. These include café or dining room experiences as well as late-arrival room service. Evolving F&B delivery systems address customer demand for speedy service and branded products while attempting to ensure good old-fashioned hospitality.

Everyone knows F&B programs are pushing into hotel spaces not traditionally used for foodservice, such as self-serve lemonade made available in the lobby of a grand hotel or freshly baked chocolate chip cookies offered at check-in. For guests needing refreshments and light food offerings at all hours, many hotels provide well-stocked self-service grab ‘n’ go areas with refrigerated and frozen goods and individually wrapped sandwiches and salads.

I find these offerings to be excellent additions to a property’s overall F&B program and appreciate having food available at hours outside of normal dining patterns. Although I enjoy them, I consider how the venues are controlled from a food safety perspective.

As I sit in the lobby of one hotel and watch the housekeeping staff carefully spray the lid of the lemonade container, while polish gently drifts onto the disposable glasses, I pause and wonder who is in charge. In providing guests with the complimentary beverage, has the property potentially added risk to the overall operation? How often is the lemonade dispenser cleaned and sanitized? Is the product ever inspected? If so, who does it? Is the lemonade part of the operation’s HACCP plan?

Self-service programs of any kind must be carefully planned with food safety in mind. F&B offerings must be driven not just by customer demand but by realistic HACCP-oriented control measures, and they should be monitored and controlled at all times. While self-service programs add flexibility to F&B offerings and provide guests with desired services, we cannot relax our standards. Here are some considerations for your operation’s self-serve, grab ‘n’ go food offerings:

• Are freshly baked cookies displayed in a closed cabinet with a serving utensil or, better yet, individually wrapped? The delivery method may change depending on availability of staff to monitor the product.
  
• Is a system in place to ensure first-in, first-out inventory rotation?
  
• Do staff conduct daily visual inspections of individually wrapped products?
  
• Are grab ‘n’ go refrigerated areas on the same temperature monitoring and recording system as the back-of-house units?