When Murray Dow founded the Dow Hotel Company (DHC) in 1997, his plan was to acquire and operate full-service hotels across the country and to impose his high quality standards on them. Dow assembled a small team of talented executives with winning track records and superior standards and soon made it clear that food and beverage would be one of the keys to achieving their goals at every acquired property. Bluntly, he states, “Without great food service, all you’re selling is a room.”

That idea has certainly found its way into the mainstream, with hotels, resorts, and casinos focusing on food and beverage as a selling point by creating their own innovative programs or reaching out to star chefs to add zing to their food outlets. The notable success of Seattle-based DHC, however, is not merely that it has produced a string of hotels with thriving food and beverage operations, but that it has done so with properties across many major brands.

DHC currently operates 10 properties under the Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental, Radisson, and Starwood flags, and—with the exception of the popular and profitable Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse at the Doubletree Hotel Chicago O'Hare Airport-Rosemont—has maintained complete control of food and beverage in all of them. The secret to survival for DHC food and beverage operations over so many corporate landscapes has been adherence to a do-it-yourself restaurant concept that is scalable and flexible enough to fit into any site, yet formatted enough to make its implementation manageable and expeditious. In formulating such a concept and continuing to use it successfully at new properties, DHC has, in fact, created its own restaurant brand: Basil’s Kitchen.

The broad description of the Basil’s Kitchen concept (named after Dow’s mentor at Westin, Basil Miaullis) is a “casual, yet sophisticated” atmosphere with “approachable” Mediterraneaninspired cuisine. To the weary business traveler, that sounds much like the description of many unremarkable and nearly indistinguishable hotel restaurants around the country.

Despite those common claims, careful attention to fresh ingredients, detailed service, and unhotel- like décor have garnered a strong reputation for Basil’s and raised it above many traditional hotel dining venues. The concept allows for local favorites, chef specialties, and seasonal dishes around a selection of core signature items; strives for friendly and attentive but unpretentious service; and aims for a colorful, inviting ambiance in furnishings and design. The first Basil’s Bar & Kitchen appeared eight years ago at the Embassy Suites Chicago–O'Hare/Rosemont, and there are currently seven booming Basil’s restaurants in DHC’s ten hotels, so it would appear that, whatever label or description is applied, the concept has met with approval.

Within the relatively small organization of DHC, the executives wear many hats. Until recently, Basil’s Kitchen concept and all food and beverage operations were in the hands of VP of Operations Ernie Catanzaro. Catanzaro echoes Dow’s belief that food and beverage is of primary importance. “We don't want to hear that food and beverage is a loss leader. We believe in making a profit on food and beverage, and all of our properties have very good food and beverage profits. We can be as high as 45 percent [of total revenues] some months. We believe food and beverage drives revenues, which drives overall business at the hotel.” DHC’s food and beverage goal for all properties is 40 percent of total revenues.

DOWN-TO-EARTH
Catanzaro joined the upper management of DHC in 2005, but his career had led from management of various food and beverage assignments for Marriott and director of catering at Hilton, to sales and marketing at Starwood, to the position of GM at DHC’s Hilton Atlanta Northeast. That multidisciplinary awareness was apparent in Catanzaro’s management of the Basil’s Kitchen concept. Although Catanzaro will be moving on to other hotel management challenges on the East Coast and will place food and beverage operations in the care of his Dow teammates, he gladly points out the strategies he believes made Basil’s the success that it is.

Among those strategic approaches were tactics to provide the greatest value to guests while lowering operational costs. Catanzaro took full advantage of economies of scale for food purchasing and for sourcing of uniforms, tabletop and furnishings, and even for marketing. By leveraging buying power for all units, he accessed the 8 percent discount in food costs that larger corporate brands enjoy and found 10 to 15 percent savings in shared, brand-wide promotional expenditures.

Meanwhile, his marketing strategies needed to be adaptable to each market but sensible financially. The balance between guest experience and the company bottom line was decided on Catanzaro’s desk. He demurs, “It’s not rocket science, it’s a hotel restaurant.” But he and the DHC organization discovered the balance that can add 40 percent to food sales in the first year for a newly acquired property. That might sound like rocket science in some quarters.

Catanzaro boils down the sum of changes for foodservice in acquired properties by pointing out the difference between “down-to-earth” and “dumb-to-earth” dining. “I think the menus some brands have released recently qualify as oversimplified food and beverage—like I didn’t know fruit was good for me and sausage is an indulgence without them telling me. You can’t insult the diners’ intelligence and expect them to come back.” There is, however, a wide range between “dumbed-down” food and esoteric fine dining, and Basil’s seems to have found the right niche.

The Basil’s Kitchen menus function well in spanning the variety of tastes that might pass through a DHC property. While one might be challenged by Scallops Mornay or Prosciutto Prawns with Herb Boursin Cheese, the Steaks & Chops section of the menu will bring you back home. If the phrase “Wild Mushroom Bruschetta” causes apoplexy in the anxious voyager, “Double-Cut Pork Chops” are close by to soothe his nerves. Thus, “down-to-earth” has a prominent place on the menu, while the more adventurous guest can be satisfied as well.

While Basil’s menus are not swayed by gimmicky trends, DHC is always reevaluating their offerings to provide simple, healthful food their guests desire. Hotel brands impose minor constraints— like Hilton’s specified, mandatory 60-item breakfast buffet—but Catanzaro assures that the end result will always be completely within the principles and standards of the Basil’s vision. Top-selling items like Salmon Basil’s, Steak Vesuvio, Basil’s Meatloaf, and the signature Navy Bean Soup help to form the core of items that must be offered at every location. “Still, your best-selling item at lunch is a cheeseburger,” says Catanzaro, and he can see no reason not to give people what they want. In that vein, Basil’s will be adding more items to its popular signature desserts menus.

Chef Jesus “Jesse” Diaz, the original Basil’s chef and current F&B director at Embassy Suites Chicago O’Hare-Rosemont, makes an annual stop at each location to provide a refresher course in all that is Basil’s and to help with new dishes. Diaz created six menus worth of food items to finally arrive at the initial Basil’s menu. “I didn’t want the customer to be scared by complicated dishes,” says Diaz. “I just tell the chefs to aim for quality and freshness [in their own menu items].” He also encourages chefs to add local favorites with the same attention to quality. Diaz’s visits keep the Basil’s vision on track and remind F&B managers at individual sites that they haven’t been forgotten and that their performance is being observed.

Catanzaro says the “approachable” menus are part of the overall attempt to eliminate intimidation for guests in all facets of the restaurant. The wine list minimizes wine anxiety with an ample selection of mid-priced wines and removes the stress of a bottle purchase with a by-the-glass program of 16 to 18 moderately priced wines. Catanzaro emphasizes the importance of not overpricing menu items for DHC’s large number of business travelers. Further, the majority of those business people are not looking for a wild club or hipster scene after a long day of work or travel. Basil’s seeks to make guests comfortable in a casual atmosphere with reasonable prices.

QUICK CHANGE
The size and nature of DHC made a food and beverage concept like Basil’s Kitchen a necessity. DHC prides itself on its streamlined business architecture and ability to react to concerns at any of its properties almost instantaneously, unlike the often-sluggish attention from large public corporate entities. DHC’s strategy of expanding its portfolio of hotels through acquisition and maintaining top-to-bottom control of food and beverage means that new restaurants need to be up and running within a very short time. The time and effort implications for a small team acquiring new restaurant venues and flipping them while maintaining high standards and a tight schedule would be daunting without a detailed plan.

If DHC were to purchase properties and retain the restaurants already in place, keeping track of the inherited data for various inventories, diverse supplies, distinct purchasing schedules, and unique daily operations of all of them would be an enormous, ongoing task. Even putting different restaurants in place from scratch would require great effort for many of the same reasons. The solution, according to Catanzaro, was to “not reinvent the wheel” every time. By having a go-to, turnkey concept like Basil’s, all decisions have been made from an already successful plan that has been perfecting itself with each new opening, and purchasing, inventory, and operational data can be rolled into a tested format.

The rapid deployability of the Basil’s Kitchen concept is the basis for another tactic DHC employs after acquisition, which is for a newly acquired DHC property to see a new restaurant up and running right away. In Dow’s experience, when many management companies take over a restaurant, employees are promised improvements and shown glimpses of lofty goals. When employees fail to see changes, they are disheartened, so DHC’s philosophy is to give them change immediately by renovating a restaurant as something “real and tangible” to inspire them.

There seems to be no lack of those acquired properties’ restaurants in need of renovation and tender loving care. Dow has found that many of the properties DHC has taken over had been run by unenlightened managers who didn’t share their belief in strong food and beverage programs. Dow and Catanzaro see neglected food and beverage outlets as unfulfilled potential for the entire hotel and an obvious opportunity for DHC to create an immediate difference.

“When we take over a hotel and see a decrepit lounge, for example, that is dark and has never been renovated, our eyes light up right away,” says Catanzaro, “and we say, ‘The business person staying here is probably not going to this bar.’ A typical example is the Hilton Atlanta. We took it over about five years ago, and it originally had a bar next to the restaurant. It wasn't enclosed, and the lights were on full blast. We dimmed the lights, added artwork on the walls, and put a window between the restaurant and the bar to close it off a bit. We put some high-top stools in there, some restaurant seating, and nice wine menus on each table. We also added new carpet and a television. The only thing we’re disappointed about is not making it larger. There are some nights you can’t even get in there, it’s so packed. For all of our properties, we look at the restaurant and bar and say, ‘Let's attack it.’ We don’t leave it alone.”

COMING ATTRACTIONS
Beyond the initial success of Basil’s Kitchen, where Dow says he is seeing 10 percent gross margin, the variations of Basil’s Tavern and Basil’s Bistro have taken their places in the brand family. The Tavern, in place at the Sheraton North Houston location, is a more relaxed and sporty atmosphere, and the Bistro at the Marriott Suites Deerfield offers an assortment of small-plate items. These spin-offs from the original concept are meant to fill more precisely the foodservice needs of individual properties. While built around the same central concept, the menus and atmosphere can be tailored to the location, space, and setting.

Dow and the DHC team are not done with the concept restaurant strategy yet. Their family-friendly Sunspot concept is being formulated for resort locations and is currently being tested at the Anaheim Marriott Suites and the Radisson Hill Country Resort & Spa in San Antonio. Meanwhile, the BC Lounge (short for “Business Casual”) is being given a try in Oregon’s Crowne Plaza Portland-Lake Oswego. With DHC looking at one or two new properties this year and planning aggressive growth for the future, these two fresh concepts will add to Basil’s and its variations to provide an even better fit for new and existing locations.

DHC’s achievements with 10 properties arelargely due to the symbiosis that Murray Dow demands between room sales and food and beverage. “In effect, Basil’s is there to drive room nights,” he says, adding, “We believe that many customers make their catering decisions based on the quality of the restaurant. Basil’s acts as a preview of the type of food and service to expect from a banquet.” As a company that works across brands, Basil’s has become a high-profile selling point for DHC’s hotels. Perhaps without intending it, Basil’s Kitchen has become the Dow Hotel Company’s flagship brand.

Denny Lewis is a frequent contributor to HOTEL F&B.