A new luxury hotel and spa needs banquet menu conception before any culinary staff is on board.
Here is an opportunity to build a culinary conception, not around the preferences and pre-determined attributes of a culinary team but, rather, around the opportunities and needs as indicated by research into the national corporate group market (Aspen, Vail, Bacara, Golden Doors) combined with the local tastes and desires of a uniquely hip, liberal, organic, nationally recognized healthful, outdoors oriented town - Boulder. We took these elements and mixed them in with judicious knowledge of the basic, traditional requirements of a social market within this hip milieu.
We have a bushel basket of raw ideas to form into menus that market for catering and banquet departments.
Guiding Principle:
Position the menus as marketing tools to sell rooms and "feed" the target markets into the property.
Figure out how to get the town behind the new property - by using menus and a "personality" of the property as reflected through them:
The Solutions
- incorporate all the local farmer-grower products throughout the year.
- rent a stand at the Farmers' Market with a chef (temporary) in place selling foods prepared from the local produce, dairy, herbs, honey, meats, and game - the Best Tasting of Boulder.
- use the farmers' market stand to cross market to the social and wedding market. Nitty-gritty guerilla marketing at its best.
- use the farmers' market stand as a real "feel-good" extension for hotel guests to visit on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
- guarantee purchases from produce farms in area - of which there are many, thereby creating real symbiotic relations as well as terrific PR - a story waiting to be told.
- use local name-brand products developed and run from Boulder: Celestial Seasonings, Silk Soy, Horizon Dairy, and Wild Oats Markets. Mention them by name. Network with those brands. Build group business opportunities - organically.
- build into the menus a national image of cutting edge, health, outdoors, Front Range of the Rockies sensibility. Not just another boring old property with a boring old menu set.
- source mountain-gatherer-hunter products that give a unique Front Range image and that reflect Boulder's sensibility of itself .
These are products that bridge the plains - cattle, buffalo, and cactus - with the mountains: berries, wild flowers, pine, spruce, fir, elk, and deer, and lamb. The products would include dried chokecherries, birch syrup, fir tip tea, fir tip seasoning, wild range sage, rose hip jelly, prickly pear cactus juice, local grass fed cattle, lamb, elk, and buffalo.
Figure out how to get PR through the menus.
- springboard stories from the support and use of local, natural, and organic products, secure local newsprint, TV and radio; secure national culinary stories.
- send chefs to local school class rooms for natural preparations and healthful living "show and tells"; incorporate the power of food to live a better, active life.
- develop a 2 minute weekly NPR and Pacifica radio spot for Front Range NPR stations on natural front range health.
- cross polinate with NPR and Pacifica sponsorship of liberal issue programming - uniquely reflective of the Boulder sensibility. Take a risk - be a part of the culture rather than apart from it.
Figure out how to equal the strongest Spa, Front Range, and mountain destination competitive sets.
Nationally and in Colorado, the food competition is strong and ,at the Broadmoor which is in the same geographic market, the food competition is overpowering.
- create menus that rival the complexity and layering of our national comp set
- use copy that brings the food, atmosphere, and locale of the property to life
- reinforce the uniqueness of the locale throughout the menu composition
Figure out how to price for the local comp set so as to ensure that value is perceived yet "snooty" costliness is played down for first year of operation.
- give price value for breakfast and lunch menus based on both the local and national corporate group markets
- give "organic" value for social market
- give different and unique service values for a fair but high price point
- stay below national destination comp set pricing - acknowledging that we have an equal or superior product at a lower get-in cost -- always understanding that we have no track record - we are not The Broadmoor.
Figure out what niche markets are not being covered by caterers and hotels: markets that can give us leverage.
- develop system and methods to do kosher; rent local synagogue kitchen
- develop "kosher-like" menu
- develop full children's menu
- develop "spa" menu
- develop service styles and food presentation options that exceed that of local catering menus: stations, grilling stations, tapas tastings, "family style "table d'hote", French service
- develop food service styles that reflect the hip nature of the local market: sushi stations, organic salad stations, tapas
Figure out how to deliver consistently interesting food no matter who is in the kitchen, no matter who may try to take short cuts.
- compile menu options with specific, written, and elaborated details - so that the "recipe" is in the description of the food
- compile entrée food combinations that are not just meat and two veg but meat with accent plus 2 detailed veg along with detailed starch, making it extremely difficult for the kitchen to take a short-cut
To have the excitement of creating menus that will create revenue is the reason that we do this.
