Elements all-day restaurant at the 678-room Grand Kempinski Hotel, Shanghai, China, can do over 1,500 breakfasts a day. Hotel General Manager Rüdiger Hollweg and his executive chef, Bruno Bruesch, had several discussions around how to facilitate the flow of people at a buffet that has to accommodate a wide range of Asian tastes as well as those of Americans and Europeans. Chinese guests, for instance, typically have salad along with their choice of congee porridge, deep-fried noodles, dim sum, noodles or whatever.
Two months ago, therefore, Elements switched its salad buffet from the usual horizontal display to a vertical one. A cabinet was made locally, at minimal cost, which exactly fits the breadth of a functional column behind it.
Interior lighting highlights the salad ingredients, which are all from Mahota organic farm, with whom Bruesch has an ongoing supply arrangement.
For October 2018, the hotel recorded 92% occupancy, with average stay of 1.9 nights, and overall 70% of guests are domestic. Weekdays are predominantly financial and other business people, short of time: Weekends are families, en route to visit Disney Shanghai, for whom the hotel is an official partner.
Kids want to rush there, so again, breakfast time is short. About 80% of adults, and all kids, have breakfast included, and this means around 1,500 people of all ages can be in the breakfast room at any one time.
Helping yourself from a vertical display is quick. It is also more hygienic as customers do not have to lean, and breathe, over supplies. Americans, who constitute 4% of hotel guests, also subconsciously associate the vertical display with Whole Foods.
“I admit I was skeptical at first about the vertical display but now I am very happy, and guest satisfaction is extremely favorable,” Hollweg said.