Noel Moitra
Professor Trilokinath Raina
27 April 2010
HOSPITALITY RETAIL MANAGEMENT
A
Case Study Of Roles and Responsibilities of Retail Managers in Two Existing
Hospitality
Business Environments
Introduction
In today’s context, hospitality has
outgrown its roots and is, in fact, representative of an industry. The
definition of hospitality that perhaps suits this Paper best is, “the
relationship between a guest and a host, or the act or practice of being hospitable,
that is, the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers at
resorts, membership clubs, conventions, attractions, special events, and other
services for travellers and tourists” (answers.com). Since the field has opened
up greatly, a surmise can safely be made that there is a vast number of players
involved, each with his or her own role to play, blending in the ultimate
picture with the host’s averment of caring for and entertaining guests. It
becomes necessary, therefore, to go down a level or two and appraise the role
of a retail manager, who, as we shall see later, is very much in the forefront
of the situational management arena. Thereafter, an elite restaurant will be
assessed with respect to its history and current status.
Aim
The aim of this Case Study is to
evaluate the roles and responsibilities of retail managers in the Food and
Beverages category at both ends of the cost scale and appraise a renowned restaurant in
relation to its historical and current perspective in a retail environment, the
public sector.
Scope of Study
Having introduced the
hospitality industry and stipulated the aim, this Paper will look at the
industry in greater detail, compare the role and responsibilities of retail
managers in the Food and Beverages category of a high end hotel, the Park Plaza
Victoria London and the low cost
fast food giant, McDonald’s.
Subsequently, El Bulli of Roses, Spain will be appraised in relation
to its historical and current
perspective in a retail environment, the elitist public sector.
The
Hospitality Industry
‘The
hospitality industry is composed of a variety of sectors within the service
industry that include, among others (bhtafe.edu.au):
·
Food and beverage services, e.g. restaurants, cafes,
bistros, clubs, etc.
·
Accommodation, e.g. hotels, motels, resorts, bed and
breakfast, etc.
·
Entertainment, e.g. theatre, musicals, live band shows and
cinema halls, etc.
·
Functions and event management, e.g. corporate functions,
expos, etc.
·
Recreation services, e.g. health and fitness centres, golf
clubs, theme parks, etc.
·
Gaming facilities, e.g. casino type hotels, casino type
resorts, etc.
·
Additional fields within the tourism industry like
transportation, cruise liners, special historic trains, etc.’
‘The hospitality industry is divided
into two categories, the commercial and the non-commercial categories (ibid). The
commercial category includes establishments that operate for profit, whereas the
non-commercial category comprises establishments that operate on a not for
profit basis. With the advent of government privatisation policies, commercial
caterers are now replacing many of the non-commercial food operators. Thus,
there is less of a distinction between non-profit organisations and profit
making enterprises nowadays. Examples of the commercial category include:
·
Restaurants
·
Hotels
·
Takeaway / fast food shops
·
Motels
·
Bistros
Examples of the non-commercial category
include:
·
Hospitals (food services)
·
Relief agencies like The Salvation Army (food
services)
·
School canteens
·
Prison canteens
·
Gurudwara Langars (Free meal at Sikh temple)
Note: The above list contains only the core sector within
the hospitality industry’. (ibid)
As stated, the hospitality industry
offers a variety of services within several distinct sectors. ‘The quality of
service on offer to guests depends on the price being charged. For example, in
the food and beverage area, eating in a three- star rated restaurant will be
far more expensive than eating in a one star-rated restaurant. This also
applies in the accommodation sector. Staying for a weekend in a five-star
international hotel will dent your wallet far more than staying for a weekend in
a two-star rated hotel’ (ibid).
About the Hotel
The hotel in question is the Park Plaza
Victoria London. Part of Carlson, a global travel and hospitality company, the
four star deluxe Park Plaza Victoria London hotel is centrally located just two
minutes from Victoria Station and within walking distance of some of the city's
main tourist attractions, including Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Westminster
Abbey, etc. Apart from excellent accommodation, the hotel features a
world-class, AA One Rosette award-winning restaurant, the on-site JB's
Restaurant serving modern European cuisine and a comprehensive
wine list, as well as the
collocated JB’s Bar (parkplaza.com).
Retail Manager
The retail manager in any section of a
hotel has an onerous job, particularly in the Food and Beverages (F&B)
segment. Basically, he is responsible for ‘running the restaurant and bar to
meet the hotel’s targets and policies, aiming to maximise profit whilst
minimising costs. Retail managers ensure promotions are accurate and
merchandised to the hotel’s standards, staff is fully versed on the target for
the day and excellent customer care standards are met. Depending on the size of
the establishment and structure, retail managers may also be required to deal
with human resources, marketing, logistics, information technology, customer
service and finance’(prospects.ac.uk). According to U.S. Lodging 1995
statistics, the F&B Department constitutes the second largest revenue
generator of a typical hotel with an average of 23.1% for Food sales and 8.6 %
for Beverage sales (bilkent.edu.tr). JB’s has a F&B staff of 22 under the Retail
Manager.
Role of the Retail Manager
A retail manager’s typical
work activities may alter, but tasks usually involve, as listed in
prospects.ac.uk:
• managing and motivating a team to increase
sales and ensure efficiency;
• managing stock levels and making key
decisions about stock control;
• analysing sales figures and forecasting
future sales volumes to maximise profits;
• analysing and interpreting trends to
facilitate planning;
• using IT to record sales figures, for data
analysis and forward planning;
• dealing with staffing issues such as
interviewing potential staff, conducting appraisals
and performance reviews as well as
providing or organising training and development;
• ensuring standards for quality, customer
service, health and safety are met;
• resolving health and safety, legal and
security issues;
• responding to customer complaints and
comments;
• organising
special promotions, displays and events;
·
attending and
chairing meetings;
·
updating colleagues
on performance, new initiatives and other pertinent issues;
·
touring the sales
floor regularly, talking to colleagues and customers, and identifying or
resolving urgent issues;
·
maintaining
awareness of market trends in the retail industry, understanding forthcoming
customer initiatives and monitoring what local competitors are doing;
·
initiating changes
to improve the business, e.g. revising opening hours to ensure the store can
compete effectively in the local market;
·
dealing with sales,
as and when required.
·
Reporting regularly
to superiors, providing feedback and, if called for, advice.
Low Entry Level
‘The hotel industry is characterised
by a large number of employees’ (ibid). ‘Both white collar employees
and blue collar workers may find gainful employment. Entry level jobs usually
require no formal education. Professionals in the sector are usually qualified
with trade certificates and college degrees. Many hospitality schools offer
specialised courses of study in the hotel industry. The retail manager will
invariably be a degree holder in retail management; accounting/finance;
business studies or marketing, and a relevant degree involving food technology’
(ibid). This leads to another important topic that is taught at diploma/degree
level: Marketing Mix.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is probably the most
common marketing term. Its elements are the basic tactical components of a
marketing plan. Also known as the Four P's, the marketing mix elements are price, place, product, and promotion (marketingteacher.com).
 |
Source: Marketingteacher.com
|
Figure 1: THE MARKETING MIX
‘It is easy to understand by
comparing it with another common mix, a cake mix, the basic ingredients of
which are flour, eggs, milk and sugar. A cake is made using a certain mix. This
is easily changed for the next cake. If a sweeter cake is required, more sugar
is added. It is the same with the marketing mix. The offer made to the customer
can be altered by varying the mix elements. So for a high profile brand,
increase the focus on promotion and desensitise the weight given to price’ (marketingteacher.com).
The 7 Ps
Modernists have
found the need to increase the number of Ps by three, people, physical
evidence and process (marketingteacher.com). These attributes can be used to compare entities. How does the award-winning JB’s restaurant fare, along with JB’s Bar, as controlled by the retail manager? Gavin Fernando, the Retail Manager at JB’s
restaurant, amplifies hotel procedures and policies later in a free-wheeling extempore
monologue. Illustrations quoted by Gavin Fernando are used in the two
succeeding paragraphs.
1. Price:
There are many ways to price a product, like Premium Pricing, using a high
price where there is uniqueness about the product or service. This approach is
used where a substantial competitive advantage exists, as in JB’ Restaurant.
2. Place:
Place is also known as channel, distribution, or intermediary. It is the
mechanism through which goods and/or services are moved from the manufacturer/
service provider to the user or consumer. Established concerns like JB’s
Restaurant and Bar have intermediaries, established over the years for optimal
cost effectiveness.
3. Product:
A product is simply the tangible, physical entity that customers may be
ordering for consumption. Product Life Cycle has to be catered for, else it
might go stale or get spoiled if it is a wine. JB’s caters for it, by ordering
fresh vegetables every day and not storing frozen meat / meat products for more
than one week.
4. Promotion:
This includes all tools available to the seller for 'marketing communication'.
A restaurant may offer a glass of wine free with a particular dish, as an
example. JB’s generally run
promotions in the lean months of April and August, aiming to attract customers from outside, i.e. people who
are not guests residing in the hotel.
5. Physical
Evidence: Physical Evidence is the material part of a service. JB’s use it in
the excellent class of
crockery and cutlery, layout of the menu card, décor on a dish, linen, etc. as
is taught to all lesser staff on joining and clearly visible to all and sundry.
6. People:
People are the most important element of any service or experience. Services
tend to be produced and consumed at the same moment, and aspects of the
customer experience are tailored to meet the 'individual needs' of the consumer.
JB’s customises service by reserving favourite tables, remembering favourite
dishes, offering specific brands of liquor to fastidious customers, etc., using
a collated database.
7. Process:
Process is an element of service that
sees the customer experiencing an organisation's offering. It's best viewed as
something that the customer participates in at different points in time. For
instance, JB’s maitre d’ takes the hats and coats of valued customers and
ushers them to their favourite table.
Macro-environmental Factors
The analysis of
an institution is incomplete if the macro-environmental factors are not considered, to whatever end they
are applicable. Used under the acronym of PESTLE in the UK, each factor will be
considered in sequence (www.renewal.eu.com):
1. Political Factors: A reflection of how
government laws, which vary from country to country, affect restaurants. British
laws affect JB’s and were catered for, starting at the top managerial level and
percolating downwards, as reflected by the award of the coveted AA One Rosette
to JB’s Restaurant (www.parkplaza.com).
2. Economic Factors: These affect JB’s as
the exchange rate of the GBP has varied to a fair extent vis-Ã -vis the USD, the
Euro and other currencies. The currently weak USD more or less offsets the strong
Euro. The weak GBP is worrisome (topequitynews.com).
3. Social Factors include cultural
aspects, health consciousness, age of staff, career attitude and understanding
of safety. These fall within the ambit of a retail manager and JB’s have not
faced any problem in recent times.
4. Technological Factors include ecological
aspects, such as automation, technology incentives and the rate of
technological change. JB’s feature state of the art technology in the kitchen,
discreet billing procedure and all-round Wi-Fi availability for guests (www.parkplaza.com).
5. Legal Factors include discrimination
law, consumer law, antitrust law, employment law, and health and safety law.
These factors affect how a company operates, its costs, and the demand for its
products. JB’s is fully compliant with all relevant mandates.
6. Environmental Factors include awareness
to climate change, carbon footprint and greenhouse effect and adoption of the
UK's Hospitable Climates initiative (hospitableclimates.org.uk). Though this is more of the hotel’s
responsibility, JB’s does its best to stay within limits laid down by the Hotel
Management.
Tete-a-Tete with the Retail
Manager at JB’s Restaurant
Gavin Fernando, the Retail Manager at JB’s Restaurant
explained Hotel procedures and policies regarding man and material management
and the Marketing Mix on 15 April 2010. He said, “We are part of a 4-star hotel and there
are mandatory standards and legal issues to be met and maintained. I hold
degrees in both Marketing and Restaurant Management. Upkeep of the restaurant
and bar is my prime responsibility and my staff of 22 helps out. Our restaurant
has won the AA One Rosette; prices at JB's Restaurant are about 10% higher than
in a comparable restaurant. I have delegated certain responsibilities to senior
staff, i.e. my Shift Managers. They conduct short 10-minute classes for the
rest three times a week on their individual as well as collective tasks. They
ensure standards for quality, customer service, health and safety are met and
report to me on a weekly basis. They also monitor our stock position, so that I
am always forewarned.”
“We get all our market
products from our intermediaries, ASDA Groceries, on a daily basis. I visit the
marketplace off and on, so I am at par with my suppliers and know what’s new. The
months of April and August tend to be lean periods for both the hotel and JB’s.
We run major promotions in these months, aiming to attract customers who are
not residents in the hotel. Our promotion for this month is called, 'No meal,
no deal.' It is an offer of a two-course meal with a half bottle of wine for
£15 and is promoted through our website and leaflets in dailies, run by our
print media supplier. It works well and we manage 10-15 new faces every day.”
“Every time one of our
regulars makes a booking, our alert system warns me. I run through our database
to check on likes and dislikes, favourite table, favoured waiter/waitress, etc.,
and warn the Shift Head. Whenever a first-time visitor pays his bill, we inform
him that he is on our database and the next time he comes, he will be treated
like a Red Card Holder and get a 5% discount. After 5 visits, he is upgraded to
a Silver Card Holder and gets a 10% discount. 10 more visits and he becomes a
Gold Card Holder and gets a 15% discount. For guests staying in the hotel, this is done by the Hotel staff at the Billing Dept. All promos
are sent by e-mail also.”
Having completed the
review of a high-end restaurant like JB’s, a comparison could be made in the qualitative
sense, using the same parameters, with the role of a retail manager in the fast
food chain giant, McDonald’s.
About McDonald’s
When
McDonald’s Corporation founder Ray Kroc’s first ‘Golden Arches’ opened for
business fifty-five years ago, on April 15, 1955, little did he know that he
was creating quick meal history (aboutmcdonalds.com). He had organised an operation built
on taking care of the customer, providing a clean, family environment, and
serving hot, fresh product, fast. With all attention on details (ibid), the
McDonald’s of 1955 focussed on three foundational principles: Quality, Service,
and Cleanliness (‘QSC’). An additional ‘V’—for value—was added in 1975 (ibid). They
have more than 32,000 restaurants around the world in 117 countries, one of the
world's largest chain of hamburger fast food eateries, catering to close to 60
million customers every day (ibid). McDonald's main products are hamburgers,
cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, egg muffins, French fries, milkshakes and
desserts, sold under brand names (ibid).
The Retail Manager
In general
terms, the role of the retail manager at McDonald’s is similar to that of his counterpart at JB’s. There are,
however, many differences when it comes down to the fine print. Firstly, JB’s is a 4-star rated high-end restaurant,
catering to the elite and affluent. McDonald’s
is a low-cost minimum frills fast food eatery for people who either do not have
the time to dawdle over a meal, or have a budget to adhere to. Generally, they
are from the younger generation. Moreover,
JB’s is a diner where no one can predict how many customers will turn up and what
will be ordered on any specific day. All items listed on their wide menu have
to be made available in a reasonable timeframe. As only fresh vegetables
are served, their menu has to be seasonal. It is not so difficult at the Bar,
as can be readily understood. In McDonald’s case, the only question is that of
volume. The menu is fixed. Changes, if any, may be seen in different parts of a
country, depending on demographics. Sometimes, competition may force a cut in
prices. Pricing techniques need some flexibility. At JB’s, retention of staff is important, as considerable amounts of
money and time are spent on bringing the staff up to desired standards.
Staff at McDonald’s tend to be students working part-time, second jobbers, etc.
Turnover is rapid for various reasons, but the cost involved in training is
relatively small. So what does the Marketing Mix have in store for the retail
manager at a McDonald’s outlet?
1. Price:
As just said, pricing techniques need
flexibility. McDonald’s therefore uses:
·
Penetration Pricing: When McDonald’s first began
to break into the coffee market, they ran a large marketing campaign in order
to gain some market share in the industry.
For a limited time frame, you could get a free small coffee every
morning from 4-7 am. This was to promote
their new coffee partnership with Green Mountain Coffee and helped spread the
word that McDonald’s had started offering coffee (Pappalardo, 2008). This approach was also used by France Telecom
and Sky TV (marketingteacher.com).
·
Optional Product Pricing: Companies will attempt
to increase the amount customer spend once they start to buy. Optional 'extras'
increase the overall price of the product or service. McDonald’s often offer a
large cola for the price of a small one, if overall spend is above a certain
amount. This technique is used by airlines, who now charge extra for seats that
provide more leg room. On a pricier scale, corner plots of land come at a
premium (bangalore.click.in).
·
Promotional Pricing: McDonald’s, using a banner or spelled out on
their sign, always offer some sort of promotional pricing. For example, the McDonald’s in Maine is
advertising “Two Sausage McMuffin’s for $3,” on a large banner draped across
the building on their restaurants in Maine.
This promotion changes weekly and may consist of different menu items
packaged together (Pappalardo, 2008).
·
Value Pricing: This approach is used where
external factors such as recession or increased competition force companies to
provide 'value' products and services to retain sales (marketingteacher.com). The
most notable and recent example of this is McDonald’s ‘Dollar Menu’. The Dollar
Menu was created because McDonald’s recognised that the economy was in a
decline and that their competition was getting fiercer. The Dollar Menu
satisfies the current economy status, increasing pressure towards
competitors. The Dollar Menu is by far the most economical product line
that McDonald has ever offered. (Pappalardo 2008).
2. Place:
Logistics is the focal point of a
quick-delivery entity. It is crucial for McDonald’s, which thrives on its
reputation for speed. McDonald’s invariably have more than one outlet in any
city it serves, located at spots where the younger generation tend to throng,
like multiplexes and malls. McDonald’s outsources most of its supplies. For
instance, in India, it has outsourced most of its supplies to McCain Foods,
with Cremica bakeries in Delhi and Mumbai providing the 380 sesame seed-topped
buns and Dynamix Dairy the sliced cheese (economist.com). The dynamic supply
chain is constantly on the go. Chicken McNuggets are made with all white meat
chicken, supplied by outstanding industry suppliers like Keystone Foods and
Tyson Foods, and they contain zero grams of artificial trans fat per serving (aboutmcdonalds.com).
3. Product:
The various items from different sources meet up at the restaurant at the right
time, part of the retail manager’s charter of duties.
4. Promotion:
McDonald’s uses this strategy to good effect; for instance, its Extra Value
Meals offers more generous helpings of French fries and chicken nuggets and since
June 1979, its Happy Meals has a toy as a gift (ibid).
5. Physical
Evidence: In 2008, McDonald's introduced its most comprehensive global
packaging design ever, to reiterate honesty and openness with customers and
remind them of McDonald's food’s quality and freshness (ibid).
6. People:
At McDonald's, all customer facing personnel are trained and developed to
maintain a high quality of personal service. Attention is given to personal
hygiene, dress and deportment (ibid).
7. Process:
McDonald's delivers value through all elements of the marketing mix. Process,
physical evidence and people enhance services.
Macro-environmental Factors
McDonald’s operates
in 117 countries, all of which have different rules and regulations, specific
to the F&B industry. Some countries impose limitations, e.g. Islamic
countries ban pork and pork products, India bans beef and beef products and has
not permitted the company to use pork either (Jatia, 2007). That forces McDonald’s
to shift to poultry and a wider range of vegetarian meals/salads. The latter
category is also touted as a low-calorie meal (ibid), much required in an obese
populace in the U.S., while also offsetting the high content of oil in
McDonald’s products and calories in their sodas and desserts. Poultry, per se, can
be a risky proposition, with the world having already experienced three Bird
Flu epidemics. McDonald’s must be complimented for managing so many outlets in
so wide a range of countries, with absolute standardisation insofar as uniform,
products, ethics, deportment and hygiene are considered. The only weak area identified
is recycling, due to the volumes involved, but the Retail Managers are doing a
good job at keeping their carbon footprint down to the lowest possible. This is
in keeping with the company policy of 2009, named McDonald's 2009 Global Best
of Green (ibid). Progress has been demonstrated on multiple fronts - energy,
packaging, anti-littering, recycling, logistics, communications, greening the
restaurants, greening the workplace, sustainable food and supplier leadership. As
may be expected, McDonald’s success has led to several protests about diverse
issues.
The Down Side
Paul Hawken, founder of The Natural Step
(TNS) is extremely critical about McDonald's: "The McDonald's Social
Responsibility Report is a fantasy. It presupposes that we can continue to have
a global chain of restaurants that serves fried, sugary junk food that is
produced by an agricultural system of monocultures, monopolies, standardisation
and destruction, and at the same time find a path to sustainability. As the
founder of TNS in the United States, I can say that nothing could be further
from the idea of sustainability than the McDonald's
Corporation" (greenyes.grrn.org).
Greenpeace (London) lists several complaints
about McDonald’s, one of which deals with
their staff, termed Exploiting Workers. It says, “Workers in the fast
food industry are paid low wages. McDonald's do not pay overtime rates even
when employees work very long hours. Pressure to keep profits high and wage
costs low results in understaffing, so staff have to work harder and faster. As
a consequence, accidents (particularly burns) are common. The majority of
employees are people who have few job options and are forced to accept this
exploitation, and they're compelled to 'smile' too! Not surprisingly staff
turnover at McDonald's is high, making it virtually impossible to unionise and
fight for a better deal, which suits McDonald's who have always been opposed to
Unions”(mcspotlight.org).
The El Bulli Restaurant, Roses, Girona,
Spain
El Bulli, a medium sized restaurant in
the city of Roses, Spain was selected by the highly regarded gastronomic
magazine ‘Restaurant’ as the best restaurant in the world in 2009 (theworlds50best.com),
a distinction achieved for the fourth consecutive year (wharton.universia.net).
Owned by Ferran Adrià , a Spanish culinary expert, in partnership with Juli
Soler and Albert Adrià , the restaurant retained its 3 Michelin Star status
since first achieving that laurel in 1997 (ibid).
What was
amazing about this restaurant is that it was open for only twenty-seven weeks
in a year, from mid- June to mid- December every year. El Bulli always announced
its operating schedule for the coming year. It was virtually impossible to get
a reservation for a meal in El Bulli, as it received over one million
requests for its seating capacity of about eight thousand a year, when open (ibid).
Adrià was known as the
‘alchemist of the kitchen’. Both he and his restaurant were recognised “for
their research in the realm of molecular gastronomy, in which his studies of
the micro-properties of specific foods, species and ingredients have led to the
development of unique recipes” Sandulli and Chesbrough (2009: online).
The research was carried out in the six months the restaurant closed. “Studies
of the micro-properties of specific foods, species and ingredients have led to
the development of unique recipes. In 1999, they decided to share their
knowledge about creating oils, sauces and aperitifs with Borges, the food
manufacturer. Borges launched products that were co-branded by both companies.
This became a new source of revenue for El Bulli, which concluded similar
co-branding agreements with other companies such as NH Hotels and Nestlé. This
strategy, based on a small number of close alliances, aimed to avoid any loss
of control over the brand” Sandulli and Chesbrough (ibid).
“They also aimed to find and absorb new
ideas in that period. This enabled the restaurant to stay one step ahead of
other restaurants that tried to copy its formula for success” Sandulli and
Chesbrough (ibid). On the other hand, add the authors, “El Bulli markets its
brand and its knowledge through a variety of tightly managed relationships that
have enabled its brand to penetrate business sectors far beyond the typical
business activities of a restaurant. So while the restaurant is not profitable,
its overall group of businesses does make money” Sandulli and Chesbrough (ibid).
This paragraph is a succinct summary of El Bulli’s strategy and part of its
perspective of the restaurant business.
The restaurant had a limited season: the
PIXA season, for example, ran from 15 June to 20 December. Bookings for the
next year were taken on a single day after the closing of the current season.
It accommodated only 8,000 diners a season, but got more than two million
requests. The average cost of a meal was €250 (US$325). The restaurant itself
had operated at a loss since 2000, with operating profit coming from El
Bulli-related books and lectures by Adrià . As of April 2008, the restaurant employed
42 chefs.
El Bulli’s perspective was of
exclusivity: to provide exotic and one-of-a-kind dishes, seeking to stay atop
the lofty peak of ‘best restaurant in the world’. There are more than 10
million restaurants in the world (answers.google.com), but we can discount 99.99%
of them on grounds of quality. The competition is fierce and Adrià was willing to accept
financial loss on account of El Bulli, to retain top slot!
A look at their past history (elbulli.com) will
provide an idea of how the restaurant and its concepts evolved. From a minigolf
installation that provided barbecues alfresco in 1961 to a beach bar in '63,
the first restaurant came up as a grill in '64. Owned by a Dr. Schilling, whose
hobby was gastronomy, and who spent a lot of time away in Germany studying fine
restaurants and dishes, the restaurant would gain from his inputs and El Bulli
went from strength to strength as a restaurant. From '70-75, many more fancy
French dishes began to be served, including flambéed sea-bass with fennel,
prawns in Pernod, double entrecôte with béarnaise sauce and emincé of beef
Stroganoff (ibid). A new chef, Jean-Louis Neichel joined in 1975 and he
was asked to study the cuisine in the most famous restaurant then, La mère
Charles, whose owner was known to Dr. Schilling. By 1982, El Bulli was on its
way to stardom (ibid). Ownership changed hands, with age catching up with the
Schillings. Staff stayed on. El Bulli was one of the first haute cuisine
restaurants in Spain to serve sea urchins. Prices went up, as did decor and
style. Quality became a byword and soon, tables began to fall short. As the
Michelin stars came in, the concept had already evolved (ibid).
Uniqueness. One-of-a-kind. Exclusivity.
Closure:
In 2010, Ferran AdriÃ
announced he would close El Bulli in 2012, due to the massive monetary loss it
was incurring. He was quoted by The New York Times as planning to replace it
with a culinary academy. He later denied the announcement, saying that The New
York Times had misquoted him, and stated that El Bulli would reopen in 2014
after a two-year hiatus, as "initially planned" and would still serve
food. Adrià later confirmed, in an October 2010 Vanity Fair article, that the
restaurant would be closing permanently after July 2011.
In 2011, their website
stated: "On July 30th 2011 El Bulli will have completed its journey as a
restaurant. We will transform into a creativity center, opening in 2014. Its
main objective is to be a think-tank for creative cuisine and gastronomy and
will be managed by a private foundation." Bourdain interpreted the goal of
the new El Bulli Foundation to be an elite culinary and dining experience
development workshop, hosting not only chefs but "architects,
philosophers, [and] designers", and allowing them to "not just share
[their] successes, but to share [their] mistakes or [their] process with the
world as it's happening" by providing a forum to explore such concepts as
"do we need a dining room?" In 2021, The Observer named the closure of
El Bulli as one of the 20 "key moments in food" of the prior 20
years.
Commercial
Products
The kitchen at El Bulli
Texturas is a range of products by brothers Ferran and
Albert Adrià . The products include the Sferificación, Gelificación,
Emulsificación, Espesantes and Surprises lines and are the result of a rigorous
process of selection and experimentation. Texturas includes products such as
Xanthan and Algin which are packaged and labeled as Xantana Texturas and Algin
Texturas respectively.
Xanthan gum allows the user
to use a very small amount to thicken soups, sauces and creams without changing
the flavour. Algin is a key component of the "Spherification Kit" and
is essential for every spherical preparation: caviar, raviolis, balloons, gnocchi,
pellets, and mini-spheres.
Conclusion:
In the Case Study supra, the roles and responsibilities of Retail
Managers in two existing hospitality business environments, the exclusive Park Plaza
Victoria London and the fast food eatery, McDonald’s, have been compared using
the standard parameters so specified, i.e. the Marketing Mix with its 7Ps as
also the macro-environmental factors bunched under the U.K. acronym PESTLE. Strengths and weaknesses in the organisations have been described, with
McDonald’s under the hammer because of its size and diversity. The world’s best
restaurant in 2003 and again from 2006 to 2009, El Bulli, has also been
reviewed in relation to its historical and current perspective in a retail
environment, the public domain and the factors contributing to its phenomenal
overall success analysed, despite the fact that the restaurant per se is
actually losing money.
Recommendations
It is recommended
that unique or standalone restaurants take a leaf out of El Bulli’s book and
apply logical steps to improve their status. While a six-month layoff might not
be either feasible or practical, time could certainly be taken off by the upper
echelon to study workable principles.
It is also recommended that
higher-end hotels, mainly those in the 5-7 star category, enlist the aid of
reputed chefs from diverse locations like Bali, Goa and Viet Nam, etc. Dishes
from these countries/places have not been heard of yet and could well be a hit.
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