Beautiful, Empty And Broke

Let me start by offering season’s greetings to you all. As we head into what is, for many of us, the festive season of over-rated, over-indulgence, I find myself in an equally indulgent mood. A mood in which I feel somewhat pompously compelled to remind us to be nice to each other. Please don’t laugh, you see, having reflected on a year of projects, the awesome, the awkward and the occasionally absurd. I genuinely mean it. Can we just be nice? When everyone on a project is nice — owners, brands, operators, PMs, designers, architects, and yes, us F&B folks — everything flows better. When egos and agendas get parked at the door, the work gets done betterer (yes, that’s terrible grammar, but a solid point nonetheless). And considering that building and operating a profitable hotel is about as simple as brain surgery on roller skates, it’s no wonder tensions flare up. I appreciate we all have a role to play in that process but honestly people, just be nice.

With some incredible, and incredibly terrifying, projects inbound, I’ve decided that my new focus, no matter the challenges or tensions, is simply to be nice. As you probably know by now, I’m prone to being either checked-out bored or all-in obsessive. Well, let me assure you, I’m all in. So, invigorated by my newfound Zen mindset, I approached our last big meeting of the year fully loaded with nice. And I was crushing it, a shining beacon of diplomacy, the Dalai Lama of F&B. Frankly I was the absolute shit. For 11 minutes. But then — well, reality showed up with a baseball bat and took a swing at my optimism. What followed was a textbook demonstration of everything that’s fucked up about hotel F&B development. Let’s call it a fictional story to protect the guilty, my MD’s sanity and our consultancy’s future. Any resemblance to real events is, of course, purely accidental.

We were early in the project — a shiny new build hotel in… let’s say… Europe. Or the Middle East. Who knows. Complicated footprint, private label brand (definitely not one of the big five). The owners had poured in an ungodly amount of time, energy, and cash to get things rolling. Planning? Done. Permissions? In place. We were neck-deep in design discussions — ID, architects, PM, QS, the brand, and me. Everyone had a role. Everyone was doing their job. And that’s when the meeting turned into a Kafkaesque pantomime. The mission? Get the brand to approve the interior design. The architect needed to assess the impact, the QS was there to kill dreams with cost realities, and I was there waving my little flag for F&B profitability. It was all going fine until it wasn’t. The brand rep, in all their wisdom, decided the most pressing issue was — wait for it — Pantone shades. Apparently, the future of this hotel hinged on whether the exact hue of beige met their brand pillars and design intent. Meanwhile, the owner’s wallet was haemorrhaging cash faster than the QS could mutter “value engineering.” And me? I was sitting there, politely reminding everyone that our actual job was to make sure the F&B spaces were busy and profitable. Guess how well that went?

Instead of focusing on making these bars and restaurants work, we were lost in the vortex of fabric density and veneer tones. Not once did anyone — not one architect, designer, or brand rep — utter the words return, revenue, or results. We were designing for Instagram likes, not for till receipts. For design awards, not for happy, paying customers. And that, my friends, is why so many hotel F&B concepts die an expensive, beautifully designed death. Now I’m seriously unqualified to spout on about design, but I do know a thing or two about profit and return, so can I humbly and nicely suggest it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are a few simple ways we can keep revenue, return, and results front and centre while still delivering beautiful spaces:

1. Start with the Spend: Instead of obsessing over design intent, obsess over spend per head. What’s the average guest going to spend here? How does the design help or hinder that? A sexy bar with no comfortable seating for couples to linger? Kiss those extra rounds of cocktails goodbye.

2. Menus Drive Money, Not Just Mood: Design the space with the menu in mind. If the chef’s doing small plates, don’t saddle them with massive tables. If we’re going for high-volume dining, maybe skip the elaborate chair that takes 5 minutes to slide in and out of. Every design choice should ask: “Does this help us serve more food and drink?”

3. Flexibility = Profitability: A breakfast buffet that transforms into a co-working space by day and a cocktail lounge by night? Now we’re talking. Design for multiple revenue streams. A one-trick-pony space is a missed opportunity.

4. Think Like a Guest, Not a Designer: Will someone want to sit here for two hours and spend money? Will they take a photo but leave after one drink? Be honest. Guests don’t care about your Pantone. They care about the vibe, the comfort, and whether the drinks come fast and the food is worth a second order.

5. Forget the Fittings: No one and I mean no one cares about the bespoke €20k art installation except the owner who’s wondering how they were convinced to spend so much on something so utterly irrelevant to profit.

6. Lighting and Sound for Longevity: Bright lights and mellow music might be great for brunch, but a vibe shift for dinner can turn one cocktail into three. Design with adaptable lighting and acoustics so guests want to linger (and spend more).

7. Turn a Return from Dead Spaces: That awkward corner by the window? That forgotten nook near the host stand? Turn them into small revenue-generating zones — a wine tasting corner, a dessert station, or a grab-and-go coffee bar.

8. Brand Guidelines are Not Scripture: If the brand’s design guidelines get in the way of making money, challenge them. Nobody ever got rich because their chair fabric was perfectly on brand. Fight for what works.

9. Staff-First Design: Happy staff sell more. Give them a design that works — ergonomic bars, efficient kitchens, and enough room to move. Clunky layouts slow them down and bleed money.

10. Measure Success by the Till, Not the Tile: At the end of the day, no one’s paying the bills with brand alignment. A beautiful space that doesn’t make money is just a very expensive room with furniture.

So yeah, I’m all in on being nice. But I’m also all in on making sure we remember what we’re actually here to do: create F&B spaces that are alive, full, and making money. If that means ruffling some feathers in the design process, so be it. I’d rather be the asshole who talks about revenue than the polite bystander at the wake for another dead-on-arrival restaurant. Because when the tills are ringing, the tables are turning, and the owners are smiling, everyone wins. And wouldn’t that be nice?