🎙️ EXPITALITY TIME ☕️ The Spirit of Hospitality: Energizing Teams and Transforming Eateries Through Genuine Connections

Welcome to Talk About TV's Expatiality Time. I'm your host, michelle Oliver, and today's episode is sponsored by Expatiality. Expatiality creates exceptional, experiential outdoor hospitality businesses because the experience of hospitality transforms the world. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Please subscribe and visit us also on YouTube at Talk About TV. We know that food and beverage in hospitality and any kind of hotel or any type of hospitality that food and beverage can be an extraordinary source of ancillary revenue. We know that it's a wonderful way to serve the guests and what a great vehicle it can be right. And we also know that it can be really challenging and it really can be challenging to keep the food and beverage up and running when there's inconsistencies, when you've got a hotel or an outdoor hospitality property, whatever it is, to keep the food and beverage alive and going. When you're dealing with staff and when you're dealing with a lack of staff and you're dealing with food with really small margins and then you're trying to attract people. So the reason I mention this is that I just want to be sensitive to the truth that it is really a challenging industry and I really would love to hear from any of you in outdoor hospitality or in hotel, or even if you just own an independently standing restaurant or a chain of restaurants or whatever. Because I honestly feel like I say the same thing repeatedly, and I guess I do it because I come on every Friday. This is Expatality Time. I'm Michelle Oliver and I like to come on here on Fridays and just speak a little bit about what my experience was like, either personally, you know, as a patron, as a client, as a customer, and or working on the other side of this, consulting and facilitating these businesses as they're being built.

And last night I had the opportunity to go to attend three different establishments as a customer, and again I'm here saying kind of the same thing. So I'd love to hear from all of you some input on what I'm about to share. I the first. All three of the establishments that I went to last night were preceded by a reputation, and one of them in particular is known for, or was known for, being very, very like a real hotspot, like everybody, apparently, except me has been there. I had never been there before and it had a reputation of being kind of a magnet, you know, the kind of hotspot where everybody knows your name. You go. It's really it's a great experience. You can't wait to go back and you have stories to tell from being there, and I've heard a lot of these stories.

Well, last night my experience was more than disappointing and it's the typical story of the bustling, wonderful experience and then new ownership comes in and you can't quite pinpoint what happened. But it's just not the same anymore. So I went in very curious and open minded because I'd heard so many good things and I was anticipating there's kind of a legend behind one of the drinks there and I was excited to to interact with the people and just learn about what, why this was such a special spot. But it was that feeling where everything was just very sterile and and this is why I always come back to the vision and the spirit of the thing like you can have the law and then you can have the spirit of the thing, and the spirit was not there. As a matter of fact, everything felt so cold. I felt like I was entering a place that I'd heard these warm, lovely stories about and I wasn't even greeted. And then, when I was greeted, I felt more like I was being analyzed and critiqued and nothing felt right. The whole experience was all I can say is sterile and it was like no one wanted to engage. It was almost like they were afraid to engage. And hospitality tell me if I'm wrong is so much about the personal relationship and the engagement with the guest, and usually I will have a great experience, no matter where I go, because if they're not engaging with me, I will begin to engage with them, and I was with an individual who is very engaging and very much wanting to interact with people, and so he was beginning to interact and that did not go well. It was like it was a very strange. So again. Then the next place was much, much better, but it was like the brand first of all. A brand almost never can carry itself Like. The people have to be an extension of that and they are what bring it alive. Right, excuse me. They are the energy in the spirit behind the message and they're communicating that energy to the guest. And it was this weird hesitating feeling that I felt from all three of the places we went that were all very distinctly different branded environments and they could have and should have been fun.

The other thing that I want to bring up with this is that I know how difficult it is to operate a food and beverage establishment and to keep the consistency. And what people tend to do, of course, is draw back because the margins are low on the food and if you are trying to operate like you're paying a band. Let's say we were at a place last night that they only operate until 9 o'clock, which was very strange, and on Saturdays, I believe, they end at 11. I don't know, it seemed very restricted to me. And yet if you are a social place like that, you almost have to give over, give and not contract, but extend yourself even more to create the energy that then attracts people and keeps them coming. And I know how expensive it is to do that because I have done it. I also have experienced that working that right when you feel like corporate is telling you to draw back, and I can't actually say I've ever been corporate. So the small business, when I would feel like contracting and pulling back out of fear, the more we would give. All of a sudden it's like you open up those streams of energy and people are attracted to that and then you just that's what got the business going again.

So the third place we went, I felt the same thing. It was this overformality where you know, when they're going through all the motions and you just not feeling it. Yeah, that's what it was last night and and yet I was with a person that you know. There's a lot of energy and fun and chemistry and and and that brings me. So the. The person I was with is involved in a very exciting project and and he's built, you know, really successful businesses and motivates a lot of people. So we were talking about this.

You know what is. What is it? And I'm gonna put the question out to you. I would so much appreciate hearing your input on this. What are you doing to keep the spirit of your brand alive in the face of budgets, of staffing problems, of people who you're training up in hospitality, because we can always spot them right, like the ones who just have it and then the ones that are just going through the motions?

There's just no. All I can say is like it is the spirit of a thing, that is the energy and the magnetism of it, and that intention, that desire, that willingness to engage with another human you know, with the spirit of someone can really cover up a lot of other errors. You know a lot of other mistakes, a lot of other imperfections. If you can get that right and yet you can do all the other things right, and without that, it's just kind of false flat. So those are my thoughts for today. Happy Friday to everyone. And it's going to snow here in Colorado. I hope it seems like we might finally start getting that, and this is our season. So have a beautiful weekend. Everyone Go out and, I don't know, spread the spirit of just connectedness and inspiration and love. I guess it kind of comes down to that, right.