The Suite Spot takes a trip to central Florida to visit the incredible AC Hotel Orlando Downtown, part of the Kolter Hospitality portfolio. The Regional Director of Food & Beverage at Kolter, Robert Mason, joins the Suite Spot to discuss:

Seasonal Menus
F&B in the Guest Experience
How Kolter Hospitality is Shaping F&B
The Importance of a Social Presence for a Hotel Property

Be sure to tune in to catch the whole episode.

Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree, continuing our series of the Suite Spot Road Trip into the summer a little bit coming into the fall. I’m here with right down the road from our Travel Media Group headquarters, I-4. I know you probably hear that and think might be a long way away. I-4 can be congested sometimes, but not too bad of a drive here. We’re gonna talk about that today. I’m here with Robert Mason, Regional Director of Food and Beverage at Kolter Hospitality. Robert, thank you so much for joining the Suite Spot. Hey, thanks for having me. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about your property today. We’re gonna talk a lot about the portfolio and your job here as the Food and Beverage Director, but I do want to get to, as it is, tradition here on the Suite Spot, get to know a little bit about your background and what led you to Kolter Hospitality.

Robert Mason: Wow. So I’ve been 42 years in food and beverage. It’s all I’ve ever done. It’s all I know. I started in the culinary side. I worked all the way up to executive chef. I actually studied under a master chef in San Francisco Bay Area and, had a really fun journey through culinary for about two decades. And about 15 years ago, I made the transition to the dark side, as I say, got into the front of house operations. and it’s been a great journey. Work brought me to Orlando. In San Fransico, I was kind of a small fish in a big pond, but here I’m kind of, was kind of a big fish in a small pond, so to speak. Yeah, but Orlando has certainly grown and developed over the last 20 years that I’ve been here. And just having fun. And this opportunity actually came up right in the middle of COVID. I came from a much larger property down in South Orlando. And the reason I took this job was couple full first, you know, I like the company culture. I liked the fact that the Skybar had so much to offer. I saw the potential right away. And it’s a smaller, easier to manage kind of thing ’cause everything’s in one place as opposed to a big sprawling resort with 15 outlets and that kind of thing. But I have stayed with the company because I really do enjoy all the people I get to work with Sarah, I know, you know, Sarah and John from our corporate office and Scott, our president, they just do a wonderful job. And they’re really people first. We’re a really people first company. So I believe in the vision here and that’s why I stay. It’s awesome to hear. And your story resonates coast to coast, but I think it’s a true example of hospitality professionalism. ’cause it’s transferable skills, right? Yeah. You know, you can work at a hotel, whether you’re in food and beverage on one side of the country, and then move all the way to the other, side of the country, like your story. And here you are in Orlando, before we get to talk about your property and this beautiful skybar that we’re in right now,right behind us, I four can throw a rock to the Kia Center, Citrus Bowl right over there. Orlando City Stadium. For those that aren’t familiar, Robert, that might be listening to this podcast, paint a picture of why this is just the perfect intersection and location. You’ve got yourself a great location here.

Robert Mason: We really do. We really do. So, you know, I always tell people we’re kind of three different operations within one. So during the week we get a lot of the downtown business people, a lot of the movers and shakers in downtown that come here for happy hour, A lot of celebrations. But then we transition on the weekend to really a sports venue before games, after games when the magic are playing. We’re full of magic fans. We’re kind of the go-to spot for magic fans here before and after games, especially when they win. And then of course when there’s events, you know, next week alone we have, I think six concerts in seven days. And so again, we’re kind of the spot that people wanna go to. They see the cutout of the building and they go, wow, that’s really cool up there. And so you could drive by and see that. So we’re right kind of in this intersection, where we’re close to everything. Dr. Phillips is a block away. Kia Center’s a block away. The soccer stadium’s two blocks away, so it’s just kind of right in the middle of all that excitement. And there’s more to come, I don’t know if you know, but downtown right next to the Kia Center, they’re gonna build a whole entertainment venue. A lot of things gonna be going on there. So downtown only continues to grow. It’s funny, mayor Buddy Dyer said 10 years ago that he was gonna make downtown an entertainment destination. And people thought he was crazy. But now it’s actually coming to fruition.

Ryan Embree: It’s incredible. We see here, we got a concert in just a few hours here at the intersection of I-4 and 408, but also the intersection of so many events, different types of travelers. And here at the AC Skybar, you really get to enjoy it all. And it’s really cool because I’ve seen over the years, I’ve been in Orlando resident now for almost a decade now, you see, start to see the skyline of Orlando. And this building is part of that iconic skyline. When people do drawings or people take photos, it’s very, very cool to see. But you also got a lot of people taking pictures of this incredible view right behind us. Talk to us about this AC Skybar and what guests just absolutely love about it.

Robert Mason: So, obviously, you can’t go wrong with the view that we have. We get great sunset views 365 days a year. And sometimes, it’s funny, we’ll be empty and then sunset’s 10 minutes away and people will just pile in and, and go along the glass to watch the sunset. And that’s a lot of times what attracts people here. But I think what has continued to elevate our business and has continued to resonate with locals and our hotel guests alike, is not just the great view. That’s great. But it’s really a bonus, right? It’s our craft cocktail program that we’re so proud of. We’re so proud to announce that we’re four years in a row. We’ve been the number one rooftop bar in Orlando. So continue to do that. Our food program and our outstanding service team that just continues to make our guests feel welcome and welcome them back.

Ryan Embree: Well, congratulations on those accolades. That’s super exciting to hear. I was a bit of factor of being able to enjoy some of that food and beverage and the hospitality that the AC Skybar had. Thank you for that. So generous. And you know, it was absolutely amazing. Got the steak sandwich and the banana old fashioned cocktail part of a seasonal menu. We’re gonna talk about that in a minute. But Robert, we’ve had a lot of conversations with operations people, marketing people, hospitality leaders. A big trend that is sticking with hospitality, especially over the last 10 years, is the impact that food and beverage has on the guest experience. Kolter Hospitality really, really focuses in on that. And you’re a big, obviously a big part of that. Share with us how you bring creativity to that and how it plays a role into the overall guest experience.

Robert Mason: So I think it’s really a matter of involving the people that make it happen every day. I think there’s a lot of different components to it. Just to kind of digress a little bit. But you know, here at the Sky Bar, one of the things that’s made us successful and that we’ve tried to now carry down some of our other properties is this idea that hotel, restaurants and bars often feel just like that. They feel like a hotel, restaurant and bar. And so when we put this together and we said, what’s the vision for the Skybar? We didn’t wanna be another hotel bar, another hotel restaurant. We really wanted to have our own identity. So it’s everything from how we do our social media to having our own website. And a lot of times people will show up here and they’ll say, wow, I didn’t even know this was in a hotel. A lot of times people think, well, the hotel rooms will help drive food and beverage. We look at it the opposite way. We look at food and beverage as a driver for the hotel rooms, and a lot of times that’s what we see. And so, really just taking what we know sells, right? Staying on top of those trends, reading those periodicals, staying on top of what’s new, what’s hot, what’s coming out, what’s available to us. And really capturing that and then carrying that to our other hotels and our other properties and allowing them to kind of be experienced that and be exposed to some of that. And sometimes they’re not, right. We all get busy in operations. We all get busy in day-to-day. Sometimes they’re not looking at that stuff. Whereas myself and my counterpart Greg McGowan, we’re always looking at that. We’re always talking about new angles on how we can do things and how we can continue to elevate our food and beverage experience. And we’re just at the tip of the iceberg. I’m so excited for what the next five years is gonna bring. Because really our goal is to establish Kolter not only as hotel destinations, but to really establish us as food and beverage destinations that when people think of Kolter Hospitality, they think of not only great hotels, but they think of a great food and beverage experience.

Ryan Embree: Well, you’re off to a great start here. Again, recognitions awards. I would encourage all of my listeners to go check out the website and menu. Talk to us though. We always love hearing from the people that create this. We’re about to transition from summer to fall, like I mentioned before. That’s a big time for you, right? Especially with a place with the seasonal menu. Talk us through that process because it’s a little bit more interesting than just saying, Hey, let’s go back and flip a page to what we did last year.

Robert Mason: No, certainly not the case here. And it’s something that’s been an evolving process. I’m a big believer in getting people to buy into what they’re doing, giving the people that have to do it every day, a sense of ownership over it. Right? And so this is something we started kind of almost ad hoc a few years ago where we had a bar manager and he and I would sit down and brainstorm about the menu and we would talk through what our seasonal menu was gonna look like. And then I forget who even thought of the idea, but hey, why don’t we get some of the bartenders involved in this? Right? And so we took a day and we set up a bar upstairs. That’s how we used to do it. In the old days, we’d set up a separate bar upstairs. Now we just do it at the lobby bar and it has gained momentum, right? Because what we found is that all of the team, right, all of our mixologists wanna be part of that process, right? And so we certainly give some guidelines, we don’t wanna end up with five martinis on the menu, right? But, it’s really incorporating those flavors. So when we talk about fall, we’re talking about things like maple and fresh herbs and smoked drinks and things like that. A little more bourbon forward. And really focusing on those things and getting the team thinking about those things. But also bringing in some things that are new on the market that, that maybe they haven’t been exposed to before. Bringing in a grapefruit, hibiscus tequila, bringing in some kind of kitschy items that maybe not everybody else is using. We do what we call the sky high. I’m sure you saw it last night, right? With the bubble on top of it. And when we started doing that, nobody else was doing that. Now a lot of people are doing that. So we’re always looking for that point of distinction, that signature drink, that signature dish that people come back for again and again. Now that said, right, just like every year at Starbucks. You can count on it. I wait for the day that pumpkin spice lattes come out because there are certain things that are fan favorites that people come back here. We have a great pumpkin spice espresso martini that we serve and we serve it in the fall. We may tweak it a little bit from year to year, but we also want to incorporate fresh things every single year. And so what amazes me, and I’m just so proud of our mixology team, they are so creative, so passionate, and they just come up with new ideas all the time. And I’ve learned so much from them. So it really becomes a mutually beneficial process and just working with, such an outstanding team.

Ryan Embree: It’s such a brilliant idea, Robert, because I think you talked about ownership at the very beginning and getting people buy into what were the culture here. And if you see that your drink was chosen to be on a seasonal menu, it’s a lot of pride I’m sure in some of those mixologists because there’s a lot of effort that goes into that. And also it keeps your guests really happy. Or even your patrons that, local patrons that might come in to see, Hey, what’s the, what’s the AC Skybar got in store for us this season?

Robert Mason: It’s funny that you should say that because I just had a couple people email me this past week, say, when is your fall menu coming out? What can we expect? And so, so it’s great. And the other thing I just wanted to mention real quick was the team gets together and they do kind of these brainstorming sessions and research and development sessions and just to watch them go through that process now, is they’re not afraid of hurting each other’s feelings. It’s very collaborative. Like, hey, you know, what would make that drink better? I know it’s your drink, but what would make it better is this. And that’s how we end up with great drinks, like the banana old fashioned, right? It’s a total team effort.

Ryan Embree: It’s gotta be so rewarding to see as a food and beverage director, and to that point of pride when you see those emails come through talking about that. When’s that seasonal menu coming out?

Robert Mason: Absolutely.

Ryan Embree: But you mentioned it at the top of the episode, Robert, you could have the view, you could have the drink and the food, but a lot of it has to do with staff, right? And this is something that we’ve talked to a lot of hospitality people about over the last couple years. It’s a shortness of hospitality workers right now. It’s been tough over the last couple years. You mentioned at Kolter Hospitality your passion and for their culture and what’s kept you here. How has that bled into hiring? How have you gotten creative with staffing? I mean, some of these, those things that you just mentioned have gotta be motivators for staff and recruiting and hiring.

Robert Mason: Well, again, I have a couple of core beliefs, right? One of them is, I wanna give people the opportunity to have a better life and make better money year over year over year, right? Every year I want them to have a better quality of life. So that’s, that’s important to me, right? But the other part of it too is I want people that wanna come to work, right? So we want to have an environment and a culture where, yes, we have to have rules and we have to have certain things in place. But we want this to be a place that people wanna come, which is why people stay here. I’m a firm believer that the only way you have great service is when you have continuity of service. Where you have the same people doing the same job day after day and year after year. And so we think we’ve really created that culture here. But I think part of it too, is hiring is the most important thing I do. I always say it. And there’s certain things I can teach. I can teach somebody how to make a drink. I can teach somebody how to serve a table or pre-bus a table, but I can’t teach somebody that desire to have that excellence. That’s something you either have it when you walk in the door or you don’t have it. I call it the spirit of hospitality. So I’m always looking for people that have that spirit of hospitality. I use myself as an example. Like, I’ll be out, somewhere and I’ll hold the door open for somebody, you know, and my wife said, what are you doing? I’m just holding the door open for someone because that comes naturally to me. Because I like making people happy. I enjoy seeing people that are happy and I wanna have team members on the team that want those same things, that share those same values. And so I think that we’ve accomplished that and we continue to reinforce that. We continue to reinforce, Hey, we want you to treat this like it’s your own business. If this is your section and these are your tables, treat it like it’s someone coming over to your house. Like, how would you want them to feel? You’d want them to feel welcome. And so those are the things that I think are so, so important. And I think over the last few years, I think certainly since COVID, it was tough on a lot of people. And I think people lost that spirit of hospitality. They lost that sense of hospitality. But here at the Skybar, we’re trying to bring it back. We want everybody to leave here feeling like they’ve got friends here at the Skybar.

Ryan Embree: Well, it’s venues like this that really raised the bar to back to service of where it was before. And that connection is so important, especially in food and beverage as you’re sure we look a lot at guest reviews, guest feedback, as I’m sure you do. And there’s a reason why that drink might just taste a little bit better with a friendly bar bartender and a listening ear. Or if that meal or that dish might just be a little bit more special because of the service that was provided at that place. And that’s true hospitality and certainly embodied here. And again, recognizing the awards that you guys have that you guys have recently gotten. So you mentioned social media, and that’s something that obviously over the time that you’ve been in this industry has certainly changed.

Robert Mason: Yes.

Ryan Embree: How can food and beverage outlets, hospitality, you get this picture of, how do you leverage social media to really spread awareness and the word about your hotel and this AC Skybar?

Robert Mason: It’s a great question and I think it’s something that we have only recently gotten right. Something for the first few years, was kinda like, everybody had a little piece of it. And you know, as I always say, when it’s everybody’s job, it’s nobody’s job. And things kind of fall through the cracks. But we’ve recently hired someone who’s on our food and beverage team and she’s fantastic. And she’s got a background in social media and content creation and her name is Rebecca. And so she’s managing our social media now. And I think it’s visibility number one, right? I think it’s being visible to people. That means you’ve gotta be active on social media. It can’t just be 1 post a week. It’s gotta be 2, 3, 4 posts a week. Reposting things, engaging people who are responding to you and who are showing interest. I think that’s how you gain followers. And I think really it’s all about creating special things and special events. We’re gonna be doing a thing we’re gonna call Meetup Monday, which is gonna start in October, actually I think October 6th is our first event. And it’s really all driven by social media. So we’re putting it out there on our social media pages on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. We’re gonna push it out on Eventbrite. And it’s really just getting those people who are finding us on the internet because our demographic, that’s where they’re looking. They’re not reading newspapers and things like that. They’re not looking on tv, they’re looking on social media and that’s how they’re finding us. And so it’s just continuing to be relevant and continuing to have great content. We’re gonna do a bartender focus starting in October, where once a week we’re gonna have one of the bartenders who talk about the seasonal cocktail menu. They’re gonna get to make that cocktail. We’re gonna do a short video where they’re gonna get to make it and explain it and the thought process behind it and what inspired it and really make that an interactive process. So people that are looking in from the outside into our social media, they say, wow, the Skybar, they really have something cool going on there. And I feel like I know that bartender. I wanna go see that guy. And so they come in, they say, oh, you’re that guy that was on social media. So it’s so cool to see that interaction happening.

Ryan Embree: It is fascinating because I think there was a time where as travelers and consumers we were fueled by surprises. Like when come in and we’d be like, oh look, check this out. Look at this view. Oh my gosh, they have a skybar up here. And now all of a sudden with just this information that’s to us, especially with social media, it’s almost like we want that familiarity before we even step foot, right? We wanna know that Robert’s our bartender and he’s been mentioned on TripAdvisor, on Google for his famous martini that he makes. And it’s so fascinating that that’s happened because we want to know everything before we step foot because we want that familiarity. It’s, it’s very, very cool to see. And another great proponent of why social media is so critical for hotels and food and beverage. Right now we’re getting towards the end here. I wanna do some rapid fire. And get to know you and the Kolter Hospitality portfolio a little bit better. So listen, this one might be tough because of the view that we’re at right now, but favorite view at one of your properties.

Robert Mason: My favorite view, honestly, in all of our properties, and we have some outstanding properties from East coast to West coast of Florida, is the view of the harbor at the Westin in Sarasota. They have just a fantastic view now, not to be outshone, but right down the street from them is the Embassy Suites. They also have a view of the harbor and a view of the Gulf of Mexico. So I have to mention them as well, but that view from their rooftop bar and eats is unbelievable.

Ryan Embree: Unbelievable. All right. Picturesque for sure. Favorite fun fact about one of the properties.

Robert Mason: Favorite fun fact about one of the properties. You know, that’s a tough one. I would have to say that my favorite fun fact about this property is that we’re always trying to create something new. And I’m gonna give you a little preview of something that we’re launching. In the next few months is we are actually going to, I’m sure you’ve heard of the igloo craze up in New York and the north part of the United States. We’re gonna be launching some cabanas, some private cabanas on our patio. And we are going to be using these for VIPs and they’ll be able to be rented by the hour. And it’s just a great fun point of distinction. Something different that nobody else is doing that we’re gonna have to offer here at the Skybar.

Ryan Embree: Love that. That’s fantastic. That actually falls under my probably favorite guest amenity or experience. What about favorite signature dish at one of your properties? Robert?

Robert Mason: My favorite, actually I was just at the Western Sarasota. And again, not anything against our chef. Our chef does an amazing job. All of his food is amazing and all of our hotels do a great job with their culinary program. But Chef Ryan has these ahi tuna nachos that he makes with like a wasabi aioli on top of ’em. And they were so good. He wanted me to try ’em ’cause he just put ’em on his new menu and they were so good that when we were done for the day, I snuck back up to the roof and had another order of them. They were so good. I was thinking about ’em all day. They’re really, really delicious and everybody should try it.

Ryan Embree: Hey, paired with your favorite view on the portfolio. Well that sounds like a pretty good night. Well, as we wrap up, you know, one of the things we like to do, we like to start talking about our guest beginnings. We like to end looking into the future, gazing into that hospitality crystal ball. You’ve been in the industry for a while. See trends kind of come and go. What are you seeing right now in food and beverage that’s really maybe a future trend to look out for? I think people want to know the story. I mean, there trends come and trends go. There are certain things that I think, and one of the reasons and that we had the Skybar the way we did is, since I’ve been here in five years, there’ve been tons of trendy bars that have come and they’ve gone and they’ve come and they’ve gone. What makes the Skybar unique is we wanted to have a timeless experience, right? Something that would always speak and never go outta style. And there’s certain things I think in food and beverage that never go outta style. Right now, a lot of craft people wanna know the story, especially behind wines and craft beer and craft cocktails. Even it’s trickled over into the liquor side, the spirit side. People wanna know the story behind that tequila that they’re drinking. And the craft vodka has in the craft tequilas and the craft rums that is really, really hot right now. Espresso martinis continue to be hot in any form or fashion, but the twist this year has been the tequila espresso martinis. So again, wanting those craft martinis and that kind of thing. On the food side, I think farm to table continues to be red hot. People want to eat locally. I think there continues to be this drive, especially in our society for healthier options, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian. So we always wanna speak to that and stay relevant. And I think that’s a good place to leave it because I think if you’re not staying relevant, it’s easy to fall behind and it can happen very quickly. So staying on top of those trends and really watching for those trends as they occur, both on the spirit side, the beverage side, and also on the food side, is something that Greg, my counterpart and I are constantly doing to keep things fresh and new with Kolter.

Ryan Embree: Sustainability as well is massive, especially for the younger generation there. But you’re absolutely right. I mean, this is a timeless industry and I remember being at UCF Rosen of Hospitality, professor saying, this is the oldest industry that there is. Hotels, hosting people and feeding them. So, Robert, we appreciate you hosting us and feeding us yesterday and being on the Suite Spot and sharing some insights with our audience.

Robert Mason: Thanks for having me.

Ryan Embree: Thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time on The Suite Spot. To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I’m your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.

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