Airport: room service soars at LA Sheraton with pizza delivery

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 6, 1989 by Milford Prewitt

AIRPORT

Room service soars at LA Sheraton with pizza delivery

Hotel F&B head takes cue from Domino's and installs pizza ovens, 30-minute guarantee

If the sincerest form of flattery is imitation, then the room service operation at the Sheraton Plaza La Reina could, begrudgingly, be a Domino Pizza clone.

Chagrined by the audacity of Domino's delivering pizza to hotel guests but impressed by Domino's 30-minute delivery guarantee, the Sheraton installed in July systemwide pizza ovens in its hotels' kitchens. The pizza ovens bolstered the Sheraton's 30-minute room service guarantee, which was implemented systemwide a few months earlier.

"Since we've implemented the 30-minute delivery system, it has been very successful, based on the comments we've gotten from our guests," says Paul Lafferty, director of food and beverage for the 15-storied hotel. "They love it."

Located virtually within the shadows of Los Angeles International Airport, the 807-room Sheraton Plaza La Reina caters principally to business travelers and enjoys an annual occupancy rate of about 85 percent.

Like Domino's late delivery policy that discounts $3 from the price or, in some cases, charges nothing, the Sheraton Plaza absorbs the cost of meals delivered late. This late policy tempted some nay-sayers to predict that the hotel chain would be buying their guests a lot of free meals.

But Lafferty insists that with a modest employee increase to the 250-membered kitchen staff and the installation of an in-house computer system that keys orders to kitchen work stations, the Sheraton is buying few free meals.

"I do have to tell you that every now and then we do buy dinner and breakfast, but not as often as you might think," Lafferty says.

Lafferty, who joined the Sheraton in January after holding a similar position at the Stouffer Hotel, said the Sheraton's kitchen computer system plays a major role in the keeping its 30-minute room service commitment.

He explained that when a guest phones room service, an order taker inputs the menu item into the computer for billing. During the process, the computer asks the order taker a number of questions concerning the guest's preference for preparing the dish. For example, for steak meals, the computer will prompt the order taker to list rare, medium or well done.

After the order taker has keyed in the meal and preparation instructions, two printers, one for a hot-food line and one for a cold-food line, makes a hard copy of the order for the cooks and prints a check.

Lafferty says the Sheraton has one kitchen but uses the same computer system for the facility's two restaurants -- the 275-seat Plaza Brasserie, an all-day Continental restaurant and Landry's, a 110-seat restaurant that specializes in grilled meals. The hotel also has two cocktail lounges.

Beyond the computer, Lafferty identifies another component that makes quick room service work.

"Your people are the key ingredient in making speedy room service work," Lafferty says. "You need good morale and motivation."

Lafferty estimates that the food and beverage operations at the hotel gross about $8 million annually, 20 percent from room service, 22 percent from banquets and catering business meetings and conventions.

But it's the installation of pizza ovens that may prove to boost the room service percentage in the future, says Marje Bennetts, a hotel representative.

She says with pizza being the most popular take-out and delivered dinner item, it's a business the hotel's food and beverage planners decided the chain could no longer ignore.

"If it worked for Domino's, it would work for the hotel," Bennetts says.

So after experimenting with pizza baking in the chain's units in the Pacific Northwest, the Sheraton took the concept systemwide.

Utilizing a little sleight of hand, the hotel puts pizza on the room service menu with a separate phone number, under the name Luigi's Pizza.

"It gives the guest the impression that they are ordering from an off-site location, when really they are dialing the hotel's kitchen," Bennetts says. "The order taker is even instructed to answer, `Luigi's Pizza.'"

Bennetts says the sight of Domino's deliverymen carrying pizza to the Sheraton's guests was an activity the hotel could no longer countenance. Like the hotel's regular fare, pizza is also guaranteed for delivery in 30 minutes.

"You really don't get a lot of chances to impress the average business traveler when you consider they are in the hotel only 1.2 nights," Bennetts says. "But if you do well with room service, you have a good chance to impress people and try your other outlets."

PHOTO : A Luigi's Pizza cook at the Sheraton removes a pizza for room-service delivery.

PHOTO : A Luigi's pizza, boxed for delivery.