Postcard from Bishkek

 

When we established our hotels, one of the things that my partners were adamant about was – Breakfast: “Whatever happens – Make sure that you give the guests a good breakfast!”

Both of my partners were international lawyers who travelled the globe on business and they couldn’t stress too much how important it was to have a good breakfast.  It didn’t matter if the guests had a day full of meetings or were travelling hundreds of kilometres to Karakol, Naryn or Osh … it may be hours before their next meal and if their stomachs were rumbling then they would be unhappy …

As a result, although it is by no means our main business – the Restaurant has always been important to us.

So I was happy to see that when Victor visited the hotel to  take some spherical panoramas … I was glad that he took one of the restaurant:

To be honest, however, the Restaurant also represents one of our biggest mistakes.  Let me explain.

There were three basic mistakes .. none of them really critical, but “mistakes” all the same:

• Size: It’s small and compact – one might almost say “intimate” … actually, that’s not my word, one client did actually describe it to me like that.  Now, they say that “Small is beautiful“, but it also has its drawbacks.All that emphasis on breakfast meant that we concentrated on a Breakfast Room … and, to be fair, it’s not bad as a breakfast room.  (However, I do have to admit that we have twenty nine roomsand if we were full and if everyone arrived for breakfast at the same time … then we might have trouble sitting people down … Fortunately, however, that sort of thing rarely ever happens so, basically, it’s big enough to cope most of the time.)Being the capital city, Bishkek is quite well catered for, (Pun intended!), with a wide range of Cafés and Restaurants and it is possible to find something to satisfy almost any taste … so we weren’t expecting huge numbers of people to want Lunch of Diner.  However, the opportunity exists … the facilities and staff are available.

  Although we are in the city centre, the hotel is in a quiet area which means it’s not on a main thoroughfare.  That means that we are unlikely to get much of what is called “passing traffic”.   That means that even at the height of the season, we are not likely to be crowded … and that fortunately means that size is not a problem.  To be fair, however, we do get some “passing trade” – especially in the summer when the patio  is available and people like to sit outside in the open air.

  Perhaps, however, we should have made separate arrangements for functions, coffee breaks and lunches for conferences …

• Location: I know, I know … I can hear the estate agents screaming something like “What did we tell you, “Location, Location, LOCATION!“Let me repeat, “Although we are in the city centre, the hotel is in a quiet area which means it’s not on a main thoroughfare.  That means that we are unlikely to get much of what is called “passing traffic”. ”  Location!To make matters worse, however, we placed the Restaurant downstairs … in the “basement”.  Now, for a breakfast room, or for coffee breaks, that does not really represent a problem.  For Lunch and Dinner it can feel a little uncomfortable – like descending into the bowels of the earth … where the windows are small and high so there is little natural light and nothing to see apart from the four walls.

  On the other hand, the guest who described the Restaurant as “intimate” said that this was one of things that made it so.

  I think that if I was redesigning the hotel, I would put the Restaurant at least on the first (that is, the ground) floor.

• Menu: There is a saying that, “one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”  Different people have different tastes, (the kids, for example don’t east Lamb, Maxim won’t eat chicken, and I rarely eat fish – once, in New Zealand, I nearly choked on a fish bone that got lodged in my throat).  We were aware that our guests may come from anywhere in the world and that they might like different cuisines, so we decided on a wide ranging menu – including a choice of Beef, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, Fish and Vegetarian Dishes from European, Indian, Chinese and local Central Asian cuisines.That means that the menu is quite large … and perhaps, too large.  Not only can the choice seem bewildering, it is easy to get lost as you turn from page to page.  We are not alone in that respect, there are several restaurants that I go to in town that have the same problem – but because I frequent them reasonably often I tend to have learned my may around the menu which helps.  A guest spending just one or two nights in the hotel won’t have that opportunity.

As I say … they represents “mistakes” but fortunately not “critical” mistakes.  They do represent, however, answers to the question that I sometimes face … “If you were to start all over again, what would you do differently?”

 

 

Tags: Celestial_Mountains