Fresh-juice options pouring into hotels
Menus include local, healthy ingredients
Fresh-squeezed orange juice just won’t do for some hotel guests these days.
Health-conscious travelers now want healthy juice concoctions with ingredients such as kale, red beets, ginger and carrots. Fresh-juice stores are becoming almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks, and hotels are seeing an opportunity.
“If you look at hotels overall, they’re starting to be much more lifestyle locations,” says Joe Pawlak, senior vice president at Technomic Inc., a consulting firm for the food-service industry.
Some examples:
Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants recently launched a fresh juice menu with three blends made from local fruits and vegetables. Being Green, for instance, is a mixture of cucumber, celery, spinach, kale and lemon. Now available at 10 Kimpton properties across the USA, the program will roll out to all hotels nationwide later this year.
uSeveral Four Seasons hotels across the country have fresh-juice menus. The new Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort, opening this August, will have a madeto-order juice and smoothie bar at its restaurant Ravello. Ingredients will include broccoli, cucumber, spinach, peppers, pineapple, leafy greens, celery and pear.
uFour Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara has a “Farm to Straw” juice pro
gram at Fins, the organic juice bar at the Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club. The bar uses ingredients from local farms that are either certified organic or working toward certification.
uThe Fairmont Washing-
ton, D.C., has the “Strawberry
Shrub” shot on its menu. It is a mixture of strawberries, parsley and apple cider vinegar, which executive chef Mark Timms calls cleansing.
The juice menus are an extension of hotels getting better at helping travelers stay healthy on the road. They’ve offered healthier menus and improved fitness facilities. InterContinental Hotels Group is even introducing an entire brand focused on wellness and fitness called EVEN hotels.
“Travel can be extremely taxing on the body and can really throw a wrench in your fitness routine and diet habits,” says Frank Kawecki, director of restaurant operations for Kimpton. “Introducing the juicing menu is another way to help our guests feel good and stay on track.
“We don’t see juicing as a fad, even though it is a trend right now,” he adds. “Our guests are interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle while traveling.”