Malcolm Parry’s Trade Talk
When fitness entrepreneur Carolyn Williams escorts women to her bars, they sweat — not drink — buckets.
BUSINESS LUNCH: Newly arrived from Chicago, Andre Zotoff parked his BMW 1200GT motorcycle in the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver’s breezeway Monday. He then ordered seafood chowder, $ 7, and bestselling seared ahi tuna noodle salad, $ 26, in the hotel’s Griffins restaurant.
Zotoff, 50, became the landmark hotel’s general manager Feb. 1. But the grandson of harder- than- nails Don Cossack army general Stefan Zotoff flew here rather than riding a bike that, like him, originated in Munich. He’ll criss- cross B. C. on it soon. Before then, though, Zotoff will comb the 520- employee hotel seeking to boost annual turnover by 30 per cent to the $ 80- million range.
That’ll take more than filling the executive- chef, food- and- beverage director and sales- and- marketing director jobs now open. With the stillnew Shangri- La, updated Hyatt and totally renovated Rosewood Georgia hotels steps away, its clear that the veteran Hotel Van needs to have its guest rooms redone, plus plenty more.
Zotoff won’t say when and how much. But Fairmont- brand owners Prince Al- Waleed bin Talal and U. S.- based real- estate firm Colony Capital likely saw his successful $ 55- million “repositioning” of the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park as an entrée to doing it again. In fact, it was Zotoff’s $ 1.5- million revamp of the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins hotel’s Top Of The Mark bar in San Francisco that put him on the penultimate step from chef to food- and- beverage director to hotel manager and finally general manager.
There’s still a chef’s jacket in his closet and, like other range riders, Zotoff has favourite dishes learned at home. One is a warm Bavarian potato salad of yellow spuds, onions, mustard, beef broth and suchlike “that people eat and forget the steak.” The other is his mother’s stale- bread, mushroom and cream sauce dumplings “that have them licking the plate.”
As for licks of paint, the Hotel Vancouver “is like a 1926 Bentley,” Zotoff said, “It needs a bit of paint, a bit of work, but it’s always a cool car.” Let’s bet those “bits” will cost close to nine figures.
Asked what chef experience brings to executive gigs, Zotoff said: “High self- discipline, creativity and speaking without filters. In the kitchen, we have to say how it is. You can’t make things better when you can’t articulate the program.”
• ANOTHER BIG BITE: Picture someone playing Sudoku number games, enjoying dessert “with every meal,” and saying: “You can’t eat chocolate before 10 o’clock [ a. m.]. But after that, everything is fair.” Then look at South Africa- born, Californiaraised Carolyn Williams, 34, whose best marathon time was 3: 29 and for whom “hard body” should be spelled in capitals.
Former Macy’s, Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap and Lululemon womenswear buyer, Williams opened a West Vancouver satellite to her downtown Bar Method fitness centre recently, and will soon scope Surrey- White Rock for No. 3. She got into the game backwards, having figured that the San Francisco Bay Area’s Walnut Creek facility would help her mother, Judith Pentopoulos, recover from breast cancer. Taking a session herself, Williams said: “I thought it would be a joke. But it was a very humbling experience. It was very hard, and I wasn’t good at it.”
Extreme- gymnastics Masters champion Janelle Washington of the Seaspan clan echoed those words after a trial visit Saturday: “Wow, was that ever humbling. I really did enjoy it, though, and am planning on working it into my routine.”
Williams herself planned to do more. Contacting Bar Method founders Burr Leonard and Carl Diehl in 2009, she paid $ 30,000 ( plus a future three per cent of gross revenue) for the first non- U. S. franchise. By October 2010, she opened a 2,900- square second- floor facility on Beatty Street, paying $ 8,000 triplenet monthly rent and $ 225,000 toward build- out. With 850 visits weekly, and several attendees wanting not to drive from West Vancouver, Williams rattled realtor Andrew Altow’s chain for an Ambleside locale. Hollyburn Properties’ former 3,255- square- foot, second floor locale had the large windows and 20- by- 40foot rooms she required, so Williams signed on at downtown rent with a $ 350,000 build- out.
For the future, “The most [ centres] I could see owning and doing a good job with is four.” For the present: “I exercise to eat, because I love to eat.”
• LET’S CELEBRATE: Premier Christy Clark was on comfortable turf Monday, when the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs held its Gold-corp-sponsored 10th- annual gala in the Fairmont Waterfront hotel and launched the motto: Where Success Happens.
“Male and female entrepreneurs are the same, except female entrepreneurs are a lot more successful,” Clark said, adding: “No other province is as dependent on small business as B. C.” Economic growth shares “the same reason you go out to work every day,” she told some 400 gala- goers. “You go out to support the people you love. You are in the business of wealth creation.” As for her brand of tough love, “A lot of people will get mad at [ the B. C. Liberal government] balancing the budget. There will be a lot of noes.”
Attendees toasted FWE founderchair and Odlum Brown director Christina Anthony with Sumac Ridge sparkling wine, whereupon half of them packed the riser to dance to Kool & The Gang’s Celebration.
Also celebrated were the likes of Flickr founder Caterina Fake, Richmondbased Urban Impact founderCEO Nicole Stefenelli, Original Cupcakes Bakery founders Lori Joyce and Heather White, and especially keynote speaker and former Stornoway Diamond Corp. chairwoman Eira Thomas.
Thomas was reportedly drawn into FWE’S ambit by Geoffrey Belsher, the Blakes law firm’s local office managing partner. Her presence was counterpointed by Lugaro jewellers Clara and Steve Agopian, who contributed a one- carat diamond from the Arctic Diavik field Thomas’s team discovered.
• SOMETHING COOKING? Michael Jagger, the Provident Security principal who recently acquired the Whistler area’s 1,000- client Dow Security firm, teteateted at FWE with Ken Sim, who has relinquished his co- CEO role at Nurse Next Door. John Dehart is the sole CEO there now. Sim said he’s seeking business opportunities for Nurse Next Door and himself. With Jagger personally? “Maybe,” the two said.