Larkspur Looks To Build Restaurant Foundation

By Derek Gale, Senior Editor -- Hotels, 7/24/2008 3:25:00 PM

Larkspur Hotels & Restaurants, a California-based hotel owner/operator, has plans to double in size over the next three years (from 25 to 50 hotels), and with a fresh focus on full-service hotels, the company sees restaurants as a major part of its growth, according to Nathan Tanner, vice president of restaurants.

Tanner—who previously spent 7 years with Hilton Hotels Corp., most recently as senior director of restaurant development—was hired about a year ago to help Larkspur build the foundation for its restaurant division, including developing new concepts and strategic partnerships, and to support hotel F&B operations.

Since then, he has helped Larkspur open two new restaurants, Esteban at Monterey’s Casa Munras Hotel and Second Story at the Belamar Hotel in Manhattan Beach.

At this point, with six “destination” restaurants, Larkspur’s food and beverage sales make up about 25% of the company’s total revenue, a mark Tanner “always wants to improve on,” but doubts he will, mostly because, “the more successful you make your restaurant, the more successful the hotel is,” he says. “Perception increases, and therefore rate increases.”

Still, moving forward, Tanner expects to stay plenty busy, as Larkspur conducts market analyses to see what types of restaurants or bars, if any, should go into its four limited F&B service properties, while also continuing to develop new restaurant concepts for its growing portfolio of full-service hotels.

One such project involves the lodge and restaurant at the Presidio of San Francisco. That site’s restaurant will feel entirely different than those Larkspur restaurants Tanner has done already as well as those still yet to come, he stresses.

“We want to look at individual locations and customize the guest experience based on the locale. Too many people try to do cookie-cutter [concepts],” he says.

In some cases, Larkspur hotels may feature leased-out restaurants rather than home-grown concepts, Tanner notes, as long as they add value. Examples of existing leased-out concepts doing well include the Kimpton-run Puccini & Pinetti at Larkspur’s Monticello Inn in San Francisco’s Union Square and Il Fornaio at The Sainte Claire in San Jose.

When he does develop new restaurants, Tanner says he begins with the food, because people go to restaurants for great food. After selecting the type of food, Tanner tries to hire the best chef possible to execute that particular type of food, and aims to do so six months in advance of opening, in order to have time to work with the chef to develop the menu and wine list, and then to design the kitchen and dining room.

“Too often people design restaurants and then go find the chef, and that’s backward,” he says. “If you start with the four walls first, you put the cart before the horse.”
Another part of Tanner’s role is to work with Larkspur’s chefs and restaurant general managers to try to gain purchasing efficiencies to help defray costs without limiting individual creativity. This involves regular conference calls and property visits, as well as monthly group profit and loss reviews. “We are much smarter as a group,” Tanner explains.

In the end, he says, the restaurant business is all about fundamentals, from food cost and menu pricing to portion control and limiting waste. To be the best, Tanner sees it as vital to continue to focus on such fundamentals, while also drawing on his experience at Hilton and looking to other local hotel companies—like Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and Joie de Vivre Hospitality—for best practices that can be applied to Larkspur’s F&B operations and growth.