The hospitality industry has witnessed a remarkable resurgence, with global revenues soaring from $4,390.59 billion in 2022 to $4,699.57 billion in 2023, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.0% (Hospitality Global Market Report 2023). Amidst this industry-wide growth and transformation backdrop, Kimberly Grant, the former global head of restaurants and bars for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, has significantly contributed to the global restaurant dining scene. With a career of over 30 years, she has led restaurant companies operating in all sectors of the industry – from food trucks and casual eateries to food halls and 3-star Michelin-awarded dining venues. Her vast array of leadership experiences has informed her approach as a restaurateur, focusing on a shared principle across the various sectors – that a memorable dining experience is more than just the food on the plate.
The Appeal of ‘Vibe’ Dining
For Grant, the dining experience begins long before the first bite. “The restaurant or eatery’s vibe is just as important as the food itself,” she explains. “It sets the tone for the entire experience and can either enhance or detract from the meal’s enjoyment.” Every venue’s success is dictated by its ability to garner repeat visits over time. How you make a guest feel during their experience is as critical to the value equation as the prices they pay for their meal.
This attention to detail is evident in the design of the restaurants Grant has overseen throughout her career. Every element, from the lighting and music to the table settings, artwork, and employee fashion is carefully curated to create a specific mood and atmosphere. As one of the judges for the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards in 2023, Grant evaluated the nominated designs with this overall ‘vibe’ philosophy in mind.
For example, when Grant works with a team of designers to create a specific setting for a restaurant, she always begins by crafting a positioning statement for the concept. The statement outlines how the guest experience will be uniquely presented and becomes the roadmap to keep the project on point with all stakeholders. To be authentic, she believes it is paramount that the concept positioning must drive the design process not the other way around.
Scarcity as a Superpower
For Grant, the most successful dining concepts in the world look to create a sense of scarcity for their business. This scarcity can be greatly impacted and even optimized through intentional design and a tech-enabled guest experience. Guests want to see and ‘be seen’ dining in a vibrant and highly desirable dining venue, yet they do not want to wait an exceptionally long time or find that a reservation is impossible to secure.
In limited-service restaurants or cafes, the primary driver of scarcity is notoriously the ‘line of people out the door.’ Aspects like how close the sales register is to the front door which can enable some queuing inside but also ensure a line of people bleeds out of the doorway can send quite a powerful message. But at the same time, it is important to have enough points of sale or kiosks to ensure the line will flow efficiently but not overwhelm the staff execution. The perfect harmony is created when there is a ‘line out the door’ and the operational flow is efficient while delivering product and service excellence.
In full-service culinary focused restaurants, the primary driver of scarcity is reservation availability, especially on peak dining occasions. Often, when a highly anticipated restaurant opens, reservations can seem hard to come by and this is usually done with intention. Part of the reason is to control the guest experience by limiting capacity as the staff gets more experience, but the great restaurateurs know how to release seating availability just in time to generate even more demand overall.
Bottomline, a well-crafted scarcity strategy can be a superpower and heighten a consumer’s desire for an experience for the fear of missing out. It is an important tool for driving long-term business success in restaurants and beyond.
Empowering Chefs’ Creativity
Grant strongly believes in fostering an environment that encourages chefs to push the boundaries of culinary innovation. She recognizes that nurturing a chef’s creativity is critically important to retaining great talent and developing the next generation of world class chefs. Many times, well-intentioned companies will prioritize a chef’s operational duties leaving little to no time for the chef to exercise his or her creative prowess.
To mitigate this potential pitfall, Grant likes to create structured work groups of talented chefs to work on upcoming projects or business challenges for the organizations she has led. These work groups serve a dual purpose of challenging the creative muscles of emerging talent but also creating a sense of ownership for new initiatives needed to move the business forward.
“I believe that the role of a chef is not just to cook food, but to tell a story through their dishes,” she explains. “Interesting things can happen when you give chefs the freedom to experiment and innovate. They can draw inspiration from their experiences, cultural backgrounds, and the unique ingredients available to them.”
During her tenure at Four Seasons, Grant has witnessed firsthand the impact of empowering chefs. She has worked closely with talented culinary teams to develop new concepts for the company’s ambitious project pipeline. She also pioneered a game-changing project for the organization, prominently featuring a virtual reality culinary training pilot at a global conference in Greece. Immersive, 4D videos were developed by her team of multi-cultural chefs and served as an example of how training and collaboration could be reimagined in a more engaging and stimulating format for the next generation of culinary talent.
Grant’s philosophy of empowering chefs extends beyond allowing them creative freedom in the kitchen. She also believes in providing opportunities for professional growth and development. By investing in the delivery of innovative training programs, workshops, and collaborations with other accomplished culinary professionals, Grant has helped to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement among the chefs she has worked with.
