Food Accounts for Large Portion of Hotel Revenue

The Fayetteville Clarion Inn brought in $1.8 million last year in sales of food and beverages, said Bill Clodfelter, the owner. That’s about 40 percent of the total revenue of the Clarion. And 60 percent of the food revenue was from catering.

“My restaurant in itself is not a big deal,” he said. “We do a lot of catering.”

Clodfelter said much of the Clarion’s catering business comes from wedding receptions, family reunions and high school reunions.

Clodfelter helped design the hotel, which was built in 1986. He made sure it had a large dining area with food sales in mind. He managed the hotel from the time it opened until he bought it two years ago.

The Clarion can seat 500 people for banquets. That’s in addition to a restaurant with 90 seats and a coffee shop with 90 seats. The restaurant also has a lounge called Bobbisox that can seat more than 100.

“This is not typical of most [hotels],” Clodfelter said of the food sales. “I put an emphasis on it, and it does pretty well.”

Clodfelter said the Clarion’s food sales would have put it among Fayetteville’s top 5 restaurants a few years back, when sales were more than $2 million per year. But the city doesn’t split food sales from room sales in its hotel-motel-restaurant tax collections, so the food total wasn’t public information.

Clodfelter said many hotel restaurants are still suffering from a bad reputation that dates back to the 1960s. Back then, hotel management didn’t put an emphasis on the restaurant, and the public got the idea that hotel restaurants just weren’t that good.

“We shot ourselves in the foot back in the ’60s because we didn’t build that reputation,” he said.

Holiday Inn

Kevin Smith, general manager of the Holiday Inn in Springdale, said that hotel brings in about $2 million in food sales annually. That’s in addition to $5 million in room sales, according to city tax records.

Smith said 20 percent of the hotel’s food sales come from its two restaurants, the Athletic Club, which seats 125, and the Tiffany Grill, which seats 110.

The rest of the food revenue is from catering events at the 30,000-SF Northwest Arkansas Convention Center, which is part of the hotel complex, and for catering to the 20,000-SF of banquet space in the hotel.

“Approximately 31 percent of our beverage sales are attributed to banquets, with 69 percent attributed to the Athletic Club,” he said.

Smith said about 30 percent of the hotel’s restaurant business comes from customers who aren’t staying at the hotel.

Embassy Suites

Mark Ratcliff, food and beverage director at the new Embassy Suites Hotel in Rogers, said about 10-15 percent of the hotel’s revenue comes from food sales. But Ratcliff said that number will grow with time. The hotel has only been open since May.

“The rooms division will do four times what we do in food revenue,” he said. “Traditionally, you build [your catering business]. The rooms have really taken off running. We couldn’t be more pleased at how the community and local residents have accepted us.”

Ratcliff said the hotel has a 54-seat restaurant called The Cedar Creek Bistro, which is somewhat small for a 248-room hotel. But the majority of the hotel’s food revenue comes from catering in its 20,000 SF of meeting space.