Henley/Kimpton Aertson Hotel

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am going to be your host today. Today we're going to talk about something good. We're going to talk about something real good. It's not a huge, long, in-depth interview episode today, but we're going to talk about a company that's here in Nashville that is really pivoted for the better. I'm talking about the Kempton Ertson Hotel and The Henley. The Henley is a restaurant inside the Kempton Ertson Hotel and they have partnered with the Buckingham Foundation and the Nashville Food Project to do some really cool things. So we're gonna jump in here with James Gorito who's the general manager of The Henley and hear more about it.

01:08James, how are you doing today man? I'm doing well Brandon. Thanks so much for having me on. It is an absolute pleasure to have you. I read what you guys were doing over there and I just, I had to get a hold of you. So The Henley is inside of the Kempton and I think like everybody we're in the middle of this pandemic and you guys have partnered with the Buckingham Foundation as well as the Nashville Food Project to do something a little different. Tell me what you're doing. Absolutely. So we're really lucky in this crazy times to still have a restaurant, still have a kitchen with the lights on. So we were looking at ways to create some revenue for our ownership group, meanwhile keeping as many people employed as we can. Like many restaurants that are open we are down to a bare-bones staff right now and my responsibility I see as the general manager and in being in charge of hotel food and beverage operations for the area is to not only get people back as soon as it's safe but to keep as many people working as long as possible in these uncertain times. So in addition to doing the curbside pickup and delivery and all of that, like many restaurants have pivoted to, we are working with the Nashville Food Project with whom we had an existing relationship to do meals for folks that are less certain about where their next meal is coming from. So we're working with them to provide up to 250, we think we're gonna be able to ramp that up soon, but up to 250 meals a day to food insecure populations in and around Nashville. So 250 meals a day to food insecure population in Nashville. How long have you been doing that? So

03:10this is our third week going through it. So we've done just over 1300 meals so far. Last week we had our biggest week yet and this week I think we're gonna outpace last week. We're getting more and more efficient as we go along. Chef Daniel is really taking to the challenge. We have nutritious meals that hit all the major food groups that are necessary to satisfy someone both healthily and in the pleasure centers of their brain. So we have some really great high quality meals going out individually packed or packed for families, whatever works best for the charity in question. So tell me, this whole thing goes down. We all kind of get the, okay we're in real trouble, everything is closing, this pandemic is real. What is your, what does the meeting look like? Do you sit down, do you call your staff together? How does it formulate that you come up with these ideas? That's a great question. That was actually the hardest part of this whole thing. We saw Sunday I believe the 14th or 13th of March. We and the rest of the world saw all those news notifications coming on our phone. The NBA was closing for the year as a big basketball fan. That's what kind of stood out to me as a big basketball fan by memory. And the world was shutting down. So by Tuesday when we were all in the office, we realized that even though restaurants in Nashville had not closed, we had seen what was happening in other major cities and knew that we had to be ahead of the curve. We didn't want to risk our staff and we didn't want to risk our guests. We made the decision very soon in that process and earlier than most restaurants in and around downtown to shut it down. We saw it as a moral imperative. What made it so difficult

05:10was that we were unable to call the staff in. The thing we were trying to avoid was large gatherings of people. And as a restaurant that has been constantly fighting for large groups of people for two and a half years, that's the thing that we want and do the best at Get It. We couldn't get everyone together for a staff meeting. We had to just text the folks that were working that night and say, hey, guys, you're cut for this evening. We're going to let you know more in 24 to 48 hours. And then we called everyone in individually and safely and gave everybody PPE as we talked about what the next steps were. So that was tough. There was no meeting. There was no meeting of the minds. It was only us saying, you know, the thing we need to avoid right now is large gatherings. We've seen covers drop off, obviously, as everyone had at that point and knew that it was time for us to shut it down.

06:11Before all of this kind of happened, how are things at the Kempton and at the Henley? Last year was our best year yet. And to see about 20% growth, not only in revenue, but in guests coming through the door in a second full year of operations is pretty unheard of. We were really jazzed with our position, not only within the neighborhood, but within the food and beverage scene within Nashville at large. Yeah, Nashville itself, when we opened up in 2017, really had a dearth of amazing hotel offerings at that point. And we saw it as a moral imperative for us to be of the place where our restaurant is. So we pivoted away from a lot of the kind of standard hotel restaurant tropes as Kempton, our parent company, does really well and saw it as an important thing for us to nurture local relationships. So it took a minute for us to grab that traction. We opened really hot and then saw in 2018 kind of a slide and then just worked really hard to listen to our guests and to nurture those really great relationships in the middle Tennessee area to make ourselves stand out. And that took a year. 2019 then came and the growth began unabated. It was really something to see. And so we were seeing that continue and then boom, the tornado happens and boom, a worldwide pandemic.

07:47Wow. So it sounds like you guys were doing everything right, really just out there hustling. Nashville is such a great city to be in right now. Then you touched on it. We had a tornado and then the pandemic and now you guys are pivoting to feed people that needed the most, which is I did a podcast yesterday that I just talked about that. I said, we've got to be feeding the people. We've got to be doing everything we can for people who are a little bit less fortunate. So you tell me about the Buckingham Foundation and how you partnered with the Nashville Food Project. Absolutely. So one of the cool things about that hard work that we did in 2019 to get much busier in the restaurant was our outreach to local charities. So I'm on the board of an organization called Slow Food Middle Tennessee, Slow Food USA and Slow Food International is an organization that promotes good, clean, fair food for everyone. So after I joined that board, we were able to link up with the Nashville Food Project and host some charity fundraising for them. We also have them in our lobby as a kind of a tabling event for some of our hotel guests to kind of really learn about the real Nashville that they're coming to visit. And maybe they're going to Broadway and maybe they're doing all of the kind of typical touristy stuff. But we wanted to share, and the hotel side is really great about this, we really want to share the real Nashville with them as well. So we already had this amazing partnership in our pocket. So it became so much easier for us to activate it once we saw the need for doing some good in the community. So the Buckingham Foundation reached out with a really generous donation and wanted to know from us where they could send those funds to. So since we had that existing partnership with Nashville Food Project based in the nations, we sent the money there, or they sent the money there and

09:49the Nashville Food Project got to us and said, what would it cost for you to do 250 meals? And we said, well, we could do it for five bucks a meal. And they then turned around and that allows us to break even and keep whatever limited staff we have on right now. And the more that we ramp it up, the faster that we ramp it up, the sooner we can hopefully get some folks back in the kitchen while being safe at the same time. Hi, that's just the, you know, pivoting to that model seems to be working for a lot of people. I see Sean Brock at Joyland doing it. And I think that I see so many commercials out there on TV and different places that are big companies saying, we're pivoting or we're here for you. We'd like to extend our sympathies or whatever it might be. And I almost feel like, hey, don't spend that money on advertising. Take that money and call a restaurant and say, look, I got five grand feed hospitality workers. Here's $5,000. Put our name all over your website and that we're going to host $5,000 in food. Let people call in, make them prove that they work for restaurants, feed hospital workers, whatever it might be. But use your advertising dollars there.

11:02Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so interesting to see major corporations say we're in this together. I agree that we're in this together. If there ever was a time to say that, it makes a lot of sense. But there are a lot of avenues where money can be put to use and can provide boots on the ground to really make a difference in people's lives. We're by default all in this together because it does affect everybody. But there's a finite number of people that are not, they're using this time to really lock arm in arm to help other people. And it sounds like that's what you guys are doing. So at the actual Kempton Ertson, you guys are providing rooms for hospital workers as well. Can you speak to that? Yeah, absolutely. So we saw the programming really taking off with supporting food insecure populations and the hotel side said, well, we want a piece of that. How can we help? And they immediately reached out back to the Buckingham Foundation and said, we have the ability to house people that are on the front lines that are dealing with this day in and day out. And folks who maybe can't make the two hour drive back home, folks that can't spend time with their families right now because they are helping folks that are fighting this disease in hospital beds. So we are providing complementary hotel rooms completely free of charge for people that need a place to rest their head.

12:36And that's nurses and doctors for sure. But it's also folks working in administrative capacities within the hospital or people that have come from other markets and cities to come and fight this disease within Nashville. We're adjacent to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and we are here to help. So we have a limited menu for in-room dining that is priced to move so that we can give people really affordable options in addition to the full dinner menu that's available and stuff. But we're really doing all we can to make the Ericsson a place of refuge, a place for really, really resting in a time when a lot of these people aren't getting a chance to take care of themselves or aren't getting much sleep. And I think that one of the part of the population people miss and first of all, I love that. I think that's just the coolest thing that you guys are doing that is a lot of nurses and doctors go home to families that may have immune compromised people in their home to where somebody may have really bad asthma or COPD or something at their house that if they're going to be on the front lines in a high risk area, going home is very stressful because you have to isolate, you have to do all these things. So having a place that's right next to the hospital that you can go where you can isolate yourself from your family, not feel the guilt or stress of maybe potentially putting them in harm's way is just, it's big for peace of mind. And when you get people that are in the medical profession, you want them to be rested. You want them to feel their best when they come into work. So that's just that's God's work, man.

14:19Thank you. We see ourselves as super lucky. When when Mayor Cooper announced the list of restaurants or sorry, the list of businesses that had to be closed as a result of the safer at home order, we noticed that we weren't on it. Hotels and restaurants are allowed to be open. And with so many small businesses closing, a lot of the support for these people is in turn closed. So since we're open, what are we going to do about it was really the first conversation that we had to have. So are you a Nashville native? I'm not. I'm from Chicago originally. I moved here. I know. I know. I'm one of the 40,000 Chicagoans that's here. You're not a Blackhawks fan. I'm a huge Blackhawks fan. Yeah. I'm a huge Blackhawks fan. Why did I have to interview you? I'm just kidding. How long? So how long have you been here? Three years. Three years. Moved here in March of 2017. Wow. So what are your thoughts so far? You love it? Is this your home or you're going to be here forever?

15:24I love it here. I'm absolutely obsessed with this town. It happened. It happened really soon after moving here. I came down here to open the hotel and frankly, I hope none of my bosses are listening to this, but it was going to be a one-year experiment. I really wanted to see some other city. I'm nuts about Chicago. And if you had pulled any of my friends and close family members, you would know, or they would say that I was the last person that was likely to leave town. So the fact that I came down here was a big step and then fell in love with it. I recently bought a house in North Nashville and I'm really, really nuts about this neighborhood and these people and my team. So I don't see myself going anywhere for a little bit. Wow. Well, we're happy to have you, man. And as much as I joke about Chicago is one of my favorite cities, I absolutely love spending time in Chicago. The food scene there is just, it's amazing. It's a great town. Love it. Well, cool, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I just really wanted to talk about what you guys are doing. Let people know what you are doing. I mean, we're all going to reopen someday. And I think that there's people out there that are making a list of the people that did this thing. Right. And there's people out there that want to know who the people are, who are giving back to the community on a regular basis, which, you know, what is everybody in this industry? Really? I mean, the, the people in this industry are just amazing, but what you guys are doing, I thought was extra special. And I just wanted to share your story on the show.

17:00Thanks for giving us a chance to talk about it. And thanks for highlighting all the good work that other folks are doing too. I've really enjoyed listening to your podcast over the last couple of weeks. So it's a, it's a pleasure Brandon. Thank you so much. All right. James Gerrito, best luck to you sir. Stay, stay safe. Have a great day. So thank you so much, James Gerrito for stopping by Nashville restaurant radio. Also want to say a big thank you to the Buckingham Foundation, the Kimpton Ertson, the Henley and the Nashville food project for all that you are doing right now. You can find those companies on Instagram. And if you have another story, if you know, if somebody out there is doing something similar, I want to hear about it. Send me a message on my Instagram page at Nashville underscore restaurant, underscore radio, or my Facebook page at Nashville restaurant radio. Thank you guys for listening and hopefully you are staying safe. Love you guys. Bye bye.