mikew99

Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center

I don't often stay at Hampton Inns, so I'm not sure what is typical, but at the Hampton Inn San Francisco Downtown/Convention Center this past Monday the breakfast was a grab-and-go box with a packaged bagel, cream cheese, yogurt, and packaged hard-boiled eggs:



Coffee was available as well.

InkUnderNails

It was not a HI, but it may be an indicator for Nashville. When I checked in at a Home2, the front desk clerk said they had just restrarted full breakfast like before. Nashville and five other cities had had more restrictive local rules than the rest of Tennessee, and Nashville was among the strictest.

MASTERNC

It's not a HI, but we have reservations at a Homewood Suites in Buffalo over July 4, and I am not expecting to find a similarly meager breakfast as many have found at HIs (especially since NY state says all restrictions won't lift until 70% vaccination rates are reached). Thankfully, family is only 10 minutes away, so we can just have breakfast there.

aww3583

Thanks for the additional info. As a manager, I completely understand the staffing woes.

As a traveler, it's frustrating to no end. Hamptons that are 2-3 miles apart will have vastly different breakfast offerings. The meager breakfasts can't solely be blamed on staffing. Parsimonious hotel owners/managers are to blame, too. The Hamptons I frequent are full, and rates are going up. If I'm paying $150/night at a Hampton in a mid-sized city in a low cost of living area, and if the parking lot is full, there is no reason not to have a full hot breakfast. There are Hamptons in Florida that never stopped serving hot breakfasts, some even rolled out new items during the pandemic.

Food, utensils, equipment, and staffing for a 3-hour hot breakfast can't be more than $100 - $200/day. Raise the rates by a buck or two and treat guests to what they expect.

The Road Goes On Forever

Hotels in Florida had an advantage to a lot of their counterparts since the state, in comparison, never really shut down. Financially their 2020's while off, were no doubt far better than what a lot of other Hampton's experienced if they operated in Mid-Atlantic states where either extreme lack of business or government regulation forced them to layoff the bulk of their staffs or even temporarily close. Easier to retain staff and services if in comparison the operation only slows down versus grinding to a near stop. I know our property took a seven figure revenue hit last year as did most of the hotel's that have friends/former co-workers that I talk to. Some of what's going on now is clearly a victory lap for properties to recoup some of what was lost from last year through pre-pandemic rates with pandemic staffing. The pandemic gave a lot of our prior staff the ability to look for work in other industries and they have. It's not too hard to beat the pay/benefits/consistent scheduling just about anywhere else versus hospitality. You hear a lot of new stories about company X offering signing bonuses or company Y raising pay rates but you won't hear that in hospitality aside from possibly a few outlier locations.

You're right that things can be so different at two different locations just a short distance apart. While they both have the same name on the outside of the building, they are in essence completely unrelated since more than likely they are owned/managed by different companies and are in essence two separate worlds with two separate sets of circumstances and two different viewpoints on how to deal with the things.

The best I can tell you is to hang on for the ride because people on both sides of the front desk have no idea what's coming next as it's being made up on the fly. Six months from now will look like ?? and a year from now will look like ???

johnndor

Totally agree - can't be totally blamed on staffing, nor COVID. And that goes for restaurants also... I recently hit two Japanese places in the same town over a couple of days... one had plastic silverware, soy sauce in packets, and no china sauce dishes. Other place was "normal" with bottles of soy, and china soup spoons as well as soy dishes.

As for Hilton family hotels, I've had everything from full, semi-normal buffet at Tru or Hampton, regular buffet (albeit they serve you in clamshell boxes, and no omelets) at Embassy Suites, and at other times places only have pre-packaged goods to grab and go.

beachmouse

The Hampton Inn in my Florida suburb is going for $300+ a night for much of the summer because anything closer to the beach is even more at that point. It would seem like they would have the budget to 'overpay' to fully staff the breakfast area with those numbers.

ORDnHKG

When it comes to the pandemic, there is absolute ZERO indicator what one brand does mean the same for the rest of the brands in the same city, and it varies property to property even if it is same brand !

​​​​​​​A block that has a Hilton, DT, ES all next to each other, Hilton is grab and go, DT and ES are full breakfast, a mile away, HI has the full breakfast as well, however another HI that is 3 miles away is grab and go however.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

Stayed at the Hampton in Dundee Scotland,

Breakfast was assisted buffet. One way system round the buffet
Cold items: Cereal, yoghurt , fruit
Coffee and OJ self service

Hot items: server served onto a plate your choice of haggis, bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs , baked beans. Also handed out toast and croissant on request. Porridge also available.

Needed to make reservations for breakfast .
Overall , very good breakfast.

Regards

TBS