Pay for food/Manager's reception at RI?
 

I know they have cut back to just 3 nights a week, but I was a little surprised at what happened last night at my local RI.

On the website (and in the room) it is described as (and I'm paraphrasing) something like "Mondays are dips and snacks", "Tuesdays we are grilling", and "Wednesdays we bring in local food trucks or restaurant pop-ins".

We were staying last night (Wednesday), and thought "that's nice, chance to try some local food truck food" - we were really surprised we had to buy the food from the food truck, at their regular prices. So the RI (this one at least) really only provides freebies 2 nights a week?

Were we naïve to think, based on the wording of the website and past experiences with RI's, that the food would be complimentary?

Beer and wine was free, but ONLY 2 glasses. You could not even BUY a third - two per person only, no exceptions.

The stay was very nice (despite worrying about the sheets :rolleyes:), everyone was very pleasant, but this just caught us off guard.

If I'm paying for food, I'll pick the restaurant or food truck and the time myself, thank you very much.

Please post the location.

Eugene/Springfield, Oregon

That's not an anomaly at a single location. Food trucks on alternating Wednesdays are a feature of current Residence Inn standards. Marriott promotes it as part of "The Mix."

Take a look at http://www.residenceinn.marriott.com/ri-mix/

I can't say it's a bad idea. I've never found the evening food at Residence Inns to be a substitute for a real dinner. (I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've never encountered any.)

If the beer (cost paid by the hotel) and the food trucks (cost paid by the guest) are good, it might be a fun, relatively inexpensive substitute for going to a restaurant.

But I think the wording should be more in line with "chance to buy food/food for purchase from local food trucks"...to say nothing, to me, implies that it would be complimentary.

Do they charge for the dips on Monday and the grilling on Tuesday? If they do not, then they should differentiate that Wednesday is food for purchase.

Horace, that link you provided DOES say food for purchase. But on the RI Eugene website, under dining, it does not.

I'll preface this by saying that my expectations of the "manager's reception" at Residence Inn are pretty low as far as the food goes. It's *never* been particularly good, IMHO. I stayed at an RI this week in Tempe - excellent new property with multiple good beers on tap (and no limit, within reason) - and the food was still bare-bones. Fortunately that hotel is walking distance to about 100 restaurants, so no need for a food truck to be brought to the hotel.

Thus, if I was staying at a typical suburban RI with nothing else walking distance around it, I'd actually really like the food truck if it's a good one. I'd rather pay for that than have chips & salsa for free.

The 2-beer limit is stupid. It's a cheap look. Obviously any bar/restaurant has the right to cut off people who are getting hammered, I get the sense that most RI guests aren't at that point when they're going for their 3rd eight-ounce cup of beer.

The residence inn in vegas did this as well. I think it's a standard thing for RI. I thought it was pretty good as I do love street food and having them bring it right outside was very convenient. It was vegas so restaurants are all over the place but if this was somewhere else I thinknow people would find it convenient if they didn't want to spend the money to take a cab or drive.

Nice to have things mixed up and an OPTION to buy but yet this is another Marriott cutback disguised as an "enhancement". Anyone recall a few year back when RI went from 4 days to 3 day of evening food that was to allow them to enhance the offerings, did that really happen/stick?

I remember. We even had a thread saying report back on offerings etc. It was promoted as consistent & enhancement but obviously wasn't.

Cheers.

I was recently at an RI in Newark, CA (near San Jose) and the reception featured cheeseburgers with all the usual toppings, beer, wine, a house salad, and a pasta salad. It was actually quite tasty and seemed like most of the guests were partaking, making it a bit of a zoo.

Nothing was charged for the buffet.

I'm also surprised about the beer limit, wonder if it's some sort of local ordinance?

Yeah I remember the thread a while back about the 'enhancement' to the RI evening receptions which was just a poorly disguised downgrade.

I guess if you're lucky you get a good RI that does a better job on the 2 nights they provide food now, however the consensus seems to be that it is rather poor in general.

Putting a bowl of chips and salsa out is pretty poor compared to what the receptions used to be. And the full priced food truck thing is a poor excuse and just jumping on the trendy/millennial bandwagon.

Even before this enhancement, some RIs were already doing the reception only three days per week, not four.

The 4 nights to 3 (some 5 years ago?) and the 3 nights to 2 + a food truck night (maybe 1 year old) are two separate "enhancements" ! ;)