With people from our distant offices in town for a few days, I got into a conversation about business travel, and how horrible the food is. People who are constantly on the road just want a simple meal, while vacation travellers might want something different. The latter audience is well served by higher-end hotels and their shitty, expensive brunches. But what about these business travelers who just want a simple meal? I think Cracker Barrel has been successful serving this need, at least out on the highway. But what about hotels? A simple meal from room service might be: a bowl of some simple non-creamy soup, a few slices from a misshapen loaf of brown bread, a salad with home made dressing, and a nice piece of fruit (not standard food service grade fruit—a piece of fruit with flavor). Who would want more than this?

Right now the formula of high-end restaurants is to serve fairly simple, straightforward food made with excellent ingredients, in an environment which is appropriate for the price tag of the meal. I like a high-end meal from time to time, maybe once a year or something, but the restaurants that really get my consistent patronage are mid-range restaurants, typically small and independent, that manage to serve simple, straightforward food made with great ingredients, in a simple, straightforward atmosphere. Restaurants can do this as long as they don’t want to make much of a profit. At some point, the bulk of mid-range restaurants choose to skimp on good ingredients in the name of capitalism, or use more filler ingredients as a substitute for expensive ones.

So why can’t a hotel follow the formula that the best small restaurants do? I think a hotel is so high-stakes, compared to the corner restaurant, that it cannot help being profit-driven to the point of deminished quality. This is also why I think chains can never be as tasty as independent restaurants, though I may be proven wrong. If someone finds out how to make a chain that doesn’t sacrifice quality, they will be very successful (though maybe not very rich).