What do guests want in a hotel lobby? Not as much as you’d think. They just want great food, an inviting place to work, and a cocktail (or mocktail) at the end of the day. Let’s take a closer look at how to incorporate these three essentials into hotel lobby design: food, work, and drinks.
Hotel lobby design element #1: An appealing food experience
Once just a place to pass through, the hotel lobby has become the center of F&B operations for many brands. “This creates a sense of place and an active environment at check-in and drives greater F&B revenues with greater efficiencies, as well as an overall increase in ADR,” notes Lodging magazine.
There are many avenues for creating that memorable food experience in your hotel properties:
A menu that tells a story: Local ingredients, connections to family farms, and a theme that matches the hotel’s vibe and location. These are all elements of a successful hotel dining experience, according to Hotel Dive. Like good flash fiction, the menu should be fascinating but short.
A market with grab-and-go options: Early-flight catchers, late risers, and afternoon snackers need food options that fit their schedule. Increasingly, hotel lobbies feature markets with healthy and varied fresh foods. Step it up a notch by offering freshly blended smoothies or coffee drinks! All you need is a high-performance beverage blender.
A thoughtful free breakfast: “Complimentary breakfast” is the #1 search filter on Hilton’s website. More than ever, guests want breakfast choices they can feel good about, not wilted Danishes and bruised bananas. Hamilton Beach Commercial equipment makes it easy to serve a five-star breakfast:
- Commercial rice cookers, which can cook almost any grain to the perfect consistency and keep it hot for up to four hours.
- Sous-vide equipment: The PrimaVacTM line of chamber vacuum sealers and the AcuVideTM 1000 Immersion Circulator make perfect scrambled eggs or protein-packed egg bites.
- Self-service coffee urns feature precise, rapid brewing and hands-free dispensing.
Hotel lobby design element #2: An inviting work experience
Business travelers and digital nomads alike want to feel welcomed in a hotel lobby. "As we say, people like to be alone but not lonely. They want to work in environments where you can have some privacy and potentially be on a call and be in a chair that gives you sound insulation but [enables you to be] watching all the action during a multi-hour Teams call," said Roger Hill, chairman and CEO of The Gettys Group.
How can you create those spaces? For inspiration, look at the cozy upholstered alcoves in a Tru by Hilton, which face the lobby rather than forcing people to stare at the wall. Or look at the stunning setups in Michelin’s collection of the best hotel lobbies for work. We love the rule at PUBLIC in New York City: Once the clock strikes 6, you have to put your laptop away.
Hotel lobby design element #3: An irresistible cocktail experience
Offering drinks in the lobby is an important aspect of hospitality and a revenue driver. “This is keeping guests in the lobby meeting their friends who live locally; this goes a long way to drive local business and helps keep the 
hotel guest in the hotel spending money on property rather than going out,” Izzy Kharasch, president of consultancy Hospitality Works, told Costar.
If your hotel lobby design includes flexible, multifunctional furniture, the same table used for breakfast in the morning can be raised to serve as a bar table in the evening. Switch on different lights, change the channels and the music, and guests will say, “Wow, is this the same room?”
What if you don’t have the space for a bar? You don’t need it. Just get the Bartesian Professional Cocktail Machine: a self-contained cocktail maker that simplifies the process of making drink, including mocktails. Just select the desired strength, insert an all-natural flavoring capsule, and set the indicated glass in place. Bartesian precisely combines spirits, flavoring and water to deliver the perfect drink in 30 seconds.
Browse Hamilton Beach Commercial’s full line of foodservice equipment solutions for hospitality.
