About This Episode
Office owners and employers have spent heavily to turn the beige office into something closer to a five-star hotel. Paul Fairhead, CEO of Infuse Hospitality and former CEO of Guckenheimer, argues that the design work is largely done and the hospitality work is not. In this episode of the Future of Work podcast, host Frank Cottle asks Paul what landlords, employers and flexible workspace operators get right and wrong about food, and why so many corporate cafeterias still sit empty.
Paul, a chef by training with more than 25 years in hotels, restaurants and corporate dining across Europe, Latin America and the U.S., lays out what he calls the food truck approach: small menus, executed well, available only here and only today. He explains why variety now matters more than consistency, how a coworking center with 20 members can borrow the same playbook as a 3,000-person building, and why direct relationships with neighborhood restaurants can beat delivery apps. The two also dig into the harder business questions, including how landlords price amenities into rent, why employees often don’t see what their employer spends on a $1 cup of coffee, and how property owners can keep food programs flexible as tenant mixes change. Paul closes with the simplest place to start: coffee.
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Key Takeaways
- Design has caught up; service hasn’t. Paul says workplaces understand that the office has to earn the commute and have invested accordingly in design and amenities, but the human, hospitality side “is still lacking.”
- Variety beats “good every day.” Employers want people in three to five days a week, so the menu can’t repeat. Paul’s model is the food truck: a very small menu, executed well, available only at one place and time.
- There’s no minimum size. A barista cart, a local roaster, pop-ups and Taco Tuesday can serve 10 people or 1,000. Paul says workplaces no longer need a fully fledged “black-iron kitchen.”
- Local beats a single provider. In one Chicago building with seven food hubs, Paul says a single-provider model drew uneven reviews, and bringing in local restaurants and food truck operators “works so much better.”
- Amenities show up in rent, but measured premiums are modest. One of Paul’s clients told him amenities would take rent from $40 to $45 a square foot. JLL research puts the measured food-hall premium at up to 1.4% over same-submarket peers (JLL).
- Employees often don’t see the subsidy. Paul’s example: if a coffee costs an employee $1, the true cost “might be $5,” and the employer rarely gets credit. Badge-swipe discounts that show the full price and the discount make the value visible.
Why This Matters
Return-to-office policies have pushed food from perk to strategy. Vendor surveys put numbers on the trend: catering company ezCater reports that 81% of employees say their workplace meals are free to them (ezCater), and CaterCow reports that 53% of workers say their company caters lunch at least weekly (CaterCow). Both come from companies that sell workplace food, which is worth keeping in mind, but the direction matches what Paul describes from the operator side.
The harder question is whether that spending works. Frank’s description of the corporate cafeteria as a “ghost land” points to the risk: food programs can become a capital expense and a waste of space if they repeat the cafeteria of old. Paul’s answer is operational rather than architectural. Flexible formats, rotating local partners and visible pricing let a landlord, employer or coworking operator test what draws people in before committing to infrastructure. For flex operators in particular, Paul argues that complimentary F&B is a point of attraction when members compare spaces, even if it reads as overhead once they’ve joined.
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The office has to earn the commute
[00:00] Paul Fairhead: The office has to earn the commute. Coworking spaces are really looking at that F&B amenities and using it as a point of attraction. But how you attract people to the space initially, I think, is very heavily driven by those complimentary items that you include as part of that fee structure.
Welcome: A Chef on the Future of Work Podcast
[00:17] Frank Cottle: Paul, welcome to the Future of Work podcast. Gosh, I really feel lucky today. We don’t very often have a master chef representing the hospitality industry talking about office space. So this is going to be a fun conversation today, and I’m really grateful for you to join us.
[00:34] Paul Fairhead: Well, thank you for having me, Frank. Delighted to be here, delighted to talk to you. This subject, it’s kind of what I live every day, so excited to dig in with you.
[00:44] Frank Cottle: Well, I was just saying earlier, shame we didn’t do this at your office instead of over video, because then we could have gotten a free lunch out of it.
[00:52] Paul Fairhead: 100%. Next time.
What Workplaces Get Right and Wrong on Hospitality
[00:53] Frank Cottle: Next time, next time. We’re good to go. So, employers, landlords, flex space operators, coworking centers are rethinking the workplace, or trying to. What are they getting right? What do you think they’re getting wrong right now as it relates to the hospitality aspect of it?
[01:13] Paul Fairhead: Yeah, great question. I think a lot of things are going right. I think workplaces, large employers, coworking spaces are understanding that the office has to earn the commute. So I think in terms of design, look and feel, the overall amenities, access to the space, are going very well. And I think significant amounts of money have been spent on those designs, these beautiful spaces that have been converted from the beige office into almost what looks like a five-star hotel in a lot of environments. I think the challenge is we’ve got the infrastructure. We’ve got the space. We’ve got the idea. And to me, the piece that’s still lacking is that human side. It’s that hospitality side that needs to be delivered alongside the great space. It needs to be a great food program, and even that’s changed, I think, in the last few years, what the definition of that is, but served in a great environment by great hospitality individuals that understand service, understand the dynamics of a workspace, to really support and execute to a high level.
Why “Good Every Day” Isn’t Enough Anymore
[02:33] Paul Fairhead (cont.): I think also, we were chatting a little earlier, Frank, I think a lot of it is it can’t be just good every day. That’s not good enough anymore. It has to have that variety. It has to have that surprise and delight.
[02:50] Frank Cottle: Yeah. Variety, I think variety is a big issue. So often, companies of every type get into habits. Even restaurants get into habits. And, you know, I know the menu of my favorite local restaurant backwards or forwards, and it’s never changed since I started going there. I don’t think it ever will. Now, they’re popular. Yeah, but I know what I’m going to order before I ever get in the car. And I think in a work environment, you do need to spice it up a little bit and recognize that people aren’t there just to eat. They’re there to eat and share experiences. And if you can keep them on site where they can share experiences instead of fragmenting it two or three times a day, then your corporate culture, or your business culture if you’re a coworking center or flex office center, your business culture is going to be stronger. I would also say that most property companies are in the square footage business. They don’t really understand the hospitality business. And unless you really have expertise to bring the combine into that, I think they’ve historically, and even today, do a pretty lousy job. It needs a different face on it.
The Corporate Cafeteria of Old and the Food Truck Approach
[04:16] Paul Fairhead: I think it’s been a journey for sure. I think there’s a lot of understanding now of that need for variety. I mean, again, your favorite restaurant, Frank, I presume you don’t go there five days a week. Probably don’t go there three days a week. Yeah, we’re encouraging you to be in our workspaces at least three, if not five. And so I think that then comes into that variety question. What you deliver to me on Tuesday can’t be just the same as a Wednesday. And that is that corporate cafeteria of old. We live in a world where you are there five days a week. There was variety throughout that day of what you could have, but ultimately the offer didn’t shift from one week to the next. Now, our consumers, the users in these spaces, really expect something different. And really, I think it’s executing that individual day. I kind of almost call it the food truck approach. Food trucks don’t have big menus. They have very small, maybe two items on the menu, but they execute it incredibly well. And it’s this delicious dish that you can only get this one place on this one day at this one given time. That is the experience, I think, that a lot of our consumers are looking for now: that great, authentic product that’s delivered in the moment, not just, “Hey, it’s the same thing every day and it fills you up. It ticks the box,” but that’s it. And so we’re really approaching things to say, how can you create that individual surprise-and-delight moment while still delivering a fundamental service of breakfast, lunch, dinner?
Feeding People Back to the Office, and the “Ghost Land” Cafeteria
[05:54] Frank Cottle: Well, you know, everybody, not everybody, a lot of large corporations are trying to get everybody back to the office.
[06:01] Paul Fairhead: Yep.
[06:02] Frank Cottle: And a lot of buildings are trying to monetize their buildings to increase the overall desirability of being on site and the value that comes with that. Companies trying to bring people back to the office by feeding them is sounding like a natural draw: “Well, I don’t have to pay for lunch, or I don’t have to go out for lunch, or lunch is more effective, or I don’t have to go somewhere. It’s easier.” But still, a lot of companies that have done that, that corporate cafeteria is a ghost land. And a lot of buildings that have tried this, getting it right versus just doing it is the difference between a big capital expense and a high overhead and a waste of space versus really accomplished. You go out of people. We’ve through that”]. And a lot of coworking centers really have such limited space and such a flexible group of people coming and going, almost like an airport lounge, if you will.
[07:16] Frank Cottle: Heaven forbid it gets to be like an airport lounge: X number of hot trays that have everything taste the same. How does a small company deal with this? How does a property company that isn’t a food service company deal with it? By now you can outsource anything, but how do they really deal with it? And what are the outcomes you’re seeing?
Partnerships and local food scenes
[07:42] Paul Fairhead: Yeah, great question. Lots of parts to that. So I think the…
[07:45] Frank Cottle: Only about 12. Sorry.
[07:47] Paul Fairhead: No, it’s good, I’ll get there. So I think on the real estate side, a lot of it is partnerships, right? Partner with the right food service company, from design of the space, access to the space, through to the concepts that are going to be delivered in those spaces, and then ultimately the hospitality service and execution there. And when we see that done well, it really isn’t taking a cookie-cutter approach. It’s really understanding the geography of the building. Where is it located? Boston’s food scene versus Chicago’s food scene versus Dallas’ food scene: very, very different.
[08:25] Frank Cottle: So wait, wait, stop right there. There is no street food scene in Dallas. They roll up the sidewalks, you know, and there’s not that much street food scene there.
[08:37] Paul Fairhead: It’s too hot this time of year to be outside in Dallas. But yeah, I mean, again, great culinary centers all in their own right, but with very different approaches. So ultimately, when you’re looking at the space, you’ve got to consider those. What’s the demographic of the building? Who are you leasing to? What kind of tenant is it? A technology client? Is it a banking client?
Who Are You Leasing to? The Landlord’s Chicken-and-Egg Question
[08:59] Frank Cottle: So you just said something, sorry to interrupt you, but you said, “Who are you leasing to?” Isn’t that kind of a chicken-and-egg issue? If you have the right structure that you’re talking about, you might lease to an entirely different group rather than create a structure for the group that’s already there.
[09:18] Paul Fairhead: Well…
[09:19] Frank Cottle: How do you bridge that? Because that’s an interesting thing from a landlord’s point of view.
[09:23] Paul Fairhead: Yeah. Well, I guess we see a couple of different ways. So we get involved with a lot of our real estate partners who have acquired a building that, say, is underperforming in one way or the other, and they’re bringing us in at a strategic level to say, “OK, we want to attract this kind of Class A tenant going forward. What do we need to be able to do to provide that?” So you have that situation, and you really then design it with a very intentional process to attract the right tenant. Then you have the existing buildings. That’s like, “OK, I’ve got a dissatisfied client because we’re not hitting the mark.” You come in and still look at the demographic of their employees. You look at the demographic of the space around them. Are they walking out the door and going to a Chipotle, or are they bringing in food from home? Do they not have the time? Is the restaurant too far away? Are they doing shift work? Are they doing three days a week? Really, you’re trying to understand the utilization of the space and build a solution that matches the need. And then some are just white-space opportunities where you’re just building something from expansion. I mean, we do get some opportunities, white space, we’d actually build in from the ground up. And it’s just all about tenant attraction and lease attraction, or of course, in our workplace space, it’s really about employee attraction as well. So again, really creating these designs to make sure they’re fit for purpose for the intended outcome that we’re looking at in any given workplace.
Is There a Minimum Size?
[11:07] Frank Cottle: Well, you know, Paul, I’m curious, because buildings are so dynamic: small, medium, large, big lobbies, no lobby, cafeteria in the basement. All these things happen.
[11:20] Paul Fairhead: Oh, it does.
[11:21] Frank Cottle: And people skillfully avoid them. Is there a minimum size or particular layout where this just won’t work? Or is there a shoe that fits every foot?
[11:40] Paul Fairhead: Yeah. No, I don’t think there’s a minimum size. We look after buildings that…
[11:46] Frank Cottle: 25 people, would take to take a coworking center. Yeah, more. I would take that as, like, a minimum size. Is something like that going to work? And will it have the same beneficial outcome that a building that had a full food service structure might have?
Scaling Down: Barista Carts, Pop-Ups and Taco Tuesday
[12:06] Paul Fairhead: I mean, again, there’s scale to everything. But in a coworking space, it’s the same approach. Versus building out the full brick and mortar, “Here’s your full-service coffee bar,” you have a barista cart that you wheel through in the morning, wheel through in the afternoon. You have a great quality local roaster that you leverage in that space. You do a pop-up. You do Taco Tuesday. You’re bringing in local restaurants from the local environment, and they get to showcase that. Well, that’s right. So you can leverage it that way to serve 10 people, and they can serve 1,000 people. And we’ve definitely seen that now. You don’t need a fully fledged black-iron kitchen to support workplaces. The world we’re in now means that with logistics and access, we can leverage things at small scale to a very, very large scale.
DoorDash vs. Direct Relationships with Local Restaurants
[13:05] Frank Cottle: How do you see companies where the employees have gotten captivated by the likes of local restaurants delivered via DoorDash versus the in-house cafeteria, I don’t want to say cafeteria, the in-house quality food service facility? Because that is a part of the changing culture that seems to have invaded us, properly or not. How do you see that playing out?
[13:41] Paul Fairhead: Yeah. I mean, to me, I see it all as benefit. I see it all as upside. Why do you bring in that local restaurant? Well, because it’s authentic, because they execute something to a very high level, again, in a slightly narrower view than a traditional corporate dining provider that’s trying to almost recreate itself any given day. And so you can leverage those local companies, and it doesn’t have to be delivered by DoorDash. You just have the direct relationship with that great coffee company, with that great neighborhood restaurant that’s three doors down: “Hey, we want 10 meals every Wednesday. Can you help us out with that?” They’re going to be very keen to support. It cuts out a lot of middlemen in that approach and delivers a very curated, intentional solution.
[14:31] Frank Cottle: I think you’re right. I’ve seen a lot of smaller office facilities or coworking facilities where the front desk, and everybody knows it, has half a dozen menus from very local providers. They could be in the building or next door to the building, every place where the food arrives hot and not mashed, you know, because we know what delivery companies are like sometimes, and there’s a direct thing. And I know that makes a difference in people’s comfort. That’s the most simplistic thing possible from what you’re talking about. It’s like page one, paragraph one of how to keep people happy.
Measuring the ROI: Rent Premiums and Casual Collisions
[15:00] Frank Cottle (cont.): Do you think leaders should measure the contribution or the ROI on food service: employee retention, hours on site, other levels of engagement, team meetings that happen spontaneously? How do you measure those metrics as an ROI on food service?
[15:37] Paul Fairhead: Yeah, I mean, it’s a tough one. There are very easy metrics that you can look at. We work with a lot of real estate companies with Class A spaces, etc., and they can literally put a dollar number to the price per square foot before amenities and the price per square foot post. I mean, it’s…
[15:55] Frank Cottle: You’re talking about property companies and the rental rates they can achieve as a result of this, increasing.
[16:03] Paul Fairhead: And so we see that, and we talk to a lot of clients, and they honestly tell us their approach: “Hey, we’re going to go from 40 bucks a square foot to $45 a square foot for this space if we have these levels of amenities.” And so we see a lot of that, and very, very clear ROI on that factor. The stuff that’s harder to calculate: those casual collisions that you’re talking about. Hey, you come to the restaurant and you bump into a colleague and you have a conversation about something that could have been 12 emails, could have been 14 conference calls, but you actually solve it in person there and then. Hard to put true value around that.
The Credit Problem: The $1 Coffee That Costs $5
[16:46] Paul Fairhead (cont.): The employee sentiment side of things in workplaces, again, there’s lots of metrics that we use around that, from net promoter scores to the employer, and we find that food and beverage come up very much as part of that. I think one of the things that’s missing, Frank, in some of this is I don’t think employees always know the investment the employers, or flex workspaces or others, are investing into the space. Because if I have to pay a dollar for my cup of coffee, the coffee’s cost to me is a dollar, and I’m paying for it. The true cost might be $5.
[17:24] Frank Cottle: Yeah.
[17:25] Paul Fairhead: But fundamentally, I’m paying for it. And sometimes we feel like the people giving the benefit aren’t getting the credit for it in the employee’s eyes, because, again, they’re still paying for some part of it. So there’s lots of mechanics we look at to ensure that people realize the commitment that’s being made to them as an employee or a tenant.
Getting Credit for the Subsidy: Badge-Swipe Discounts
[17:47] Frank Cottle: Let’s assume that the coffee costs the employee a dollar and it costs the employer $5. What are the best practices for having that value contribution recognized? What are building owners doing? What are companies doing? If it’s a building facility, you expect to pay, and you hope it’s at market rate or better. But if there’s a Starbucks kiosk down on the ground floor of a big building, you’re going to pay Starbucks prices. You don’t care. It’s just like Starbucks, right?
[18:25] Paul Fairhead: Yeah.
[18:25] Frank Cottle: So whatever the building has put in, as long as it’s market rate, people will expect to pay for it. If it’s a company or a business or a coworking center, coworking centers don’t charge for, you know, coffee. It’s part of the overhead, right? Coffee, tea, different drinks, different sorts of light refreshments oftentimes are part of it in a serviced office. But the employer that has 100 people on a floor, or 100 people on each of five floors, that employer has a hard time charging. Do they charge? I’ve never even seen that.
[19:10] Paul Fairhead: It’s mixed, for sure. And post-COVID, the last five years, we’ve seen a big push to larger subsidies, larger discounts in the corporate restaurant, corporate cafeteria space. In the multi-tenanted leased building, what we see ownership doing a lot is: swipe your security badge and you get your discount. That’s then showing a quantifiable number. OK, the entree’s $12, you get it for six. I get a 50% discount of heart.
[19:45] Frank Cottle: Yeah, but I know it was really a $6 entree that you marked up to $12.
[19:50] Paul Fairhead:
[19:52] Frank Cottle: But you know people think that way.
Coworking: F&B as a Point of Attraction
[19:54] Paul Fairhead: They do. They can. Yeah. I mean, again, it’s always a challenge. There’s no perfect solution in some of these environments. But ultimately, a recognition of that: “Yeah, the market rate is 12. You’re discounting it to six.” They see some benefit there. In the coworking space, I do think you get a lot of credit for it. I mean, when you and I have had some conversations on this, I see it out in the space, where your coworking spaces are really looking at that F&B amenities and using it as a point of attraction. So it may seem, well, once you’re in, it’s part and parcel, it’s part of overhead. But how you attract people to the space initially, I think, is very heavily driven by those complimentary items that you include as part of that fee structure. So I do think there’s credit being given there if you leverage local providers. So again, the restaurant next door: “Well, hey, I know I go there sometimes and it’s $15 for two tacos, and I get it complimentary when I’m at the coworking space. That’s $15 of value that I could own very easily.” Trends translate into the space. So there’s other price-nudging aspects. A lot of the corporate dining clients look at it from, yeah, they want a discount measure. They want full prices and then a discount coming off. It can be a bit of a juggling act, but again, really trying to get the recognition for the commitment that you’re making to the overall service.
Building Owners and a Changing Tenant Mix
[21:22] Frank Cottle: Well, you know, let’s switch over to building owners again, property companies.
[21:28] Frank Cottle: If you’ve got a nice building, a central business district 300,000-, 400,000- or 500,000-square-foot building, you’ve got a population there that’s quite varied. You could have five floors’ worth of government paper pushers, banking, insurance company paper pushers and even. You know, you can have what up”], and you can have five floors full of attorneys, and then you can have five floors full of people that never leave the office for some reason. Maybe they’re practicing physicians or something, and their scheduling is . How do you plan? And then COVID hit and nobody’s in the office. And then there’s a major change in the population where the paper pushers all left, but it became a design studio for a media company. You’ve got this changing dynamic. How do you build a structure as a property company that is agile enough to keep flexing with this constant change overall and get the value? Because if you don’t hit it right, you’ve got three different marketplaces there. If you don’t hit it right, you’re not going to get the premium on the rent that you’re expecting or hoping to get as a result of this amenity.
Modular, Vertical and Micro-Market Solutions
[22:54] Paul Fairhead: Yeah, it’s probably one of the toughest factors, because when you come to real estate, you’re talking about infrastructure, and it’s expensive and it becomes a little rigid. There’s a couple of different approaches, like more modular use of space, so things that can be wheeled in, wheeled out, pivoted in terms of the concept or food style that they’re providing. That is a big factor. Separating out those spaces is what we’ve seen as well. So on a high-rise building, maybe you’ve got a coffee shop on the 24th floor, and then you’ve got a restaurant on the ground floor. And then really multiple points of service as well. So vertical catering, to be able to support meetings and events throughout the building, that can be supported by some level of central kitchen. Again, the restaurant option for breakfast, lunch, dinner, happy hours, etc. And then again, leveraging the in-office spaces, because generally a lot of these have some level of in-office space, be that through micro-markets, these unattended vending solutions that you’re seeing now more and more, to premium office coffee solutions like the Bevi machines that you see, the Farmer’s Fridge that you see: a more premium food solution, but available in a kind of micro space. And then overall, the offer is designed, when we talk about grab-and-go, it’s a big thing in workplace hospitality. And of course, grab-and-go can be, no offense to gas stations on the line, but gas station grab-and-go is not necessarily the most attractive compared to a Whole Foods grab-and-go. It can be the same type of delivery. It’s convenient. You grab it, you go, you take it back to your space. But the quality, the range of those products can be so significant. Well, you can pivot in that environment.
A Dallas-area Landlord’s Parking-lot Food Trucks
[24:48] Frank Cottle: And you know, I have a friend who’s got three different buildings around here. We were making fun of Dallas a minute ago; now I’ll praise something in Dallas. He’s got three different buildings, around 300,000 to 350,000 square feet each. They’re multi-tenant buildings with a lot of midsize or smaller tenants within them, not just large tenants. Think of it as like unclear space on steroids, right? An approach where a company will come in and take 10 to 50 workstations as opposed to two private offices. So he’s got these three things, and he did something very interesting. The weather here in the Dallas area, where I am in Fort Worth, is you never know how it’s going to work out. He created a whole variety of casual seating places indoors and outdoors, kind of a flow between the two. So when it was really cruddy weather, you could flow in. When it was pleasant weather, you flowed out more, etc. And then he did something unique: he designed his parking lot to host five food trucks. And so every day a different five, or there’s some rotation thing he’s got worked up. Food trucks pull up. So it’s lunch only; it’s not a continuous thing. They pull up at around 11 and they leave at around one or so. Maybe there’s somebody always there; I don’t really know. But some of the larger companies, In-N-Out Burger as an example, they have a catering food truck, and it shows up as a part of a chain, because I’m sure Chick-fil-A does, and that sort of thing. And then you have the local ones too. That’s how they achieve their variety and flexibility without really having to make hardly any investment. Have you seen that approach other places, or is that unique to the marketplace and physical layout of these particular buildings?
Mini Food Halls: The Brick-and-Mortar Food Truck
[26:53] Paul Fairhead: I’ve seen that more, I think, in the last couple of years. There’s two clients that I’m working with now who’ve got a very similar approach. They’ve created almost like a miniature food hall, but the premise being that they can have separate providers in each of these outlets. So they’re little self-contained stations. There’s a small kitchen, a small amount of storage. And ultimately, again, it comes back to this food truck approach. It’s almost like the brick-and-mortar side of a food truck: “Here, you come in today and serve your wares out of this station.” And tomorrow it could be something completely different. So it’s just space, what space is available.
[27:35] Frank Cottle: Well, excuse me, but restaurants are used to that sort of thing when they go to food fairs and things of that nature. They’re used to just having some burner plates and some ice tubs, and they can do a full magic thing, because all the prep is done somewhere else.
The Chicago Building with Seven Hubs
[27:53] Paul Fairhead: Correct. It’s done normally in the main restaurant that they operate in. So we see that a lot. And we’ve got one which is really interesting right now. It’s in Chicago, beautiful location, and they have seven of these hubs, for want of a better term, where the premise was to use the same provider to cover all seven. But of course, the customers are like, “Well, this one’s good. This one’s OK. These ones aren’t great.” And really what you want, again, coming back to this authentic, this narrow focus on execution of a smaller menu, is bringing in these local restaurants, food truck providers that are looking for this brick-and-mortar space to be able to really have their own little small mini restaurant as part of a bigger enterprise. It works so much better. And again, you can do that. This building’s got 3,000 people in it, and that’s how we’ve structured it. And you can do that for a coworking space that’s got 20 people in it. It’s the same approach, just a different variety of partners.
How to Get Started: Begin with Coffee
[29:01] Frank Cottle: You know, I could see how that could work pretty well. You have to have a certain critical mass to make it work. Of course, you have to have a certain critical mass for anything, and you scale it accordingly. So that kind of goes without saying. If one’s a flexible workspace, coworking center or a property? building, how does one initiate an activity, then monitor it to see if they’re getting the ROI, and, assuming they are, expand, improve? There are vendors out there. Your company is one of the very top ones that exists, and that’s not a compliment to you because you’re here. Its reputation is very, very much at the top. How does somebody get started to where they can say, “I’m going to try this. I don’t know if it’s going to work or not for me, but I’m going to try this”?
[30:04] Paul Fairhead: Yeah, I think you can start small in this. I think we’ve spoken a lot, Frank, about coffee, the passion around coffee. Start there. Go look at your space. Who are they? Who are the local roasters in this market? And say, “OK, from a coffee perspective, what would be a great experience? What would be a great partner to bring in?” It can cost you next to nothing to be able to execute something on that basis. So I think you can start there. The pop-ups, for want of a better term, bringing in local restaurants, bringing in something from there. Again, you can start that with very little infrastructure requirements. They have catering licenses, so they’re able to obviously serve in your premises. So that’s the quickest, easiest, most cost-effective way, I think, to get rolling on this.
What’s Next: AI, Robotics and Co-Created Solutions
[31:08] Paul Fairhead (cont.): Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t plug: give us a call if you’ve got a big project going on or something that you really want to pick our brains on. We’re very, very interested in the future of this space. We believe that what we’re building is very much where we are now and, let’s say, the next 10 years. But these things are very cyclical in nature, where there are going to be big other workplace shifts. We can see that coming in with AI, robotics. And what does that mean for workspaces, workplaces and the F&B programs? So I think the projects we enjoy the most are the ones where we’ve got a problem statement and we really have to dig in and co-create a solution together, understanding the client’s needs, whether that’s coworking, a property owner or a large employer, and then ultimately build a solution that gets the required outcomes, because it’s not one size fits all. There are trends, there are themes that really apply to the spaces, but a lot of it comes down to individual needs to really bring it home and execute to the highest level.
The Experience at Work
[32:19] Frank Cottle: Well, you know, I agree with you. And when we go to robotics, by the way, we’re going to have to serve free lubes or something. But I think the workplace has changed. And it’s not just the work you do anymore. It’s not just the pay you get, but it’s the experience you have, hopefully enjoyable and sustaining, while you’re working, that defines an awful lot of where you want to work, who you want to work with, your satisfaction level, which impacts your retention from an employer-employee point of view. And the more satisfied you are, generally, people do better work and put out a better product. So it is a big part of a whole success cycle.
[33:10] Paul Fairhead: For sure
[33:11] Frank Cottle: Yeah. So I guess you could say, we talked about people in younger generations not wanting things but wanting experiences. I don’t think that has anything to do with age. And I think adding an experience to the workplace, a certain satisfaction with being there, is elemental. So I want to thank you for joining us, and thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, Paul.
Bring your favorite restaurant to work
[33:42] Paul Fairhead: No, really appreciate it. And yeah, look, you were talking about your favorite restaurant a minute ago, Frank. No one forces you to go there. You decide to go there. Why do you go there? It’s great food, great atmosphere, great vibe. You feel welcomed. All you’ve got to do is bring that experience to the workplace and you’ve nailed it. So thank you for that.
[34:04] Frank Cottle: Paul, I look forward to the next meeting at your place.
[34:09] Paul Fairhead:
[34:10] Frank Cottle: Take care, my friend.
[34:13] Paul Fairhead: Thank you.
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