Business
Janelle De Souza
The story, the decor, the space, the view, the menu and the people of The Brix Hotel all reinforce the brand’s tagline: Exactly like nothing else.
The Brix Hotel, Autograph Collection by Marriott International, at Coblentz Avenue, Cascade, is the newest hotel in Trinidad and Tobago.
It has 159 rooms and three suites, with the size of each room averaging around 480 square feet as opposed to other hotels, whose rooms average around 300 square feet.
In addition to the restaurant and rooftop, there is a fitness centre, outdoor patio, bar, and a grab-and-go deli which offers coffees, salads, sandwiches, snacks, and desserts.
The hotel’s owner, the Superior Hotels Group, is also considering including a spa, which would be contracted out rather than being run by the hotel.
John Aboud, chairman of Superior Hotels, told Business Day the group bought the property, formerly the Carlton Savannah, when it came up for sale in 2014.
The idea was to build a hotel to complement TT’s tourism products, especially the Five Islands Water and Amusement Park in Chaguaramas, in which the directors of Superior Hotels are also investors.
When the property was acquired, the next step was to convert it to match their vision. They considered several international hotel chains but chose Marriott because of its reputation and its variety of flags, including Sheraton, Autograph, JW, and Courtyard.
Aboud said because the hotel was already built, it eliminated most of the flags, as the hotels under each flag had similar appearances. In fact, if they chose Marriott, the hotel had to be under the Autograph Collection, as all Autograph Collection hotels are unique.
“The Autograph is a personal type of flag. Therefore we wanted to make it personal to TT. We were looking for something that has historical and cultural relevance, and so someone came up with The Brix, which is the measure of the amount of sugar dissolved in a liquid. And the other names we came up with were used in other aspects of the hotel.”
For example, he said the hotel’s restaurant is called The Exchange, which was the market where people bought and sold sugar cane; the rooftop lounge is called Sugar High; and the name of the deli is Merchants.
In addition, all the paintings in the hotel are by local artists, all coffee-table books are local, highlighting different aspects of TT, and the menu includes local flavours.
Battling through the pandemic
Renovations on The Brix began in 2017.
Aboud explained that the layout of the first two floors was completely changed, some areas were expanded, an outdoor area was built, the entire air-condition system was changed, and other construction work was done.
Because of the pandemic, construction was shut down, productivity was low, and there were delays and increased costs in securing and shipping furniture and equipment, increasing the completion cost from $300 million to $400 million.
He said the pandemic caused concerns about the investment, as the hospitality industry was severely strained, with limited travel and tourism, but they pushed through.
“When you’re in the middle of a battle you don’t study that you’re going to lose. If you’re going through a tunnel and there’s only one way to get out of the tunnel, you want to get out with the same optimism as when you went in. So of course there were concerns, but if the world came to an end it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.”
Since the world did not end, the investors knew people would begin to travel again and they would need a hotel room when they did. So they built a hotel and staff that would encourage people to stay at and return to The Brix, and those people would encourage others to do so as well.
“Having made the decision to make the financial commitment to get involved in the business, there was no turning back. So you only focus on things you can control and hopefully what you cannot control will work itself out, because those uncontrollables are not isolated to The Brix.”
Therefore, even with the delay in opening and the increased cost, the hotel was officially opened on February 12, and fully opened on February 16, when its first guests arrived, to the applause of the staff.
However, The Exchange opened for dinner on Valentine’s Day to “allow our wonderful people a change to practise what they were trained to do over the last few months.”
– AYANNA KINSALE
The hotel will employ over 150 people directly and all will be nationals except the general manager, Niels Stuedemann from Germany.
“He’s brought with him the expertise and management skills that Marriott would want in their brand of hotels,” said Aboud.
He added that working at The Brix was a huge opportunity for employees to develop their skills and experience, as they could be transferred to other Marriott hotels across the globe if Marriott International offers and they are amenable.
While Superior Hotels owns the hotel, it has to operate under Marriott’s rules and systems.
“People don’t know what happens behind the scenes. They go to a Marriott hotel, depending on the classification, and they say, ‘Wow, the place is nice, clean, the staff is wonderful,’ and they have a wonderful experience. But that didn’t happen by accident. It happened because of the systems that have evolved over the decades, as well as the selection and training of the staff.”
In fact, he said part of the agreement with Marriott is that every year a percentage of the profits generated by the hotel must be kept in reserve for maintenance and upgrades. Hence the hotel will maintain its standards as the years progress.
Hiring staff by personality
With a background in luxury and high-end boutique hotels, and working in the Caribbean since 1997, Stuedemann has been part of The Brix for three years.
“Our story at The Brix is about the solution of sugar in liquid. It’s part of the process in making rum, wine, and the fermentation process. So we used that solid name and started to develop the story… It’s all about the history of how TT became prosperous during that time of trade and sugar. Sweet T&T, so to speak.”
He explained that the uniforms of the employees at Merchants are similar to what market merchants would wear in the past; the chandeliers in the lobby are shaped like sugar molecules; the signature drink, The Mark, uses the pressed juice of four types of sugarcane; and the fresh cane juice is incorporated in menus.
Stuedemann personally selected the staff, spending 30-45 minutes with each. He said he was proud of them all, as they went through a lot of training, which was necessary as Marriott’s directives insist any guest issues must be resolved within 15 minutes.
“The foremost thing is, you don’t have to hire by skills. You hire by personality. You can train skill but you can’t train personality. I wanted to ensure that their auras were aligned, that all the staff could work together and complement one another, and you can feel that they do. One of our sayings is, ‘We take care of our employees and our employees will take care of our guests.’”
Describing The Brix as “human chemistry in action,” he recalled offering one man a job after observing him disinfecting carts at a supermarket. The man was so friendly, warmly smiling at customers, that Stuedemann invited him to become a bellman to greet guests.
Food and beverage manager Jason Hadley too was proud of the selection for the kitchen’s management team and the restaurant’s front of house staff.
He said some had several years of international experience, including executive chef Leslie Greene, who spent over 20 years with the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.
“We took his experience, as well as some culinary gold medallists from the Taste of the Caribbean competition, and we crafted the menu of international cuisine with a local flair. And since we are The Brix, we took that rich heritage of our sugar industry and infused it into our menu.
“Even in our drinks, coffees and desserts you would see sugarcane infused in them. So we call The Brix a sweet house, but with no refined sugar, as we bought sugarcane presses to juice the cane.”
The Exchange is predominantly a steak and seafood house, but throughout the hotel, the food includes chokas and sugarcane by-products, all fresh as the hotel engaged sugarcane and produce farmers to provide guests with food straight from the farms to the table.
