Meet Epicurean Hotel’s new widespread supervisor

Kevin Scott moved his young family from Seattle to Tampa past the due closing year so his five-12 months-vintage son and 3-year-antique daughter could be towards his dad and mom, who live in St. Petersburg.

However, on Wednesday, Scott will step into his new function as fashionable manager of the Epicurean Hotel. Over the remaining seven months, he and his wife, Jillian, an indoor fashion designer, started settling into the place after 13 years on the West Coast. Then, “lo and behold, I became extraordinarily fortunate and grateful that the Epicurean became available,” Scott said.

Luck can be one reason Scott was named trendy supervisor of the 137-room boutique motel, taking on Tom Haines. However, Scott also brings an extensive hospitality industry heritage with him. He spent seven years with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, wherein San Francisco for the W and the Westin St. Francis Hotel.

“Most lately, my experience has been with the unbiased way of life” motel, stated Scott, who will be directing the hiring of the new workforce and the resort’s everyday operations.

Scott spent the last three years as the well-known manager of Hotel Max, which bills itself as “the pleasant Seattle boutique motel for art lovers, musicians, and the “creatively inclined. It boasts an art series in its foyer and the works of well-known local photographers on its guest room floors.

That precise experience dovetails well with the Epicurean venture and its discern organization, Mainsail Lodging & Development. Mainsail’s lodges fall under Marriott International Inc.’s Autograph Collection emblem, which allows every property to create a tale that emphasizes its own man or woman personality. “I move all in on the tale,” Scott stated. “What is first-rate about the Marriott’s Autograph emblem? You get to create your tale. You get to do what you need to do as an operator and as a proprietor.”

Scott stated that to create a story that draws clients and keeps them coming back; hoteliers are concentrating on using generation to customize every character’s reveal. Fine inns use information and tech to look at customers’ emails and discover their likes and dislikes. “Say you’ve got a visitor who’s a dog lover,” Scott stated. The inn can find a photograph of that guest’s canine from their social media account, print it out, frame it, and position it inside the room as that person arrives. The picture may want to have an observation that says: “Mom, I leave out you,” Scott said.

Scott additionally spent seven years with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, during which time he worked in San Francisco for the W and the Westin St. Francis Hotel, where he was named Manager of the Year.

What will be distinctive for Scott at the Epicurean is the hotel’s connection to the legacy of Bern’s Steak House, located just across from the assets. In truth, the lodge has constructed its recognition around its Epicurean Theater, which former inn supervisor Tom Haines has defined as a stay Food Network-type revelry.

“The hotel that I managed in Seattle had a fantastic restaurant; however, nowhere near the legacy of Berns,” Scott stated. He also perceives the connection to Marriott’s logo, marketing, loyalty program, and reservations gadget as a massive advantage.

As a self-described Army brat who moved to a new city every two and one-1/2 years and graduated from the excessive school in Singapore, Scott is no stranger to exchange and evolving landscapes. He moved to San Francisco in 2004 and witnessed the second tech boom. He later moved to Seattle in 2013 and has watched that city grow.

Now, in Tampa, Scott sees the same phenomenon. He pointed to Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik’s $3 billion Water Street Tampa development inside the town’s urban core. He could encompass nine million square feet of industrial, residential, hospitality, academic, leisure, cultural, and retail space. “You can see the future,” Scott stated.