EVEN Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group’s newest brand, created to meet the needs of wellness-minded travelers, is introducing the Cork & Kale™ food and beverage platform focused on simple, natural and good ingredients.
The F&B platform is based on the EVEN brand’s commitment to offering guests a variety of healthy and great tasting menu options that elevate their hotel experience while helping them maintain their routine on the road. The Cork & Kale platform is a consistent F&B offering, which will be available at all EVEN Hotels properties, the first of which are set to open before the end of June 2014 in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Rockville, Maryland.
Enhancing the nutritional quality of meals without compromising taste
Vucurevich Simons Advisory Group (VSAG), developers of the American family farmer-inspired Founding Farmers restaurant and Farmers Restaurant Group, based in Washington D.C., and SPE® Certified culinary nutritional consultants collaborated with IHG to develop and provide nutritional analysis for a menu consisting of high-quality food and fresh ingredients, with many menu items meeting SPE’s Sourcing / Preparing / Enhancing certification requirements. In helping to develop the custom offering, VSAG worked with IHG to design a new hotel F&B service model and planned, designed and built a working test kitchen used to validate all recipes, equipment and processes.
Designed to enhance the nutritional quality of meals without compromising taste, each SPE Certified dish is healthy, sustainable and most of all, delicious. SPE’s clients include some of the most notable names in the foodservice industry, including Celebrity Cruises, LYFE Kitchen, Organic Avenue, Michelin-starred Danji restaurant and theWit Chicago, among others.
Good-for-you choices
“We created Cork & Kale based on the idea that whether guests are fuelling up for a long day of meetings, hitting the gym, or just trying to relax with a great cocktail or delicious smoothie, they should have access to good-for-you choices made with simple and natural ingredients that also taste great,” said Adam Glickman, head of EVEN™ Hotels. “Additionally, they should be able to expect those same healthy options – morning to night – at every one of our hotels. We designed our food and beverage offering to better meet the needs of wellness-minded travelers by consistently offering them tastes and products they are familiar with and trust in a slightly more elevated way than they might enjoy at home.”
Upscale, fast casual food and beverage offering
Cork & Kale is an upscale, fast casual food and beverage offering featuring freshly prepared food and pre-packaged grab-and-go items, as well as retail-style products. The Cork & Kale Market will feature choices for guests including heart-healthy and low-fat options, paleo or vegetarian-friendly dishes, as well as sweet indulgences.
Through the “Good to Go” service, guests can pre-order balanced meals before 9 p.m. each night and pick up their breakfast or lunch the next morning on their way out the door, providing them with fuel for their entire day. EVEN Hotels Eat Well (F&B-focused) team members will undergo a certification process to understand and communicate to guests information about the full EVEN Hotels menu, including nutritional content and health benefits each item offers, such as those that contain superfoods, are calming, or boost brain power, among others. Complete nutritional information will be available for all EVEN Hotels menu items.
About EVEN™ Hotels
EVEN™ Hotels, the newest brand from IHG, meets the large and growing demand for a hotel brand to help wellness-minded travellers keep their balance on the road at an affordable price point. An industry first, EVEN Hotels invites wellness on every journey by providing solutions for all aspects of travelers’ wellness needs. With an emphasis on four components, Eating Well, Resting Easy, Keeping Active and Accomplishing More, the brand serves as a travel partner, helping guests feel better about their experience and themselves based on the choices they are able to make.
The brand launched in 2012 and is expected to be a key pillar in the IHG portfolio of preferred brands and in the long term, a key driver in market share growth in the U.S. EVEN Hotels expects to open its first properties in June 2014 and continue strategic development efforts in key markets including the Tri-state area, the Washington, D.C. area, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles.
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