The Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality and Resort Management welcomed its first big crowd at an Easter brunch in its newly opened location on Central.
The hotel, located adjacent to the Central parking lot, is decorated with plants, paintings and is graced by an escalator and two glass elevators. The hotel, as part of the School of Hospitality, was donated by Wilson, founder of Holiday Inns. The hotel will be officially named a Holiday Inn in the upcoming days.
Sunday, the hotel made its debut with an Easter Sunday Brunch. Nearly 900 people made reservations for brunch, and many more showed up as walk-ins.
“We’re pumped and excited. We know we’re going to bump into each other, but we’re happy about bumping into each other,” Lorna Brown-Ray, Marketing Director for the hotel, said minutes before the brunch began.
Weeks before the event, the marketing staff, led by Brown-Ray, bombarded the general population from Highland to White Station and from Southern to Sam Cooper with postcards. The marketing group also sent over 3,000 e-mails and letters to the staff and faculty.
“It’s great. I’ve worked with Holiday Inn for over 30 years,” said Lee White. White will run the lounge when it opens and took part in the seating of patrons at the brunch.
The brunch was held in the grand ballroom that holds up to 1,000 people and is graced by eight large chandeliers.
The buffet offered a wide variety of food from its many stations. The brunch stations consisted of a breakfast station, cold buffet display, carving station, pasta station, and viennese desert buffet. Belgian waffles, omelets, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and cheese, shrimp, crab claws, salmon, lamb, turkey, ham, chicken, pork loin, vegetables, mashed potatoes, rice, pastas, soups, cheesecake, tortes and pies were only a small part of the food offered on the buffet.
“It’s good, the food is really good,” said 10-year-old Happie Hoffman, who came with her family to enjoy the brunch.
Hoffman’s father, Ron Hoffman added, “It’s a wonderful facility, with a great location. This is an overall nice experience.”
All of the food preparation was under the direction of Chef Edward Nowakowski. Nowakowski said around 1,200 eggs, 200 pounds of ribs and 40 whole turkeys were only a small part of the vast array of food needed for the buffet preparation. Nowakowski also created the three elaborate ice sculptures that graced the room. One was a large bunny in the center of the room, and the other two were gigantic vases full of flowers on both sides of the room. Nowakowski said the ice sculptures took an hour and a half to sculpt with a typical lasting time of six hours.
The hotel is not a “training hotel” for students, but the hotel will offer part-time positions and internships for students. The hotel is managed and operated by professionals from the Wilson Conference Center Group, LLC.
The hotel will provide funding for the school because it will be in competition with hotels in the vicinity.
All of the 82 rooms in the hotel are suite style with either 1 king size bed or two doubles. There are two televisions in every suite, a coffee maker, a sleeper sofa, mini-refrigerator, wet sink, blow dryer, ironing board, iron, and data port. The rooms cost $95 a night.
The hotel provides a public restaurant that serves three full buffets a day, a gift shop, an exercise room, a snack bar, a lounge that is open six nights per week, meeting rooms, and a banquet room that can accommodate 1,000 people.
“This is a learning experience,” said Tom Johnson, the managing director of the facility.
