Owners Embrace Elevated Office Dining To Woo Workers
Jeffrey Steele, Contributor
Ever since Covid emptied out offices back in 2020, employers and office building owners have attempted just about anything to convince employees to return.
They’ve added art installations and dramatic sculptures around corporate campuses, hoping to speak viscerally to office aesthetes. They’ve woven frondescence and other natural elements into office layouts, seeking to use biophilia as an inducement to return. They’ve installed game rooms, table tennis and foosball tables around office common areas, hoping to stir competitive juices spurring on-premise mano-a-mano contests.
Now, deciding the most effective way to staffs’ hearts may be through their stomachs, gastronomically inclined building owners are supplanting the old employee cafeteria and instead turning to elevated office dining concepts to bring workers back.
And why not?
A 2023 EZCater Food for Work Report found almost 90 percent of surveyed employers convinced the offer of food can spur employees’ office attendance, and fully half of all employees report heightened productivity when plied with food from an employer. “During Covid, everyone realized remote work is theoretically possible, but many employers still want their workers back in the office, at least on a hybrid basis, due to the organic creativity and collaboration fostered by in-person interaction,” says Jonathan Bennett, AmTrust RE president.
“Because of this, many office landlords are bringing in celebrity restaurateurs to their buildings, signing them to restaurant leases or providing employee dining options as an amenity, to help drive office leasing. Not only can they entice people to come back for an upgraded dining experience . . . but they can also serve as collaborative environments that boost productivity across industries.”
Grab and go
At The Park, a 185-acre “work resort” campus The Connell Company developed in Berkeley Heights, N.J., food and beverage offerings include the Grain & Cane Bar & Table, an open-to-the-public eatery serving up creative American cuisine and craft beer, wine and lively cocktails. Also on the campus’s menu is RT Farm, a restaurant offering three meals daily to members of the 40,000-square-foot coworking space Round Table Studios; and Counter Market, a place for pre-order and grab-and-go meals.
Pursuing a not-dissimilar strategy is Convene, a global hospitality firm designing and operating premium meeting, event and flexible workspaces. The company includes a kitchen helmed by an executive chef at each of its 35 U.S. and U.K. locations. At Club 75 by Convene, the company’s members-only work and social club atop 75 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, the club’s private restaurant is open to all building tenants.
“Creating meaningful amenities in Class A buildings is a differentiator for landlords in helping to attract, retain and engage tenants, and there is no better way to gather than over good food and drinks,” says James Frankis, Convene head of product.
“Convene is partnering with landlords to rethink the office and the purpose it serves, focusing on how to bring people together to collaborate, create culture and host clients to foster meaningful connection.”
Adds Ryan Gallagher, chef and senior director of food and beverage at Convene, “As office buildings are shifting their offerings to more closely resemble a hotel, Convene is thinking about how to bring ‘restaurant-style’ interactions to tenants.”
Exclusive concept
A new Norman Foster-designed office tower bearing an address of 425 Park Avenue is serving an exclusive culinary concept to ultra-upscale denizens such as Citadel. The building features high-end restaurant Four Twenty Five, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten culinary experience open to members of the public. But dealmakers who office at the tower are given access to a “secret menu.” Vongerichten also supervises a custom food and beverage program in the triple-height Diagrid Club, to which tenants enjoy exclusive access. There, they find well-landscaped outdoor terraces along with exceptional dining and private transcendental meditation rooms.