The Peabody Memphis Opens a Luxury Hotel-Within-a-Hotel

Glenn: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody, it’s your hospitality friend Glenn in Memphis. And I’m excited because I get to talk with Doug Brown, president. Don’t call him g m of the Peabody Hotels and Resorts. It’s great to see you, man.

Doug: [00:00:10] I’m actually the head butler.

Glenn: [00:00:12] Oh yeah.

Doug: [00:00:12] You know, I had to carry your luggage in. And let me tell you, he’s not a good tipper.

Glenn: [00:00:17] No, no no, I told him, I told him buy, don’t sell. I thought that was a great tip, but what are you gonna do, Doug? I’m excited because I get to come back every single year here to the Peabody. Well, we’re not at the Peabody right now. We’re at the convention center with this awesome. The Renaissance Center for this awesome mural behind us. But when I walked in, I got into the elevator and I saw an ad for a brand new hotel within a hotel concept that you guys just debuted this month, the Pembroke Club. And I’m like, it’s about time somebody taking this idea that’s been going on in like Vegas for all these years and bringing it to a hotel near you.

Doug: [00:00:51] Well, I always go to Vegas. The problem is I can’t afford the hotel within the hotel in Vegas.

Glenn: [00:00:55] Well, it’s because you’re not losing enough gambling.

Doug: [00:00:57] I know exactly, exactly. But. Yeah. So I wish I could take credit for this, but Angus Blair, who’s our director of revenue, right. We, we have meetings every so often in the hotel. We get a group of people together and we come up with creative ideas to generate more revenue that we’re missing or that we’re leaving money on the table. And he threw out the idea of why not do a hotel within the hotel? So the Pembroke Club is what came about. And the idea was to really take, we already have four star, five diamond or four diamond service within it’s a luxury hotel, the Peabody. But it was like, okay, how do we go above and beyond that to, to almost a six star, six diamond level, right.

Glenn: [00:01:41] And, and to do that, you can’t just turn the whole building into a no.

Doug: [00:01:45] Yeah. It’s outrageously expensive to do that. And, and a lot of the five star, five diamond hotels around the country are realizing it’s way too expensive to do the hotel. So why not do it within the hotel? So that’s where we came up with the idea of putting in a hotel within the hotel. So it has its own general manager, its own team you know, 600 count Egyptian cotton sheets, you know, it’s everything is elevated.

Glenn: [00:02:11] I can’t imagine. Listen, the the problem I’m having with this is because I’m in the regular Peabody and that is so awesome. And that such a good night’s sleep. Thank you. I can’t even imagine it. I’ll pay you now. I can’t even imagine it being even better. But what I really like about what you’re doing there is when you have one concept, you can only push the ADR so much by separating it out, you can create a new category, give people those amenities. And we both know that you could charge a lot more because the top level is willing to pay it. If you could give them that happiness and peace of mind and.

Doug: [00:02:45] You hit the nail on the head, you you can do those things. But if you don’t deliver the quality and the service, it fails, you have to deliver because that that so-called 1% group, you know, if you’re not delivering, delivering quality.

Glenn: [00:03:02] Yeah.

Doug: [00:03:02] Right. And meet their expectation, they’re not coming back and they’re not going to talk about you. But if they leave talking about you and mentioning then then it it’s it takes off, it gets exciting.

Glenn: [00:03:13] And one of the things that I’ve seen is the centerpiece of this. And I was going to the cocktail party we had last night, we’re at the Southern Lodging Summit right now. And it was on your on your rooftop. This guy there, and I accidentally hit 12 instead of the skyway. You know, I came off the elevator and I saw, you know, high end alcohol. And I actually saw people sitting there and enjoying and connecting with each other and stuff. And I feel like that’s really the beginning of setting the tone for that specialized experience.

Doug: [00:03:38] You know, what’s really amazing about you is most people get off the elevator and they notice all of the really high end finishes. That’s right. But you went immediately to the alcohol.

Glenn: [00:03:49] Yeah. That’s right.

Doug: [00:03:50] You went for that glass of that Louis the 14.

Glenn: [00:03:53] You know they had Louis the 14th. Yeah. Well and they offered to give me some. I should have taken the damn. I went up and had this.

Doug: [00:03:59] I do want to tell you so. Something that’s cool about this experience is most hotels. The experience awry begins when you check in. Right, right. The experience of the Pembroke Club starts when you make the reservation, and they’ll pre-call you to find out your needs, and then they follow you. As you arrive in Memphis, make sure that we either pick you up or you’re met on the front drive, and then you’re, you’re zoomed right up to it.

Glenn: [00:04:30] Love it.

Doug: [00:04:30] So, so it’s, it’s the whole experience all the way until when you depart.

Glenn: [00:04:35] I’m still having a problem picturing the service being better than what I get in the normal hotel because you guys are just so on point. And I don’t know if you know this or not, but I absolutely love coming here every single year. It’s really one of the grand hotels in the entire country. I got to hang out with Kenan the Duckmaster. Yes. Yes sir. And it got me thinking. The Pembroke Club is named after your first ever Duck Master, who was a trainer in Ringling Brothers Circus and then came to the. Came to the Peabody and said, hey, we can do something. He was duck.

Doug: [00:05:07] Master for 50 years.

Glenn: [00:05:09] 50 years. That’s insane. So like 1991 or.

Doug: [00:05:11] I can’t find anybody to put up with me for five years.

Glenn: [00:05:14] Well, that’s a very good reason for that. But that’s a story for another podcast. Either way, I love that you’re connecting all the dots and you named it after him. And I thought that was so amazing because you could have named it after anybody. Yeah. The name that, you know, you could have named it after the owners or something. Yeah. But. Right.

Doug: [00:05:31] Yeah. But he, he deserves it. He deserves it. He, you know what is now our iconic what everybody knows us for is the ducks. And it really was thanks to Mr. Pembroke. Who would have ever thought that you could March 5th ducks down a red carpet every day and then take them home at the end of the day, and that it would have the the draw that it does.

Glenn: [00:05:55] Yeah. It’s really it’s really incredible. I, I see it as an accidental genius because It is. Yeah, because it was just a circumstance that had happened that the the guys got drunk, they brought back the ducks and stuff like that, and then it turned into.

Doug: [00:06:07] But that is the truth.

Glenn: [00:06:08] I know, but.

Doug: [00:06:09] It was that high end alcohol. Jack Daniel’s Tennessee.

Glenn: [00:06:13] Whiskey. Maybe I’m not wrong, you know, maybe I’m a trendsetter to be. Who knows? But what I really love about it is because it really helps define what you are as a property, but then creates something that people can emotionally connect with. And then it just drives people coming to the hotel every single day.

Doug: [00:06:29] Yeah. And what everybody doesn’t realize is our retail sales of anything.

Glenn: [00:06:35] I’m just saying.

Doug: [00:06:35] Is.

Glenn: [00:06:36] Huge. Yeah.

Doug: [00:06:36] Oh yeah. It’s huge. It’s huge.

Glenn: [00:06:39] That’s awesome. Yeah, I love it. So what’s next for you? You put in $30 million last year. Now you’re doing a $12 million renovation on the meeting space. Meeting space. How do you envision it? All of it coming together for the future?

Doug: [00:06:50] Well, the great thing about our ownership group, the Bell’s family, is they continue to invest, you know, every year in the hotel. So. So in a historic building like the Peabody, you’re you’re forever working on a project. There’s always something new, right, that we’re doing and exciting. And so, you know, you soon come. Yeah. You know.

Glenn: [00:07:10] I can’t wait.

Doug: [00:07:11] I stay, stay in tune.

Glenn: [00:07:12] And I will tell you the the renovation that they did is absolutely fantastic. Everything is spot on and it feels fresh.

Doug: [00:07:19] You notice the little ducks on top of the mirror in your room?

Glenn: [00:07:22] No, I got to go check that out.

Doug: [00:07:22] Oh, yeah. When you go in, look at the mirror in the room. There’s some some little ducks on top. Yeah. They’re brass.

Glenn: [00:07:28] I love that. And you guys do such clever stuff with it. I love the the Do Not Disturb sign with the duck on it. Do not ruffle my feathers. Oh, let’s get a close up of that, I love it. That’s awesome. Doug, thanks so much for talking with me. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Hey, like, share, subscribe, all that kind of good stuff. And if you’re here in Memphis, come hang out at the Peabody. Say hello to Doug, say hello to Kenan the duck master. And our five feathered friends are for right for four females and one male.

Doug: [00:07:53] Four females and one.

Glenn: [00:07:53] Male. There are five feathered friends. All right, see you all later. Bye, everybody.