BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
corporate dining]. Just the cafeteria. This was dead 100 years ago, the big troughs of food. It needs to be plated; service needs to be efficient.” But efficiency--aided by tech-- shouldn’t come at the cost of the all- important customer experience. “This is technology deployed without thinking of the user experience, and what you get is an app that’s your connection to this service but that’s not enough...there still needs to be the spirit of hospitality,” Fairhead says. “It should never feel so cold, like you’re an inconvenience just being a customer.” Fake-nice customer service isn’t going to cut it either, in his estimation. “It’s not about being overly nice; it’s that authentic piece, applying the culture of each location.” He outlines Infuse’s main areas of focus as three key corporate spaces. “Here’s what we’re really good at,” he says. “The core focus is threefold: CRE (commercial real estate) with multi-tenant buildings. This is getting more popular and we do very well and can see big growth there. Also, corporate dining similar to what Guckenheimer does: Onsite foodservice and leveraging the dayparts. And third, unique, specialty venues like museums, design centers and some hotels.” Founded in 2016, Infuse Hospitality, LLC, is currently operating in locations across the U.S., from flagship locations in Chicago’s Willis Tower and Aon Center to the Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco. Phoenix3 Holdings, which has been making quite a few moves lately, invested in Infuse in 2023, then deepened its commitment this year with an eye toward growth. “As employers compete to bring people back to the office and foster engaging workplace cultures, culinary and hospitality-driven amenities have become essential,” says Richard Schenkel, Founder, CEO, and Managing Director of Phoenix3 Holdings. “Infuse is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation, and Paul Fairhead is the ideal leader to drive the company’s next phase of growth.”
trend toward “return to office,” in which companies are realizing great food is key, but in order to really make return- to-office more palatable for employees, the experience and social aspect has to be there, too, along with efficiently using the office real estate in a way that looks alive and full, even on the “shoulder days” of Mondays and Fridays, when most hybrid workers work from home. ”It’s less a piece of forcing, but more encouraging employees to come back, especially if it’s downtown, in a central location. We have to make it a fun place to be and enable those connections with people,” Fairhead says. “Infuse is a restaurant company; that’s the ethos and it’s applied to corporate dining. There’s a significant market opportunity for outsourced dining and hospitality solutions that feel bespoke, brand-aligned and flexible. Infuse will bring a restaurant mindset to corporate locations, attracting customers with great food and by infusing hospitality at every step of service delivery.” Also, empty space and concepts that are closed can make the whole vibe feel off, business dining companies are finding, which presents a new kind of challenge. “The biggest complaint from a client is that, ‘We give you 10,000 square feet [of dining area], so what happens to that space during the rest of the day?’ So you look at the design aspect of it so you don’t walk into an empty space. You don’t want that ‘half empty’ vibe.” The way Fairhead sees it, “the corporate foodservice piece is not evolving fast enough for the needs of the consumer. They’re paying a subsidy, but is it the best use of space? Or if you’ve got the ‘free food’ solution, what about food waste and what are you doing about variety?” A big part of Fairhead’s philosophy is the big idea of “purpose.” “Does the design meet the purpose of the space? The design has to lead you into the space and tell you what it is before you ask the question,” he says. “Things aren’t moving fast enough [in
Founded in 2016, Infuse ospitality, LLC, is currently operating in locations across the U.S., from flagship locations in Chicago’s Willis Tower and Aon Center to the Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco.
QUARTERLY | Q3
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