The Athenaeum & London Cocktail Week
Lifestyle / Staying With Us / Things To Do /
London Cocktail Week, running from October 3rd to 13th, 2024, is the ultimate celebration of London’s renowned cocktail scene. This 11-day festival, now in its […]
6th January 2021
At the beginning of the year, we refurbished the spa, our hidden gem tucked away beneath the hotel. However, due to lockdown 1.0, it was a while before many guests could see and experience the changes. The tranquil space now features a brand new hot tub that’s far more spacious than the two that were there previously.
Although this wasn’t a highlight of the year, we are very proud and thankful that we were able to stay open during Lockdown 1.0 to accommodate key workers including police officers and TFL train drivers, as well as NHS workers that couldn’t stay at home with their families.
Staying open during this time also meant that we were still there for our long term guests who stay in our private residences. We are a family business and we view our guests as part of the family so having our team on site to look after them was so important to us.
We supported our local community by working with a number of charities: Only a Pavement Away, Hospitality Action and Christ Church Mayfair. A homeless gentlemen, Jay, who sleeps near the hotel was provided with food, water and batteries for his radio which he prized most of all.
We are so saddened by how much the pandemic has affected our beloved industry so we worked with Master Innholders to develop MIDAS (Master Innholders Development and Support). This programme aims to help people who have lost their jobs to gain new skills so when the bounce back comes, they are ready to get a new, better role. We also contributed to the Institute of Hospitality’s Super Heroes Webinar series and we are supporting Seat at the Table’s campaign for a Minister in Hospitality.
In 2020, our team were recognised by winning three, prestigious awards. We won the Greater London Enterprise Award, were named ‘Unsung Hero’ on Boutique Hotelier’s Power List and were delighted to win the Reader’s Award at the 2021 Conde Nast Johansens Awards for Excellence.
Perhaps an even bigger achievement than our awards wins, such glowing reviews from our guests meant that on TripAdvisor we moved from position 146 to 80 out of 1,156 hotels in London. In 2021, we’re aiming for the top 10!
One of our biggest highlights from 2020 was how much our team have developed, growing in confidence and learning to trust themselves in challenging situations. Many of our team had to take on new roles and learn new skills very quickly; we asked them to reflect on how this time impacted them:
‘I learned how to be more patient with myself and to believe in myself more’
‘I have made deeper connections with my colleagues, we are not just colleagues anymore, we are family’
‘Spending so much time with my manager has taught me many service skills, I also learned that no matter how far you get in life, never forget where you started.’
Our restaurant evolved in 2020 and we put a huge focus on working even closer with our food suppliers who had also been affected by the pandemic. We adapted our menu, changing dishes daily to use up the ingredients they had available. We also participated in the Government’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme during August.
Our final point is definitely bittersweet. In August, our legendary Doorman, Jim Burns, was in a motorcycle accident. Despite his injuries and being hospital bound for quite some time, Jim remained in good spirits and we are delighted to share that he has now been discharged and is at home recovering. We all miss Jim’s friendly face welcoming us at the front door but wish him a very speedy recovery.
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