A lot of people have been asking about seeing all the changes we have made to our Mediterranean restaurant, so we thought we should post the new menu for everyone to see for themselves!!! Join us!!
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I challenge any other Holiday Inn to have as good a staff as we have… So warm and inviting, it makes for a real pleasure to come into work every day… We really try to have fun at work, so I thought I would start sharing a few “behind the scenes” photos… This month we wanted to share from our staff entrance and team areas…
the first thing we see when we enter is our motto, simple but effective… make our hotel a great hotel that guests will love…
Some of our great staff that helped out this Ramadan by distributing water and dates to Muslim drivers that were stuck commuting at Iftar… We are proud to show off our “H“!!
the first corridor leading into our different departments… with pictures of our latest “Heroes of the Month”
one more straight stretch and then it is into the hotel… as we walk past our staff cafeteria and training room and hear the Radio 2 music being piped into the corridors, we are ready to serve our guests knowing we have some of the best staff in the best Holiday Inn…
When I first moved to the UAE, I wasn’t quite aware the impact that having a drivers license would have on hoteliers. In fact, when I showed my license to people, I was told “Mabrook!!” many times by everyone. For me, as a westerner, it was a simple 1 day process to get my old license transferred over to my UAE license.
But for some of the other nationalities working at the Holiday Inn, it can be a month long ordeal. At our hotel we have over 25 different nationalities working, so for most of them, it is a big deal. Some countries are given the luxury of switching licenses fairly easily. But for other countries, like for example India and Egypt, it can mean taking several weeks of driving school and several failed road tests later to earn that ultimate badge.
For them, it really is a badge of honour. It means the same thing now as it did for me when I was 18. Freedom. Not tied down to a bus schedule, not tied down to your accommodation. The ability, if you can afford it, to buy or rent a car, and move about the city and country as you like. For these staff, it is the ultimate status symbol; owning a license. If you consider the importance that the local Emirati put on owning a car, then you can see the hoteliers desire for that little piece of plastic that means freedom. When the local hotelier sees an Emirati pull up in his luxury car, well, the hotelier knows that the first step is to get a drivers license. For the hotelier, the license is the first step to freedom. If you come to our hotel, ask one of our staff if he has his UAE driving license, and if he does, tell him “…Mabrook!!”
It goes without saying that one of the perks of working in a hotel is the ability to test out various restaurants and bars during the opening phase. So in the first months of the Holiday Inn, I got a chance to sit in the silk route cafe, then the lemon tree, and finally the 31St Bar.
But now, we have added the 4th outlet in our hotel; the Hubbly Bubbly Shisha Cafe. I have had the chance to hang out twice, once as someone to test the outlet, and another time when some friends of mine came by to check it out themselves.
I am happy to say that the hubbly bubbly has been embraced by a lot of our regulars, and has become steady right away, even though it has only been open 2 weeks now. There has been a good appy and drink menu made up, and there is an array of shisha flavours to choose from. One of the best parts for a lot of our regulars is that the area is being staffed by some of our lemon tree and silk route staff, so you will get to see some of the same smiling faces that you love coming to see, like Ahmed, Karim, and Hesham.
Personally, I am a fan of grape, or grape with mint. I have tried others, like apple, mint, watermelon, etc. For me, there is nothing like grape shisha; such a popular flavour, there have even been websites made in its honour, like grape shisha.com, dedicated to living life in the UAE.
I guess it is up to you to decide what flavour you like the most. So drop by the Holiday Inn and relax, let Hesham or one of the other staff take care of you. In the end, it is all about hanging out and enjoying the hubbly bubbly.
