The Modern Hotelier #196: Staypineapple's Food & Beverage and Chicago's Food Scene | with David Fingerman
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David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged podcast. I'm David Millili. I'm Steve Carran. Steve, who are we interviewing today? 
Steve Carran: David, today we are joined by Chef David, the Corporate Executive Chef of Staypineapple. And we're sitting here at the Atwood, at the Stayineapple Chicago. Thanks for sitting down with us Chef. How we doing today? 
David Millili: Happy to do it. It's been a great day so far. Good. So tell us more about Afternoon Delights and why guest love him. 
David Fingerman: So Afternoon Delights are a fun kind of thing we have put together for all of our guests at all of our properties, most guests start to kind of weighing at the end of the day, right?
It's around three o'clock or you get tired, you just checked in, you don't know what you wanna do, right? We wanna give 'em a little more energy, right? So we do fresh coffee at three o'clock at all of our properties. We also put out these really special cookies. We've had these cookies custom made, and they're in the shape of pineapples and they're delicious pineapple shortbread cookies, and we'll just have some nice little sweet treat and coffee to get you going. 
David Millili: That's great. So when we checked in, we got these really cool Staypineapple water bottles. Tell us more about the water bottle? 
David Fingerman: So, those are our path water bottles, they're staypineapple water bottles. We've partnered with path so that they can help promote us. We can help promote them, right? And we're really focusing on sustainability and eliminating waste, right? So we'll have these water bottles in your room. Every everyone gets one. You can always purchase more at the front desk. But the best part of this is that you don't have to always buy a new bottle of water when you're outta water.
Right? And you don't have to refill it from the sink in your room, which is what you have to do sometimes, right? You can come down to our lobby in all of our locations and you can use our water bar. So our water bar is a fun little feature we have that has fresh, cold, filtered water, but not only regular filtered water.
We also have fizzy water, so it's carbonated water. And then we get hot water right there. So if you want fresh, hot water, you wanna make tea in your room, you can fill up your path water bottle with that. It's insulated so you can take hot water up. Or you can have fizzy water. We can go out on a run, whatever you'd like so it's kind of, it's a cool feature. 
David Millili: Right. So tell us the bar here has been great. Tell us more about what, not only new beverage offerings are coming up, but tell us more about the concept behind having drinks that are actually associated with an actual employee of the property.
David Fingerman: So here, specifically at Atwood. We try and focus a little more on your classic cocktails, but we're right in the heart of the loop here. And so you can't really deviate too far, but especially in the program we have here at Atwood, we really like our bartenders to be involved in everything that we're doing.
We want them to have pride in the drinks that they're making. We want them to. Which sales? Right. So we've given all of our bartenders and even a couple servers, the opportunity in which to come up with their own cocktails. We went through the whole process where they submitted four or five drinks.
We tried them all. We voted 'em all. We discussed what we could do to improve them all. We got them where we really were comfortable with them, we put them on the menu. and We put their names on the menu. I think it's really important to have team members. Be proud of what they're putting forward, right? And who's gonna sell a drink better than the person who came up with it, right?
I don't want my drink to sell better than this bartender's drink. My, my drink's gonna win. We're gonna do more, more of this than anybody else's. So. Yeah, they're tasty as long as they're tasty, we can really get 'em out there. Right. They are tasty. Good. You them. 
Steve Carran: That was one of the first things I noticed on the drinks menu was a name next to 'em. I thought it was a great touch. So I'm really interested in these next couple questions 'cause you're born and raised in Chicago, Uhhuh. Uh, so how have you seen the Chicago food scene evolve over the past few years? 
David Fingerman: Chicago's really great at adapting to new trends but it's also really great at not losing what built it right?
So there are a bunch of stalwarts here that aren't gonna go anywhere anytime soon, and that's the backbone of Chicago, right? We have pizza places that have been here that sell real Chicago pizza, which is not deep dish.
So, we sell tavern style thin crest pizza that are located everywhere from the south side to north side, and they're people that really care about. That particular pizza. And we have, so we have places like Veto and Nick's, uh, Pat's up on the north side that have quality pizza. Um, we also have places like Jean and Georgette's, which is, uh, steakhouse that have been here forever.
But then you have the larger restaurants, like the Morton's and everything. So, you know, Chicago was built on beef, right? So we still have a good chunk of it, and you're always gonna have your traditional Chicago steakhouse. You're also gonna have some of those restaurants that have been around since the twenties.
But then we have our fun stuff, right? So James Beard Awards are here. So Chicago always has to be on top of what's new and trending. So you, we also have the big names, right? We are where Trotter was Trotter, kind of like built the modern for everybody. Where we're, um, Alinea is down the block in Atkins is here.
You're always gonna find something great here. And I think just to say. That. I wouldn't say that, that the food scene has changed so much as there's been tweaks here and there and there's, each type of restaurant has always left its mark. Right? Right. So there'll always be this kind of restaurant and then we'll get a new type, but that'll always be here and we'll just keep growing it up in that manner.
Steve Carran: It's very cool. So can you give a maybe a little Chicago insider information to somebody who might be coming to Chicago and they're looking to try maybe a local spot or someplace that might not be mainstream on the, on the food scene. 
David Fingerman: Okay, so before food, let's talk alcohol, right? A deal. Let's do it. Right. So, Chicago's Midwest. Midwest is built on booze. I don't let anybody tell you anything else. You can get through the winters without having a glass. Right? Chicago. Is a city of neighborhoods. There's 77 neighborhoods in the city, but it's also a city of small dive bars and everyone has their dive bar, and that's the culture that we have here, right? you have your big fun club type bars but really what helps us. Move forward, stay going, keeps us fueled, Are these tiny cash only places where, you can just belly up to the bar, you throw your cash on the bar and bartender just takes what they need as you go, right?
Which is up north. There's too many lists, right? Everyone's got their own to tell you which is the right one. So there's that food wise. It doesn't come secondary. They come in tandem, but they're just totally different places. So if you were looking for something that's really Chicago that you wouldn't necessarily go to, again, pizza's a great thing to do, but you want to find the place that's like that.
So if you know Knicks, we've talked, like talked about before, and I'll probably bring up till the cows come home. It's cash only. It's on the south side. Like really on the south side. Right. And it's, it's like it's a dive. It's not pretty. You go there, it's where all the working class goes. Like that's where you're gonna get good food.
Sure. Right. And my favorite restaurant specifically is a breakfast restaurant and it's a cafeteria, and it's also on the south side. It's the Hyde Park neighborhood. And it's run by a Greek family for a god knows a hundred years. They're not that old, but still a hundred years. Um, and it's not far from University of Chicago.
It's called Valois. Right. You get your trey at the beginning of the line, you tell them what you want. They make it fresh for you as you walk down the line. If you don't get to, and by the time you get to the end of the line, your food's on there and you're finding a seat, like that's the kinda stuff that really, that's Chicago.
Chicago isn't all these fancy places that everybody goes to the, the people who work at those places go to somewhere that keeps us running after. Right, right. It's not a, I'll go to any fancy restaurant you wanna take me to and I'll enjoy it, but. When it comes down to it, it's blue collar working class and that, and that's what keeps us running.
David Millili: Love that. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Chef David, tell us how people can get in touch with you, how they can find out more, more about Staypineapple. 
David Fingerman: You can find more about Staypineapple on our website, staypineapple.com Atwood specifically since we're here, is atwoodchicago.com
We're also on Instagram staypineapple, Instagram, and @atwoodchicago on Instagram. 
David Millili: That's great. Nice. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged Podcast. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and we thank you and your team for your hospitality, and we've had a great time.