by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
A globetrotter has found a home in Jacksonville.
Chuck Sultani, originally from Pakistan, has already worked in a half dozen countries and is now the director of food and beverage at the Adam’s Mark Hotel.
He started his new job Oct. 13.
“I have worked with multinational cultures,” said Sultani. “You go to a different country. First you have to learn culture; then you start working.
“I’ve been in America for 26 years. It’s easy for me to go anywhere and adopt a culture. I’m open-minded. Willing to teach and willing to learn.”
Sultani previously was at the Westin & Sheraton combined hotel in Freeport, Bahamas. The 1,260-room hotel featured 12 food and beverage outlets and 45,000 square feet of convention facilities.
“It was a large operation,” said Sultani, with considerable understatement.
For four years, he was at the Bahamas’ Nassau Marriott, which contained 867 rooms, five lounges and seven specialty restaurants. He has also worked for a five-star hotel in the United Arab Emirates, the Intercontinental Hotel in Karachi and opened a five-star Sheraton deluxe hotel, also in Karachi.
“I’d like to take this hotel to the next level,” said Sultani. “I can do that because I came from a five-star hotel, four-star hotel and a deluxe hotel. I understand people, what we are looking for here.
“I know what it takes to make a good food and beverage operation.”
Sultani keeps several brochures from past hotels in his briefcase and brought them out to show what he has in mind for the Adam’s Mark.
One includes views inside the dining rooms and halls at the Sheraton, with long, elegantly appointed tables and lavish presentations.
“This is what I’d like to see,” said Sultani. “White glove service, five-star table. It costs efforts, talents. No money.”
The “Our Lucaya Beach & Golf Resort” brochure promotes “great food, good times” in a 1950s-style restaurant, and other settings that feature Italian and Caribbean flavor, “the culinary traditions of the Pacific Rim,” “exotic tastes of the world under one roof,” and “a dash of the old-world and a ton of Bahamian attitude.”
“I’m very creative,” said Sultani. “I like to have a creative activity around food and beverage. Have a different thing every day. Seven days, seven ways.”
For as alluring as the Caribbean is, it has “the toughest union in the world,” he said. “In America, you need one person to do one job. They need one and a half persons to do one job.
“It’s not their fault. That’s their culture. Life on the island is a laid-back culture. You need coffee, they take their time. In America, people want a cup of coffee so they go to work. In the islands, they go to the beach. They don’t have a kind of urgency.”
The lure of “better prospects” persuaded Sultani in the 1970s to leave Pakistan, where he had been trained as a mechanical engineer.
“I went to Canada,” he said. “I couldn’t find a job at that time, so I started in a hotel as a dishwasher. Now, after 25 years, I’m here.”
He learned a lot through Marriott, which is “very, very good in training. Then I worked with very experienced general managers. I learned from them. I adopt the good things and leave the bad things behind.”
Sultani was persuaded to leave the Bahamas because there are no colleges, and he had three college-bound children.
“I applied for the job here and fortunately got it,” he said.
Sultani knows what needs to be done to take the Adam’s Mark to “the next level” and has already started on making a difference.
A successful food and beverage department has to have a few specific ingredients, he said. And they all revolve around the staff.
“You need the people, staff efficiency, open communication and training,” said Sultani. “You also need product, consistency, knowledge of the product. If the staff is more knowledgeable, they sell more, and they make more money. Their life is better, and turnover is down. When they don’t make money, turnover is high.
“My job is to make sure they understand product, train them properly. Training is the key for this hotel. I’m very optimistic we’ll make it.”