Off the Cuff with Alexander Buchholz

If you’ve been following along, then you know that Off the Cuff is an opportunity every week to engage with the ILCommunity. It’s where we talk about upcoming events, perks, current happenings, and everything in between.

At the end of each month, we have an off-the-cuff conversation with an indie hotel owner, operator, or developer about their life, work, and where they see the industry heading.

This month, we’re featuring our first F&B owner in our Off the Cuff With series! Bar Rêve is more than a cocktail lounge; it’s a feeling, an experience, and a leader in the luxury lifestyle space. Co-founder Alexander Buchholz will tell us the driving force behind Bar Rêve’s ability to engage audiences on a national stage.

So, without further ado, Alexander: take it away!

Alexander started his career in luxury hotels at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, then later helped open their Philadelphia property. Alex shared with us that he really dove headfirst into hospitality when he started at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dubai.

“Dubai is like Las Vegas on steroids in the best way; that’s where you learn to compete.”

He decided to take a career pivot during COVID. Alex went to grad school and focused on business; this led to his time working in fashion. While working at Ralph Lauren, Alex honed his passion for merging fashion, hospitality, and lifestyle. This melding of the many different facets of ‘luxury’ served to inspire so much of his thought process and priorities when starting Bar Rêve.

We asked Alexander to give us a little intro about Bar Rêve and what makes it so much more than a cocktail bar:

“Bar Rêve means ‘dream bar’ in French. We really are building this brand like a fashion house. We have a very lifestyle approach to our partnerships. We don’t talk about mixology. We don’t talk about ingredients. We talk a lot about how you feel when you’re in our space. You are a much better version of yourself in the sexy environment with this curated playlist. We have scent partners to make our space smell amazing. We’re trying to carve a niche for ourselves in this business, being a lifestyle leader.

We want to be a real leader in luxury lifestyle and not just be a cocktail bar brand. So everything we do right now is about building that luxury lifestyle proposition, which begins with a martini in an environment with amazing programming, music, crowd, scent, and service.

It's very common in the cocktail bar to have a bartender come in for one night only. It's an exciting thing and they make 3 cocktails on a menu and it's a brand building moment for cocktail bar brands. But we did the opposite.

We want to partner only with hotels and luxury lifestyle brands. We want to really have a counter positioned approach here. And we're taking a longer format approach to how we show up places, so we're not showing up for a day.

I came back from the Hamptons last night. We were at this fabulous boutique hotel called Canoe Place Inn, and we came up in every single outlet. We had a martini residency late at night. We did spritzes and boozy ice creams across the property and even a bespoke bottled cocktail in every guest room. You walk into your room and there's a beautiful Bar Rêve cocktail with two gray crystal glasses waiting for you with all the information about our brand and our partnership. Every touch point across the guest experience in that property has our brand integrated.

So everything that we do, I’m sure you can tell at this point, is about a lifestyle proposition and how can we put our brand into every aspect of the guest experience. So we’re not just showing up and standing behind a bar. I’m not a bartender, neither is my business partner.

I think those kind of activations are so critical for brand building because it pulls us out of the cocktail bar environment. And we start to become this luxury lifestyle player in a way that feels very thoughtful and unique.”

What’s a new trend that you’re excited about in hospitality right now?

“A trend that I’m excited about is...that the martini is back.

As a martini lover, I’m really excited about this because that increases my likelihood of getting a good martini whenever I need one.

Strategically and thinking about our industry, it symbolizes shift away from this ultra trendy, hype-driven experience and a shift towards the classics.

That’s a trend that I’m really excited about and gives me a lot of hope for the future of our industry. Trendy, hype-driven things give me the ick. I just, I don’t like them. I think that things are classic for a reason. We should always improve them and critique them, of course. But I love the idea of honoring what makes our industry so great.”

What’s a trend you think needs to end?

“I might make some enemies with this point, but technology-enabled guest experience. I would love to see an end to the digital room key.

I think what makes our industry so important and so special is the human connection. Digital room keys, QR code menus, digital check-ins, yes, they build efficiencies into our day-to-day. But we as hoteliers, we as brand builders, as restauranters, whatever we are, we need to protect the competitive advantage of our business, which is the people, right?

The second that we lose sight of the fact that we are in a people-to-people business, I think we lose the battle.

I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t enable efficiencies in our business with technolog, I think that’s great. But, I think when that bleeds into the guest experience, and when it limits the human touch points in our business - that’s a bad place to be.”

Indie professionals eat, sleep, and breathe work ethic and hospitality. Does that mean taking your work home with you? Or, on the contrary, if you love what you do, are you ever even working? Each person has their own sense of balance. Take a look at what Alex had to say:

What wakes you up in the morning?

“A double espresso and a run.”

What keeps you up at night?

“Obviously, as a business owner and leader, I have stresses about business, but I sleep really well. I sleep well because I believe really firmly in the concept and brand that I'm building.

I had a much harder time sleeping when I was representing other brands that I didn't craft every touchpoint. I think that success requires an unreasonable amount of confidence in yourself and your vision. Which could be total lunacy. You should be a complete lunatic for how confident you are in your vision and your skills to do something. Otherwise, it's all going to fall apart.

So. Nothing keeps me up at night.

Obviously, the regular stresses of how to run a business and what is our next move and what are the challenges and, you know, what did I forget from my to-do list? But there's nothing structural about what I'm doing that keeps me up at night.”

What are you working on right now?

“I'm working on the next location of Bar Rêve, which is very exciting. I'm also working on a really exciting partnership to take Bar Rêve into another area of luxury lifestyle and travel. And on a potential hotel management deal for Bar Rêve.

In my personal life I’m also planning a honeymoon at the same time. I got married in April and we’re targeting a honeymoon later this year. We're thinking about going to Argentina.”

The cities and communities that we work out of affect our work, personal life, and passions. In this section, we want to give each interviewee a chance to shout out a person or business in their local community who they think is doing incredible work, in or out of the hospitality scene.

“In New York City, I'm really impressed by Firmdale Hotels.
They have three properties right now, and they are the Crosby Street, the Whitby, and the Warren Street. They are exactly the luxury hotel that New York City needs. They are an antidote to the stiff and stuffy.

These hotels are eclectic, they're energetic, they're young, there's fun F&B; it's really cool.”

Thank you to Alex for sitting down with us! To keep up on all things Bar Rêve, follow them on Instagram.

Thanks for reading! See you next time in Miami.