Switzerland & Austria: Close to Heaven

 
Mountain-top restaurants - through their striking locations, if nothing else - often have a high rate of visitors. Most sales at these skyhigh outlets are of the typical ‘mountaineers' sandwich, a spin-off from ski and mountainclimbing business. Quite a few destinations are aiming for something more - they are changing their profile, introducing new marketing approaches for evening business. Two types of operation can be found mountain-high: either a funicular operator also managing the catering; or independent restaurant outlets near the mountain station. We are going to have a look at examples of both - plus a few mountain-top locations featuring creative ideas.
 

 
Mountain-top restaurant operators rely on sunshine, excellent views, and the ‘kick' which comes from real fresh air. And hardly any of the guests enjoying their mountain ham and cheese have any notion of the enormously demanding logistics behind their sky-high cuisine. It's two sides of the coin: the altitude not only brings with it an advantage from its location, thanks to derivative demand, but also a down-side - a huge amount of organisation and costs. The mountain-restaurant business must cope with certain handicaps, which are wholly altitude-specific:
 

1. Weather, weather, weather. Storm, lack of snow, or fog all mean one thing: no visitors come to the mountain - so the visitor rate is zero. If the worst comes to the worst, the few adventurous tourists who do come will not be given a bill - if the mountain-railway service has been cancelled.
2. Staff - quite apart from the problems of getting to work and finding somewhere to live, mountain-top caterers constantly need fast reaction times to cope with bad weather or peak times. I.e., it must be possible to obtain staff quickly in an emergency. And another thing: ancillary work, such as compulsory snow removal, is an additional impediment when it comes to staff planning.
3. The cost of buying food and other goods, and transporting them to the mountain top, are enormous. The same applies to waste disposal.
4. Storage and provisioning - something no less difficult when it comes to cost accounting.
5. All in all, the whole cost-accounting chain, from staff, to food, and other supplies, constantly puts new, unexpected problems in the way of the mountaintop operator.
    
   

There are some 30,000 mountain-railway systems in operation all over the world. About half of these are located in the traditional European skiing countries (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France). In the wording used by the mountaincatering sector you will find two different names - mountain restaurants and mountain lodges. At high altitudes, or directly adjacent to mountain railways, the visitor will frequently find modern restaurant buildings, made of steel, glass and concrete (see our account of Zugspitze catering), organised to cope with high visitor ratios and the stress of peak times, and designed for a purpose (coping with weather and natural forces, to serve the skiing industry etc.). But many very traditional lodges also offer outstanding F&B (see under Switzerland our account of El Paradiso), where the operators or owners deliberately focus on the natural charm (stone + wood) of a traditional building.
 

 
| 25 June 2007 |