Room Service Discontinued At Hilton Midtown As Food On Trays Rolled Into Rooms Vanishes In Hotels; Are The Days Of Luxury Over?

Discontinued room service is officially the news trend in hotels. Room service has been discontinued at New York Hilton Midtown and the days of room service in hotels seems to be vanishing. Room service is too expensive for the customers and the hotels themselves. The days of luxury could be over.

Room service at the New York Hilton Midtown will be discontinued at the end of August. The discontinued room service will have a replacement; a "grab and go" restaurant called the Herb n' Kitchen will be offered in its place.

Many hotels spend more money on employees working room service than making a profit. 55 jobs will be discontinued as well as room service at the New York Hilton Midtown.

A spokesman for the New York Hilton Midtown, which is part of the chain that also operates the Waldorf, cited declining demand for room service as the reason; some hotel industry experts see the elimination of the labor-intensive amenity as a way for the chain to save money.

The Vice president of PKF Consulting, John Fox, said, "I'm sure all the big hotels will be looking at what Hilton is doing. Considering the Hilton isn't the first to discontinue room service, it looks as if a trend is forming among some of the high-end luxury hotels."

The trend is popping up all over Manhattan hotels. The New York hotel, The Hudson, has been serving meals out of brown paper bags, a move borrowed from the hotel Public in Chicago.

The New York Hilton's room service menu covers three pages, and ranges from a Pat La Frieda custom burger ($28.50) to populist items like macaroni and cheese made with Velveeta ($23.50). In small print, the menu specifies that for each order there is an additional 15 percent service charge and an in-room dining charge of $5.50 per person.

Several hotel workers said guests often laughed at the prices and ended up going out to eat, though one worker noted that the hotel still took in several hundred orders a day during busy times. Hilton guests can also have outside food delivered, but they must collect it in the hotel lobby.

Still, Fox said he did not expect room service to soon disappear from top-notch hotels. The guests at the Waldorf, for instance, will not be losing room service, and a Hilton spokesman said the company was evaluating its other hotels on a case-by-case basis.

At the Pierre Hotel, where some room service waiters are on a first-name basis with guests, one man said the offerings included Dover sole, lobster, lamb chops, and chilled Evian in glass bottles. He said he could even buy groceries and have room service personnel collect them to be cooked.

When Joel and Donna Kramer recently called for a pot of coffee at the St. Regis Hotel, it was delivered on a tray by a butler in a tuxedo. "It was very nice," Mr. Kramer said, though he said he was not a big room-service person.

Normal people cannot afford room service anymore. With the already high prices and a plethora of more hidden fees, a plate of scrambled eggs could cost you almost $40.

But this is New York and there are a ton of rich people here that don't care about the cost, just the convenience. It's not a practical choice even non-rich folk can have a day of fantasy, ordering food rolled into your room covered in trays looking like Christmas morning. It will be sad when that luxury living that so many of us indulge in at that rare occurrence, becomes distinct.

One day room service will only be a thing that we can indulge in in movies.