Celebrity Services Manager
Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center
Nashville, Tenn.
What service can you provide to groups that they normally might not receive?
As a unique resort property, we offer red carpet and stanchion welcomes for our Celebrity VIPs, which is our highest level of VIP Service, as well as VIP Status. We also offer a private check-in area for conference VIP guests. Our Celebrity VIPs are walked from their cars to their rooms, enabling them to bypass the check-in process. All Celebrity VIPs or VIPs receive personalized welcome letters to inform them that we serve as their personal concierge while they are here with us. We also contact our Celebrity VIPs 30 days prior to their arrival to obtain their arrival and departure information, as well as to learn about their favorite foods, beverages, music, and other amenities.
What are your group restaurant recommendations?
We have a wide variety of restaurants on-property to take care of all our guests’ needs, from our Cascades Seafood Restaurant to our award-winning Old Hickory Steakhouse. Our restaurants are always our first recommendations due to the unique setting at our resort, our goal of flawless service and mouthwatering menus. In the event that a group wants to go off-property for a meal, we would recommend the following: Wildhorse Saloon for barbecue, Nick & Rudy’s Steakhouse for steak, New Orleans Manor for seafood, J. Alexander’s for American, Valentino’s Ristorante for Italian, or Stock-Yard Restaurant for steak.
What are your bar or nightclub recommendations?
We have variety of live entertainment year-round at Gaylord Opryland Resort’s Jack Daniel’s Saloon and Findley’s Irish Pub, and in other places within the hotel. If our guests want to go off-property, the Wildhorse Saloon would be the next best option as it is one of Nashville’s hottest clubs, with a huge dance floor; you can learn how to line dance, enjoy live music and munch fried pickles with ranch dressing. You can also rent out the club to host your group’s private events. A trip to Nashville would not be complete without visiting the honky tonk bars and lounges, which are located on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Some of my favorites are the following: Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, The Stage on Broadway, Legends Corner, and Layla’s Bluegrass Inn, where a lot of the stars of the country music business performed prior to their record deals. Decades is the place to go if you want to go back in time to the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s for some great music and dancing.
If we only have an hour or two, what should we definitely check out nearby?
For a short stay, you must go to the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson’s Home), Belle Meade Plantation, Country Music Hall of Fame, Ryman Auditorium, Frist Art Center, and Cheekwood Botanical Garden.
What is an unusual request from a group?
Bill Cosby was a guest speaker of a convention group and he requested pizza prepared in a wood-fired oven and certain kind of “authentic” hot dogs just hours prior to his arrival. I contacted the owner of Hot Diggity Dog and explained my situation without disclosing the celebrity name. Hot Diggity Dog extended their hours of operation to accommodate our special request. I assigned one of my employees to drive to that restaurant and to wait for a call to prepare the hot dogs. We wanted to ensure that they were hot and fresh for Mr. Cosby when he arrived. The restaurant prepared the Nashville Hot Dogs, Chicago Hot Dogs and the New York Hot Dogs, which are their most popular items.
I made arrangements with Boscos, which is located in Hillsboro Village, on the pizza specifications. I assigned another employee to drive to Boscos to also wait for a call to prepare the pizza. Both employees arrived just minutes prior to Mr. Cosby’s arrival. Mr. Cosby and the client of the convention were both very pleased with our creativity and success of fulfilling this last-minute request