Made in the Shade: Hospitality, South Bay Style

By Pamela Corante-Hansen
ts a backpackers fantasy: Youve just landed in a foreign country and youre at a bank exchanging money. You ask the teller where you and your two buddies could get a decent room for the night, stressing that youre on a budget. A bank customer who happens to be a hotel owner overhears your conversation. He hands you his business card and says, Ive got a room for you, and Ill even comp the valet parking. When he tells you the cost of the room and the name of the hotel, the bank teller reacts with shock. This world-class hotels rooms start at more than double what you were just quoted. This is no fantasy. Its how Shade Hotel owner Mike Zislis recently welcomed three Australian backpackers to Manhattan Beach. Zislis also welcomed South Bay Digs to Shades Zinc Lounge, where he shared his business philosophy, career advice and a bite of his ridiculously tender steak lunch. What are you eating? Steak frites. Its just one of my favorite things: A bistro steak that reminds me of a nice warm day in Paris with a glass of ros, but I have a meeting with the city after this, so Im passing on the ros. Tell me a little bit about the best hotel stay youve ever had. It was a chateau the Perrier Jouet Chateau in France. That was the best place I ever stayed. The thing I liked the most is they had in-room espresso machines and I cant start the day without my caffeine fix. To be able to make a big fresh espresso before I got out of the room was incredible. I think I was the first guy ever to put espresso machines in all of his rooms. What inspired you to get into the hotel business? Im actually in the restaurant business. I started in the brewery business. I opened the Manhattan Beach Brewery about 20 years ago. Several years back, I was trying to get a license for my Mucho Mexican restaurant in the Metlox
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The Ultra Hip Zinc Lounge at Shade Hotel and Shade Hotel owner Mike Zislis (right) development. The city passed on the restaurant, but I asked what was going on with the proposed hotel site and it turned out nobody wanted to do it. The lot was too small; it didnt make financial sense. But I thouwght if it was a really hip hotel, with great food and a great event space, you could make this thing work. The first year I opened I made the Cond Nast Top 100 Hotels list. I book about 25 weddings a year here, and we average 91 percent occupancy. It works for everyone. And the nighttime scene is quite nice. Ive been to your bar. You have a great wine list. Thank you. Im a big wine guy. I was actually married on the Quintessa Vineyard in Napa. In terms of boutique hotels, what trends are you seeing? Id like to say Im seeing trends, but the reason Shade is different is I dont look at other hotels. I stay at a lot of hotels, and I do like boutique hotels. I was in Split, Croatia and I stayed in a cool little new hotel, then in Zadar [Croatia] I stayed in this hip place. I look for 30-room-or-less hotels, but I dont look to them for inspiration. Im more of a hospitality guy, so my rooms have to be fun. I just had an Australian guest who couldnt believe he could get draft beer in his room. To me its a cool thing to have draft beer and a blender in your room. You can change the lights in all the rooms here, so if you want your room blue, you turn a dial and make it blue. Its like an entertainment centermartini shakers, all the mixers for mojitos and martinis in the mini bar, little bottles of olives. Its all about fun. For a lot of people, the destination is the highlight of the trip and the hotel is incidental. How do you make your hotel memorable to travelers? continued on page 18
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Shade continued from page 15

We live in a beautiful place, and for first-time visitors, theres so much here. First of all, I have a great staff. Manhattan Beach is a dream city. For $50 more than [what you would pay] across Sepulveda, here you can get on a bike, ride down to the beach and live the Manhattan Beach experience. So on [visitors] off time, they can be residents of Manhattan Beach, and thats the best residency in the world. I have a motto I use with my staff: If people want sleeves with their vest, well give it to them. I had a celebrity stay here the other day and they wanted Pink Floyd tickets. So I called someone I know and got them tickets, backstage passes, a gift basket with t-shirts and dinner at RockN Fish at LA Live. People say, why did you do that? Well, I bumped into you, you had a need and I filled it. Thats the stuff we do thats different. How do you find time for your family and for yourself? I have a really good staff who make me look really good. I try not to leave the house before 9 a.m. Ill have breakfast with my kids and drop them off at school. I tend to come home every day after school and stay until about 6:30, which is bath time. At bath time, I leave. Im home by about 9:30. Its really a good life. I used to be so involved in restaurants that Id work all weekend long, but because I have kids now, I take Saturdays and Sundays off. So how do you spend a typical weekend? It depends on the time of year, but typical would be USC football on Saturdays. I try to go to every game. Not that I want to brag about that this year. I have a really nice garden at home and I grow a lot of vegetables. My wifes big into the environmental task force in Manhattan Beach, so everything we do is organic. I like to go to the great restaurants on Sunday nights. I try not to go on Saturdays because its too busy. For me personally, I work in a busy restaurant, so I dont want to go to a busy restaurant. Get in the spirit at ROCKN FISH Restaurant in Manhattan Beach What can you tell us about the hotel youre planning in Redondo Beach? Its going to be called Shade Redondo Beach. Itll be somewhere around 4550 rooms, a bit bigger than this Shade. Its all ocean views. Ill correct a few of the mistakes that were made here at Shade. When I built [the Manhattan Beach] Shade, the floor plan had been designed 10 years earlier. I was able to embellish with patios, glass and waterfalls, but I wasnt able to change the structure or how it was loaded. In Redondo, Im starting on a clean slate of propertythe old Red Onion site. Ive been able to take the rooms and pool and offices and keep them in one building. Zinc Lounge, the Skydeck and the events facility are in a separate building, so the noise doesnt transfer like it does here. Were trying for LEED platinum certification. On Earth Day of next year we start our deconstruction and in June we start building. We have a target opening date of November 18. I open everything on November 18. Why is that? Its the day I met my wife. Its the day I got married. Its really my day. RockN Fish opened on the 18th. Shade opened on the 18th. Mucho opened on the 18th. I do everything on November 18. There was some pushback in Redondo Beach about the hotel and I had to get involved in a proposition, which delayed me about a year. Im still going to try to open in 2013. But it might be November 2014. Workshop or wine room? Garden. Home gym or home theater? Office. Smart phone or ipad? ipad, iphone, icomputer. All of the above. Cat or dog? Cat. Shes an Abyssinian. Her name is Roux, like in cooking, because shes that color of a roux. I dont run into many cat people these days. I like dogs, but dogs are a lot of work. Theyre as much work as children. You tend to see people that have children migrate into dogs when their kids are getting olderits not so intense. We have a three-year-old and a one-yearold, so were not ready for a high-maintenance dog right now. Any last thoughts before you head out to your meeting? I love what I do. I love going to work every day. I cant wait to start my day every morning. I cant wait to read the numbers from all the businesses, I cant wait to come in and talk to guests. I speak a lot at colleges. Ill tell the students, find a job you love and youll never feel like its work. I tell my two college-age kids from a previous marriage that I didnt know what I wanted to do when I was 18. Get the degree so you have it, and figure it all out later. Youll find it, and when you find it, embrace it.
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