With 66 meeting rooms and a total of 93,211 square feet of event space, the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown certainly offers t ... he volume and flexibility of desired meeting space. But what is getting planners in the door these days and transforming an inquiry into a booking has to do with an obscure re-purposed room on a hidden floor, in a hidden location which has been transformed into an “innovation lab.” 1201 Innovation Lab is a groundbreaking culinary showcase where the hotel hosts meeting planners on site inspections and provides innovative tastings and demonstrations of what they can do for a group. The centerpiece is a farmhouse table for planners to sit and watch as Chef Price and his team sauté, smoke, and innovate their way to a sale. The kitchen also features a hydroponic garden system which hosts a kale, basil, and mushroom farm, a bar with a resident mixologist to develop cocktails specifically geared toward a group’s demographic or theme, and a selection of what could only be described as tech-forward equipment that enable Price and his team to work magic. Unlike most large group hotels, this property cooks meals for groups “a la minute” — meaning everything is made to order and nothing is pre-cooked ahead of time and then reheated before service. While this method takes a lot of careful planning, timing, and staff coordination, the result means a restaurant-quality meal delivered to each and every meeting attendee. Another differentiator is that the hotel's own culinary wizard Chef Robert Price prefers to not serve the same menu twice. He sees his job as designing a food experience for a meeting or conference as something completely bespoke versus having his catering team sell from a “packaged” menu. Therefore he invests the time to research the group and the conference, speak to the meeting planner about the demographics of the attendees, and then creates a menu that will appeal to each group. read more