Come to the Cambria
An Interview with General Manager, Jerry Rice
It was a cold, rainy December evening when I traveled to the Cambria Hotel. But, as soon as I entered, my spirits were lifted. The Cambria Hotel in Downtown Philadelphia is going to be the host of Philly Black Pride’s twenty-first celebration taking place April 23-26, 2020. And I was there to speak with the General Manager, Jerry Rice, to get a glimpse into what we’d all be experiencing come the next event.
The friendly people at the front desk helped me feel at home. I took my seat at a nearby coffee table and listened to the soothing R&B music coming from the speakers while waiting for Jerry to arrive. A few moments later, we heard a bellowing laugh from downstairs. I was expecting a big personality and the man at the desk all but confirmed this with an amused “that’s him”. Soon after, the man himself rose up the stairs; tall, gregarious, and friendly. We made our introduction and took to a nearby board room for the following interview. All in all, I can say that I’m confident the Cambria is the right place for those of you staying for Philly Black Pride. You’ll feel accepted, comfortable, and at ease during the stay. But don’t take my word for it. See what I uncovered in my talk with Jerry Rice.
Jerry Rice, General Manager at the Cambria Hotel in Downtown Philadelphia
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PBP How long have you worked at the Cambria?
JR I have worked at the Cambria since before they opened their doors. I came to the hotel in August of 2017 and we opened our doors at the end of March 2018.
PBP What have you learned from working here and in the hospitality industry in general?
JR I’ve been in the hospitality industry for 23 years now and I learn something everywhere I go and work. You learn every day and grow cognizant of the fact that your customers are your lifeblood. Unless people bring their individual business, their company business, their group business, their convention business to our hotel, there’s no way for me to provide a way for the 73 employees in this hotel to derive their living or to ensure that we get our investors back what they put into the product. Every day it’s about taking care of the guests. You learn how to take care of people. You realize that everybody has a bad day and that does not make you bad person. And honestly, in leadership or management, you learn humanity. You learn that life happens to a lot of people and you have to meet people where they are.
The important commodity we have in our business is people. We are in a service industry. Yes, it’s a hotel and a product, but it is delivered by a person. Every plate you dine off of is washed and given to you by someone. Every drink you have is poured by someone. Someone has to check you in and check you out and someone has to service your room. So, our commodity here is people. We have a product, but the people really make a difference for us.
Comforts for the LGBTQ Community
PBP We’ve emailed back and forth and I noticed in your signature you placed your pronouns next to your name. While it’s not common to see, many in the LGBTQ community would see that as a positive. So was your decision to use your pronouns a personal one or was that more of a corporate decision?
JR Absolutely personal. In fact, I’m probably the only person in Choice Hotels that has their pronouns on their email signature. And that’s a change that I made. Diversity and inclusion is something that is a personal passion of mine. As a gay male of Black and Latin origin, I deal with diversity and diverse groups and have looked in the lens of how I relate to the world and the people around me my entire life. So the older I’ve gotten, I’ve realized that there were roads paved, doors open, windows propped open, and shoulders I’ve stood on over the years. And as you know better…I guess the saying is that you do better. And so, I am trying to make sure that as I move forward – even though my walk as a gay man is very different than two generations before me – I want to make sure that the next generation doesn’t [have to] deal with some of the stuff I even thought about dealing with in my walk to finding out who I was and what my truth was. So, it is an extension of the work that I decided to do.
So our hotel, as you know, is at the corner Broad and Locust here in downtown Philadelphia. We are literally a block and a half from the gayborhood. On the weekends, we can ascertain that at least 45% of our weekend business sometimes is LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters and the like. So we have a responsibility that if you are going to take money from a certain constituency that you are supportive of those persons as well. And for me, it intersects into my personal life – it is a passion. It even goes into my outside work. I work with a lot of diverse groups. I sit on the board of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce – the Independence Business Alliance, I sit on the board of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and I am working with Philly Counts with the Mayor’s Office on the LGBT counts forum to ensure that for the next census the LGBTQ community is adequately counted and represented. So it coincides with a lot of the work that I do outside of work. It’s my life. It’s who I am. I wake up every morning as essentially a gay Black man. And that doesn’t change – that’s my walk. I don’t know how to be anything other than that. That’s who I’ve always known myself to be since…well Black since I was born and gay since kindergarten. So for me it’s just an extension of who I am. And if I can get just one person to ask me what you just asked me, it was worth putting [the pronouns] on my tagline. That gives me the opportunity to advocate and to educate people who may or may not understand why you put your pronouns behind your name. Or the fact that how people identify themselves really is the core of their personage. And so, what I want is what you what you gave me which is the opportunity to talk about this or to educate someone who may not understand the importance of what their pronouns means to them.
PBP During Philly Black Pride, you’ll have a lot of people at the Cambria who identify as both Black and LGBTQ. What can you say about how comfortable they’ll feel just being themselves in this environment?
JR Everybody can be themselves in this environment. In fact, when Cambria Hotels started, one of our trademark taglines was “where everybody is somebody”. And that’s how we run this building. This hotel has gay people running it, straight people running it, there are bisexual individuals running this hotel, there are non-binary and nonconforming…we use the pronouns he, she, them, and they in this building. I used they and them with an employee on today. So it’s something that I naturally reach out to. I am trying to work with the IBA on their trans work program to figure out how [to be] more inclusive as a hotel and make sure our transsexual and transgender brothers and sisters find their space and their way back to a great workforce. We all know that that transition – FTM/MTF – can cause some challenges in people’s employment along the way. So it’s something that I personally have worked on. I’m starting our pride employee research group for our parent company that I work for which is Concorde Hospitality Enterprises. So, we’re starting an LGBT ERG right now and I’m leading the effort. So I’m trying to literally walk my talk. And if my hotel and the people who work for me don’t embody the same things that I’m talking about everyday…then I haven’t met my message. So you will be comfortable here because I’m comfortable here and I would never allow someone to not feel comfortable here.
Perks of Staying at the Cambria
PBP Let’s talk about the amenities. What are some of the best features about this hotel?
JR Well…we are in the best spot in Philadelphia – a block and a half/two blocks off of City Hall. We’re in between Rittenhouse Square and Washington West. We’re walking distance to all the historical sites, and again, a block and a half off the gayborhood. But, the fact that our hotel is brand new – it’s sleek, it’s modern – you’re gonna find that it’s a stylish hotel that has the comforts of home, great service, and a lot of amenities. Everything from the things you expect in a hotel [like a] refrigerator, microwave, in-room safe, and a clean, comfortable room, to the things you may not expect like the fact that every mirror in our bathrooms in our hotel is a Bluetooth. So, you can take your device and stream your music through your mirror. Or, for those who are allergic or have allergy problems, [there’s] the fact that we have no carpeting in our hotel guest rooms. We use a luxury tile floor in our bedrooms to make sure they have a hardwood look. And [we’ve done away with] the old towels that take in dander, dust, mites, and some allergens that people have found over the years have been a challenge for them in our industry. And I think the biggest thing to happen is that we have a lot of stuff going on. We call our hotel the Cambria Corner or the Cambria Complex because it’s not just a hotel. There’s…a lobby restaurant and bar, Treble and Bass, we’ve got meeting space, and on the roof of our hotel we’ve got the Attico Rooftop Restaurant & Bar. So we’ve got a lounge and restaurant on top of our hotel. And below us, we have a Del Frisco’s Grille restaurant. So, there are three food venues, 223 rooms, and 3000 square feet of meeting space along with The Lucy by Cescaphe which is attached to the hotel on one of the corners. So, I think it has some great amenities, I think it has a great location, and I think it has the right branding ’cause Cambria is a great, hot, new, stylish brand. And what we try to do in the hotel is give people all that and make people want to come put their business in our building and [have] people come to our city.
PBP For Philly Black Pride, the Cambria is offering a one king bed suite and a two queen bed suite. So, what can you tell us about each of these?
JR So, each room is either one king size bed or two queens in those rooms again with the white bedding. [They have] the new stylish amenities and views of Broad Street, views of the gayborhood, views of the Delaware River, views of the Walt Whitman Bridge can all be accessed depending on where your room is located in the hotel. We talked about the standard amenities, the wireless internet access, the microwave, and refrigerator. There’s coffee, but it’s not a coffee pot. It’s a Keurig coffee maker. So, we have moved up in the world and we have Keurigs in our rooms right now. And also we do in-room dining as well. When you look at the features, you’re talking about the sleek design and modern furnishings.
Our hotel, just like every Cambria, really reflects the neighborhood that we’re in. There are forty-three Cambrias open, and most of them don’t look alike. This hotel is on the Avenue of the Arts, which is the old jazz alley. When you look in those rooms, you’ll find that the artwork is musical in nature. We’re also sitting beside a design school, University of the Arts. You’ll find that like in every other of our forty-three Cambria Hotels is a feature wall in that room. Our feature wall in our hotel happens to be…a very, very, very abstract design. It’s beautiful. But, if you were to go to Washington, DC, that inset artwork would be this beautiful honeycomb design. You don’t know what it is unless you ride the metro in DC, and you wouldn’t know that in the Cambria DC, what you’re seeing is the top of the metro showing in all the rooms. So, we try to take the outside and bring it in. You were sitting in the lobby earlier and you saw our golden arch staircase. If you look at that a little bit closer when you go out, you’ll find that those are upside-down treble notes in that staircase. Behind you where the fireplace was, the chandelier was made with the old ends of trumpets. So, we try to bring the outside in. Even the coffee tables in the lobby are Yamaha drums that were retrofitted into lit coffee tables for us. So, it was the intentional purpose of various architects and designers on JFK and our ownership…to make the hotel feel as much like the Avenue of the Arts in the heart of those things as we could. And then also to make sure that we source those materials and those services from the many artisans and vendors in Philadelphia as we can to truly make this a hotel that’s owned by Philadelphians, that’s built by Philadelphians, that’s run by Philadelphians, and that really sits in Center City Philadelphia and shows the pride of our city.
How to Reach Out
PBP If guests have any questions or concerns, how should they get in touch and who should they get in touch with?
JR They can call the hotel and ask one of our friendly service agents or they can email at info@cambriaphiladelphia.com. They can…send a pigeon – that was a joke – you laughed, thank you. Email and telephone calls are great. There’s always someone here 24 hours a day to answer your questions. Most things can be found about our hotel online at cambriaphiladelphia.com, but if you need any help there is always me here, or a member of our sales team upstairs, or someone at the front desk, or someone on email who can always get back with our guests.
PBP Where can guests leave reviews after their experience?
JR So when you leave – TripAdvisor is one of the top rated review sites in the world; most people use it. So, TripAdvisor…or Expedia, or one of the other travel sites would be a great place to leave a review. Also, when every guest checks out, they’ll be getting a survey from Choice Hotels International that talks about our hotel. So there will be a survey emailed to every guest and we would love it if they could fill that survey out. And also they can go on the internet and [recommend us]. We would enjoy that.
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After experiencing the environment of the Cambria and speaking with Jerry, I can confidently say that guests are going to love everything about it. Book your room now and we’ll see you at Pride!
