Hilton hotel drops restaurant service for grab-and-go option

At the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, waiters are out. Flatbread pizzas and salads to go are in.

The 1,981-room hotel recently replaced its breakfast-and-lunch restaurant with Herb N' Kitchen, a more casual, self-serve market. So-called grab-and-go options are becoming popular among hotel brands, including Aloft Hotels and Hyatt.

Hilton is taking a large leap. It made a media splash in May when it announced it was ending traditional room service at its 50-year-old, full-service Midtown hotel. (Guests now can get food delivered to their rooms from Herb N' Kitchen, but only between 6:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. and from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Food will come in paper bags, not on trays adorned with carnations as before.) It yanked minibars in 2012. And now the hotel won't have a full-on restaurant with waiter service. (The Lobby Lounge, which serves drinks and bar food, still uses waiters.)

The company says it is currently in talks with owners at several other Hilton Hotels & Resorts locations to launch Herb N' Kitchens.

Hilton says it is just giving travelers what they want. "We were getting the breakfast [crowd] captive," says Beth Scott, vice president of global products at Hilton Worldwide Inc. "For the other meal periods we would see guests walk out the door" to head to delis, food trucks and other quick lunch spots in the neighborhood.

Herb N' Kitchen, which is open from 6:30 a.m. to 1 a.m., is divided into several zones. A barista section sells Illy brand coffee and a glass case holds pastries baked in-house. The so-called arrival section features shelves of prepared foods such as a chicken-topped salad with a champagne-plum vinaigrette and a seared ahi tuna wrap, each for $14.75. A brick oven glows in one corner where a chef makes panini, burgers and flatbread pizzas. "The oven was really, really important. The smell of it and getting the guest to understand we make everything on property," says Ms. Scott. Beer and wine are available. While prices are still higher than the local deli, Hilton says it cut the cost of some dishes. The cheeseburger is $9.75, for example, compared with $24 in the former restaurant. A more-traditional hotel breakfast buffet is available for $36. Seating is in several sleek, glass-sconce and marble-bedecked rooms. Wi-Fi is free.