Adelaide’s best hotel has been crowned

Published Oct 23, 2024, 3:49 AM

Arkaba Hotel Manager Jordarn Karpowicz joins Stacey Lee after the hotel won big at the 2024 Australian Hotels Association SA Awards for Excellence.

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Well, I think a lot of us would have never won a hospitality award. The same can't be said for the Arkabar because last night at the AHA Awards, the Arkaba took out well a number of awards, but in particular took out overall hotel in the general division in the metropolitan area. And Jordan Karpowitz is the Arkabar Hotels manager. Hi, Jordan's actually Jordan, Sorry about that.

That's all right.

Congratulations to you and the team.

No, thank you. It's been a well deserved win from our point of view. We put a lot of hard work into it and we are over the moon to see the outcome.

As you should be. I mean, the Arkabar is my locals, so I'm probably there too often. But but what do you think it was that that got you over the line.

I think the main part of it is our redevelopment hasn't the Arkaba hasn't had you know, it's iconic venue that hasn't had sort of a significant redevelopment in a couple of decades. You know, I've been standing here on the corner of Falls and then Guns and Road for you know that sixty odd years and sort of I guess they sort of pulled the pin and went for it. And yeah, the outcome, you know, the new Sporties, I think is a big turning point for us. Such a nice outdoor area, and I said, if you're if you're a local, like you know, people love the out there. You've got booth seeding, you know, digital dart, shuffle board, We sort of catered to all divisions and obviously lots of screens to watch all the love sports you could ever think of.

Yeah, you definitely do.

It's probably why you won Best Entertainment Venue. And I think there was another odd best outdoor non non enclosed too, because so I guess you know that's that sort of falls falls in there as well, and Sporting Entertainment Venue as well.

Well. Yeah, I know people that.

Live live in the area as well, and they can actually see your big screens from.

Their house, so it's really nice.

So I think that they owe you a thank you for being able to provide them all the sport for free as well.

The people from the apartments probably like us quite a bit.

Then, yeah, absolutely.

And the other award that you won, which I think is a really important one community service and support. This was a joint winner with the Highway too, and I think a lot of that award was credited to the Quiet Hour that you guys have brought in recently.

How has that been going?

Yeah, so the Quiet Hour we sort of started it earlier on this year. We had quite a bit of support around it, you know, and we also do support quite a lot of local sporting clubs. Cheney and Peter are quite generous and love to give back and are very charitable. So yeah, you know, we do quite a bit through a lot of people and sort of shows I guess as well, you know, the customer service here sort of gets water across. And yeah, it was. It was very humbling to win, you know, have a joint award with the Highway with that one there.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I reckon it's hard these days, you know, being a hotel deciding what sort of hotel you want to be. Like, I think you can't be everything to all people, but you still need to have a good like a good beer list. You need a good bar, you need a good sporting entertainment area for people to go and watch the sports you need. You need a decent amount of food, but not like a menu that's overwhelmingly big and diverse. You just want to do like the few staples really well, and you go to so many pubs and I think, I'm not sure they're really nailing it. So I think it's hard these days to work out what the priority is when being a hotel.

Do you think, Yeah, it is hard. I tend to agree with you. I've got to obviously I frequent two pubs as well, and yeah, like it is hard to hit all points, but I think we kick off pretty much a lot of the points pretty well here. You know, so functions venue. You know, our motto is sort of is a venue for all occasions, and we sort of do hit that quite often really, and you know, you're right, Like you talk about the menus great. You know, the staple was a really good chef, does lots of good chef specials. We do have a good wine list and you know, the be offerings are good. I think another thing is competitive pricing as well plays a big part, especially in this current climate.

Absolutely, yeah, I think it's changed a lot. You don't go to the pub and get a cheap meal unless it's one of those specials nights or something like that. But you know, it's it is an occasions. It's turned into more of an occasion event. I know, at least for my family, birthday birthdays and big events will go down to the pub and make a night of it. But yeah, having an affordable menu I think is definitely right now. Oh well, congratulations again to you and the team. Jor Done And I know the the AHA Awards for Excellence.

They do these every year and.

I have often questioned a strange time to have them on a Tuesday night, but I guess that's when it has to be.

For hospital, It's probably Monday. Tuesdays quite a day of the week, so they try to do that, and then everyone has a bit of a sorehead on a Wednesday. But that's right, nothing wrong there.

Oh good, well, I hope the celebrations continue and the sawheads as well.

Georg done, thanks for your time, no worries.

Thank you for that.

Hotel manager at the Kabar Bears. You're done. Karpowitz

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