MIDNIGHT snack-lovers seeking accommodation on Germany’s River Rhine need look no further. The Food Hotel in Neuwied, Germany offers you the next best thing to sleeping in the supermarket aisle.
With furniture that looks like cans in the lounges, stools made of beer crates in the bar and both tables and cushions shaped like biscuits in one of the bedrooms, there is no getting away from food and drink in this supermarket-themed hotel.
Thirty-six of Germany’s biggest household names, including food company Dr Oetker, crisps manufacturer Chio, confectioner Ferrero and brewer Veltins have teamed up with the hotel’s management to design and create unique bedrooms sure to please food and drink buffs.
“We have found sponsors from the industry for all of the rooms,” hotel manager Peter Gruenhaeuser told reporters. “We gave them basic guidelines for the rooms but within those we allowed them complete freedom and the opportunity to let their creative imaginations run wild.”
He said companies could “present their own product ideas and corporate philosophies” in the bedrooms.
In return the beverage and snack producers had to contribute toward the cost of constructing the hotel and pay for the furnishings in the room with their chosen design.
Each bedroom is unique – in the room designed by Messmer, one of Germany’s most prominent tea companies, everything revolves around tea, with traditional tea crates and images of exotic tea plantations providing decoration.
In the room designed by Ferrero, the scene of a TV advertisement for its Raffaello coconut candies set on a desert island is recreated – there are palm trees, shells, summer hats, photos of sandy beaches and books about faraway dream destinations.
But the hotel’s pride and joy is the room designed by German crisp manufacturer Chio, in which guests can feast on potato snacks while partying away under the rotating mirror disco ball – or under the flashing lights in the bathroom – to the beat pumped out by the room’s integrated sound system.
Guests are free to choose which snacks, beverages and marketing campaigns they would like to spend the night with.
“We have several options for those who like it crazy, but we also have rooms for those who prefer a more conservative setting,” Gruenhauser said.
In keeping with the food and drink theme, the hotel boasts its own full-blown supermarket and a reception which invites guests to relax on chairs that look like shopping trolleys.
A night in a single room costs about $125 (£80.18), but for those who want to share the novel experience, a double room costs $180 (£115.46) per night.
