The 17m Chesterfield couch has been installed in the lounge. The trees are throwing their shade on the deck of the outdoor living room next to the Olympic-length lap pool. The stairwell graffiti shimmies up towards the rooms and the staff are ready and smiling.
Welcome to chic central, aka Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn.
After three years of preparation and construction the people of Pretoria can now don their designer labels and start visiting this dramatic and extraordinary hotel which has made such a striking impression on Capetonians and Joburgers, who have embraced this sociable, forever-young brand with happy abandon.
“With every Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! property the Protea Hotels group opens, we have pushed the envelope on style and have set trends. Pretoria is no different. We think the people of Pretoria will welcome the opening of this new city hotspot with as much enthusiasm as we do,” said Mark Satterfield, Marriott International Business Leader in South Africa.
The hotel sets a new standard for stylish hospitality in Tshwane with its seamless indoor/outdoor social spaces and its on-trend interior tone. But the hotel’s real draw card will be the wide variety of event offerings, tailor-made for the Pretoria audience.
Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn’s General Manager Johan Cronje says the hotel is conveniently situated next to the Menlyn Park shopping mall and close to the N1, making it an obvious place for people to gather.
The residents of Pretoria will no longer have to wait for their Cape Town holiday or a trip to Jozi to enjoy the unique food and beverage concepts, which continue to create talkability due to the extensive milkshake flavours and gourmet burgers. This new hotel has taken the concept further to include gourmet pizzas which will have a Fire & Ice! twist to them in terms of flavour and presentation.
“But there’s so much more to the hotel than these popular food and beverage offerings. Wine, brandy and whiskey connoisseurs will be very happy with the selection available in the bar. Our Executive Chef, Genghis San has some delightful surprises up his sleeve for food lovers, and the list of events we have planned is very different to anything the people of Pretoria have come to know, ” said Cronje.
Satterfield said, “Pretoria is a young, exciting city that simply doesn’t get its dues. Protea Hotels recognised that there is a lively set of young-at-heart, ambitious movers and shakers in Pretoria whose choices for playing hard after working hard are pretty limited. Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Menlyn fills a gap we believe our GUESTS have been waiting for for years.”
Protea Hotels is Africa's leading hotel group and has a footprint of more than 116 properties throughout South Africa and six other African countries, including Zambia, Nigeria, Namibia, Ghana and Uganda amongst others. Each hotel is uniquely different in character and the collection ranges from urban accommodation to country retreats, all in the 3 and 4-star markets. Protea Hotels is the winner of 2 World Travel Awards for Best Hotel Group in Africa, winner of 3 Sunday Times Markinor Top Hotel Brand Awards, the winner of 5 Coolest Hotel Group awards in the Sunday Times Generation Next surveys and the winner of the Ask Africa South African Customer Service Award 2013. The hotel group was bought by Marriott International in April 2014 and forms part of Marriott’s global brand portfolio made up of 18 brands that operate more than 4 000 hotels in 79 countries.