57WELLNESS Bloomberg Pursuits March 2, 2020
Yes, there are
gluten-free
fakers
Every day the dining staff gets a personal-
needs report outlining who has special
dietary considerations—all of which are taken
very seriously. “Ten years ago the list was
one sheet; today it ranges between 20 and
30 pages,” says Mena Garaawey, the assistant
restaurant manager. But how many of these
diners are conflating preference and allergy?
“Around 40% of people who claim to be
gluten-free will go for some bread or dessert,”
she explains. “The same amount of dairy-free
diners will quietly splurge on ice cream.”
Allergic or not, picky eaters are best
accommodated at the Canyon Ranch Grill. It’s
like Goldilocks’s dream restaurant—you can
tweak any dish to your heart’s delight. Want
four scallops instead of three? Easy. Take the
coconut out of the coconut rice? Sure. Slurp
the chicken broth but skip the noodles? No
prob. I even watched a colleague serve half of
a single wonton, its stuffing barely contained
by the remaining sliver of dough.There are exceptions. I ended up on the
receiving end of a tantrum when we couldn’t
replace a dish’s shiitake mushrooms with
maitakes. (Nine other fungi were offered and
rebuffed.) And alcohol is always a no-no.
The resort maintains a sort of “brown bag”
policy; booze can be purchased off-site
and consumed in the privacy of one’s
casita. Garaawey says the nearest Circle K
convenience store is probably the franchise’s
most profitable location.
Oftentimes requests extend well beyond
the dietary. “We have one regular that—no
matter what he orders—wants his [already
hot] entree zapped in the microwave for
exactly eight and a half minutes,” Garaawey
notes. Another demands a welcome offering
of three raspberries and one small apple. (How
small? Only one server has ever guessed
right.) A certain startup whiz refuses to
be served by a blonde, claiming they lack
the mental faculties to get his order right;
ironically, his brunette of choice is actually
a towhead with an auburn dye job. During
my shift I had one high-achieving soccer
mom refuse to sit at all—“Sitting’s the new
smoking!”—while a man demanded a table
equidistant from the kitchen and salad bar.
He was “allergic to the smell of raw onions.”You can massage
your spirit
in a hot tub
Canyon Ranch’s spa services list reads like
a Cheesecake Factory menu, with dozens
of globe-spanning treatments targeting
muscles you didn’t know existed. My
favorite was the “Rejuvenating Waters,”
which starts with an American Indian-
inspired spirit worship in the sauna and
culminates with an underwater massage
in a hot tub. There are so many options
(seaweed leaf cocoon, ahhhh) that creating
a week’s itinerary can take two months of
back-and-forth before arrival.
About 70% of guests are focused on
nutrition and fitness (read: weight loss);
15% are dealing with significant life changes
(divorce, death); and the remaining 15%
are simply seeking some R&R. They range
in age from 30 to 85, with a gender split
that’s 70% female and 30% male—though
Shayne Hornfeck, an operations manager,
says that’s been shifting as men realize that
“spas aren’t just places where ladies get
their nails done.”
A trip here adds up. The weekly rate
(from $7,800) includes activities such as
spinning and hiking but not spa services,
on which the average guest spends an
extra $1,500. The biggest single-day spree
on record is $45,000; each week a few big
spenders notch $10,000 in facials and rub-
downs. During my tenure, one guest who’d
been there a couple of months had rung up
more than $300,000, largely on astrology
readings and other metaphysical sessions.