Biscuit Love – brilliant for breakfast when the hotel fails you...

Biscuit Love, Nashville, Tennessee, USA – it's great!

It doesn't matter which way you look at it, the best part of the hotel experience has to be the breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day and, done properly, it sets you up for the day ahead and makes you love the hotel you're staying in. That's why, when you suddenly find that the hotel you're staying in DOESN'T offer a decent breakfast you get a little depressed. Not suicidal, far from it, but a little down in the dumps, and it's important to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Biscuit Love, it's the best!

The thing is, these days, a lot of hotels have dispensed with the idea of breakfast – a major faux pas if you ask me and as much of a sin as dispening with wardrobes, desks and tea & coffee making facilities. How very dare they! Well, they do so you'd better get used to it.

All is not lost, though. Perhaps the first port of call for hotel residents on the look-out for a decent breakfast outside of their chosen place to stay is the coffee retailers. I'm sure that Starbuck's, Costa, Caffé Nero and all the independents out there offer something, even if it's just a Danish and a cup of tea or coffee.

Last year, in Columbus, Ohio, I was staying in a wonderful hotel, the Aloft, on the outskirts of town. It was a great place with plenty of quirky things going on, but they thought (wrongly) that it would be really quirky to dispense with breakfast. Big mistake, but it didn't put me off the hotel because, while quirky in some respects it was comfortable and, crucially, it was across the street (make that the parking lot) from an excellent Starbuck's where I would find myself every morning having a pretty decent breakfast. Naturally it became a routine, every morning.

So, here I am in the Moxy Vanderbilt, Nashville, downstairs writing this because there's no desk in my room, but let's say no more about that (I've said enough), let's instead talk about the seriously sub-standard food and beverage operation here; I know, I've mentioned it before, many times, but let's discuss it again but this time in the context of the hotel breakfast. The limited menu, which seems to be mainly pizza-like food items that can go in the bar top grill oven I've been talking about, makes the whole idea of waking up and looking forward to breakfast a bit of a no-no, that excitement simply isn't there – or is it?

Across the street from the Moxy Vanderbilt is a place called Biscuit Love. Yes, Biscuit Love, it's wonderful and it serves an amazing breakfast that's a cut above what you'll get in a coffee retailer like Starbuck's or whatever. The vibe is good too, there's decent music (probably because we're in the Music City) and the staff are bright and breezy and always have a smile for anybody who walks in; there's merch too, which gives the place a little added cred in my book. I've been going there since I arrived, by-passing the Moxy's poxy menu and crossing the street, confident that I'm going to get a warm welcome and, of course, a decent breakfast.

This morning, having been going there since Sunday morning, I was offered a free breakfast for my loyalty. I was bowled over by their generosity and ordered my usual: an omelette and an English breakfast tea, but not something you'd find in your average British greasy spoon, something far, far better, the omelette being served with roasted potatoes. Perfect! And the tea is out of this world, served in a glass teapot with an infuser, it's just the best and it knocks the Moxy's offering into a cocked hat.

I think hotels need to be careful. If they don't watch out they will become the fly in the ointment of their own existence and will have to sit back and watch their slow but inevitable decline. People won't put up with hotels that don't have desks or wardrobes or breakfast purely for the sake of being 'quirky' and instead they'll head for the nearest Air B&B. I was earwigging a conversation yesterday when I discovered that one company had put its representatives in a house for the duration of a big industry event, they all got their own rooms, they could cook their own food if they wanted to and when it came to breakfast, well, they'd just have to ensure they had cereal and fruit enough bread for toast and what have you. Who needs a hotel breakfast? Nobody, especially if it's very poor like the Moxy offering.

But there are now dedicated breakfast operators outside of the coffee retailers. Biscuit Love is one of these operators, it has a few stores in the Nashville area; and then there's The Brekkie Shack in Columbus, Ohio, a short walk from the Aloft hotel. Alright, not as close as the Starbuck's across the parking lot, but worth the extra few yards.

I think we'll be seeing more dedicated breakfast operators over the next few years as foodservice operators twig on to the trend for hotels that don't offer what they're supposed to. What's next, I wonder? Hotels with half a dozen sleeping bags in the room and nothing else. "Hey, they can watch TV on their iPads, they've got iPhones so we don't need to give them a landline and just shove a few pegs in the wall, there's no need for a wardrobe or, for that matter, a desk. They have laptops don't they? Well, they don't need a desk, they can use their laps, and if they want tea and coffee we'll shove a couple of bean-to-up systems downstairs in the reception area."

I wonder how far it will go? It's a bit like when you go to the airport and are expected to check yourself in. I hate that because the price doesn't drop, you're just doing the work of the airline and they're quids in as a result. Perhaps one day you'll arrive at what looks like a field laid to lawn with a sign providing the name of the hotel and a man in uniform handing out tents and camping equipment. "Pitch up anywhere, and if you want breakfast there's a nice little joint down the road. There's no desks either, or wardrobes or anything. Oh, and that's £200 for the night."