If you've ever booked a hotel or been club-hopping in the 33139 ZIP code, you know South Beach hospitality often leaves much to be desired.
But at Boutique Hospitality Management, the company that runs the newly renovated Angler's Boutique Resort on Washington Avenue, they mean it when they say ''at your service.'' Their attention to visitors' needs ranges from festively lining rooms with balloons and securing last-minute tables at Barton G.'s to telling tourists where to shop or, better yet, where not to.
''We knew we could have the best service of anyone in South Beach,'' said Keith Space, who started his company in 1997 when he moved from New York and bought The Abbey Hotel on 21st Street, which he sold to The Setai in 2005.
Space knows that service is what can distinguish the little hotel, which has only 55 rooms and is located two blocks from the beach.
''If you think about The Angler's, we're not on the ocean. We're not some 200-room, palatial resort with banquet rooms and ballrooms and three restaurants,'' he explained. ``We had to embrace all the things The Angler's was not, and then from there begin to identify what it could be, despite all the things it was not.''
To separate The Angler's from the pack of boutique hotels in South Beach, Space has a team of 35 working to provide guests' with top-notch service. His resort hosts, which other hotels might call concierges, must be plugged in and able to calculate what would be the best experience for a particular guest in Miami, whether its dinner, dancing or a field trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The hosts talk to guests no less than three times before their arrival.
''We tell our team members that it's like you are entertaining a familiar acquaintance in your home, someone you know well but not so well as to be casual with them,'' he said. ``You're always on your best behavior, but you provide a genuine sense of hospitality.''
