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Freebies, discounts and surprise perks for voters

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Hotels offering perks and packages for Election Day

(Our story about Election Day perks first appeared on NBC News in a slightly different version).

Election Day, and perhaps the days and weeks following, may be especially tense this year for a myriad of reasons. To help ease the stress and mark the day, some hotels and restaurants are offering discounts and perks for overnight guests and complimentary cocktails for those who have proof they have voted. 

And some hotels, and at least one museum, are even turning their lobbies and rooftops into polling stations.

A president slept here, now you can visit and vote

The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis, Indiana is a museum year-round. But at election time the home of the 23rd U.S. president becomes a voting site.

During an Election Day tour visitors can see historical voting machines and learn about the history of the U.S. voting process in the “Protect the Vote” exhibit. While that’s going on, actors portraying the Harrison family will be on site awaiting results from the 1888 presidential election.

Vote on a hotel rooftop or in a hotel ballroom

Some hotels around the country are turning ballrooms, rooftops, and other large event spaces into polling places where citizens can cast a vote or drop off a mailed ballot with adequate social distance.

In California, the Kimpton Le Peer Hotel in West Hollywood is serving as an early voting and vote-by-mail ballot drop off location from October 30 through November 3. The dining space on the outdoor rooftop is being refitted with voting booths so voters will have fresh air, social distance, and great views.  

Voting booths will be sanitized after each use and guests who vote on-site will receive a 15 percent discount on special menu items, including sliders adorned with American flags and a “Bubbly Pilgrim” cocktail. In the lobby,  the hotel’s resident artist will be working on a new Election Day inspired mural.

The historic Hotel Figueroa in downtown Los Angeles, which was funded and built by women in 1926 and served as a YWCA women’s hostel in its early years, will serve as an official polling place from October 30 through November 3, with voting booths set up in the hotel’s Gran Sala event space.

And although the historic Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. is closed through early 2021 due to the pandemic, its ballroom joins the Capital One Sports Arena and other area sites as a Super Vote Center to accommodate large numbers of voters from October 27 through November 3.

Vote, then drink or eat free, or for cheap

In Texas, from now through election day, the LINE Austin is offering a $1 cocktail, beer, or wine at their bar P6 for visitors who show proof of voting. (1 drink per vote.) 

In Houston, Texas, three of the restaurants in the H Town Restaurant Group – Hugo’s, Caracol, and Xochi – will be treating voters who wear their “I VOTED!” sticker to the restaurant to a complimentary red, white or blue margarita. (Value $11).

The Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento, CA will offer a complimentary glass of wine to guests who show their “I Voted” sticker from October 24 to November 3 on the hotel’s rooftop bar and lounge, Revival. The hotel is near the Golden 1 Center, an arena that will serve as a voting center on those dates.

In Denver, from now through Nov. 3, a red, white, and blue “Rock the Vote” cocktail will be complimentary to guests who sport their “I Voted” sticker and purchase a menu item at Local Jones restaurant at the Halcyon hotel in Cherry Creek.

The Bayou Bakery, Coffee Bar & Eatery, in Arlington, VA, which boasts of serving sweets and sides to Washington insiders, will have two special candidate-themed sandwiches on the menu November 2 and 3: a catfish filet for Trump and a sliced roasted turkey sandwich for Biden. Each sandwich will come with a complimentary “Vote” sugar cookie with red, white, and blue icing.

And starting at 5 pm PST on Election Night, The Hoxton, Portland will be hosting a political trivia night with an evening-long Happy Hour and comfort-food snack fest with corn dogs, chowder, tater tots and apple pie. Tickets start at $4.60 and include a welcome drink. For those anticipating a late night or who just want to stay in bed until the election results are tallied, the hotel is offering 30% off rooms that week with code AUTUMN.

Stay over, sleep it off

The Crossroads Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri is offering a “Not at a Crossroads” package on November 3 to guests who show proof of voting. The $169 room rate includes CBD gummies, Painkiller cocktails and a variety of candies and snacks, including WHOMP popcorn, Hot Tamales and Milk Duds.

Through November 3 Les Cactus Palm Springs is offering a 10% discount, a bottle of wine and a relaxing Mar Mar candle on all reservations of 3 nights or more to guests who show valid proof of voter registration.

In Washington, D.C. guests at the Kimpton George Hotel who show an “I Voted” sticker or an Early Voting equivalent, will receive a ‘surprise & delight’ from the front desk in the form of a small gift, food or beverage amenity, upgrade or late check out. And in addition to the hotel’s normal wine offerings at the complimentary daily wine hour, on Election Day the options will include a glass of bubbly or a glass of whiskey from Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.

You kill it, these hotels will cook it

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If you sometimes wonder where the food served at a hotel restaurant comes from, you might want to check out one of the programs I profiled for CNBC Road Warrior where the on-site chef will cook up what guests catch, shoot or forage.

Me? I think I’m going to try the forage option.

MarlinWatkinswithTurkey_courtesyTurkeyTrotAcresLodge

Courtesy Turkey Trot Acres

Farm-to-table meals have become so popular that hotels are now getting in the game with an even closer-to-the-source experience by offering chef-prepared meals using food hooked, foraged or shot by their guests.

You might visit Turkey Trot Acres in Candor, New York, for a wedding reception, reunion, barbecue or zombie-fest, but wild turkey hunting in the spring and fall is what this upstate lodge is best known for.

Turkey Trot specializes in three-day guided hunting packages that start at $1,200 and include single-bed rooms, meals and guides. And while not everyone bags a turkey, those who do usually pose proudly with their bird before it goes into the cooler.

“Turkey Trot will clean the turkey for you, package it and tell you how to cook it. And if you want it prepared for dinner, they’ll do that too,” said Marlin Watkins, a well-known turkey call maker from southeast Ohio who’s been a regular at the lodge for the past 25 years.

“But when you harvest a wild turkey it’s such an event that most people would rather take it home to show off to their friends and family. I’ve seen a lot of turkeys go home in the back of a Cadillac,” Watkins said.

Next winter, Viceroy Snowmass, near Aspen, Colorado, will be adding a “you kill/we cook” option to its menu of hotel activities. From Nov. 8 to Jan. 18, guests will be able to hunt for pheasant, duck and goose—but not turkey—with guides from the Aspen Outfitting Company. The hotel’s executive chef, Will Nolan, will show guests how he breaks down the game and then prepares it for a meal. The cost: $2,200, not including accommodations.

“Guests are constantly looking for ways to get closer to their food, and I can’t think of a more intimate experience,” said Nolan. “The most memorable meals are those that you actually have a part in creating, so this fits the bill in a number of exciting ways.”

Michigan’s Catch & Cook program, a joint project of a half dozen public agencies and commercial associations, connects charter fishing clients and charter boat operators in the state’s Great Lakes region with about 50 restaurants, many of them linked to hotels and inns, which will cook and serve the day’s catch.

The program began in 2012 and has reeled in a net full of economic benefits.

“Distinctive experiences like Catch & Cook are likely to be told and retold,” said Jordan Burroughs, a wildlife outreach specialist at Michigan State University. Charter boat businesses benefit through positive word-of-mouth, restaurants get added business during the early afternoon—a traditionally slower and less profitable part of the day—”and communities benefit when visitors extend their stay, supporting local restaurants and presumably, other local businesses,” Burroughs said.

In Florida, the Hyatt Regency Sarasota has a “You Catch ‘Em, We’ll Cook ‘Em” offer for visiting anglers, including those who dock at the hotel’s 32-slip marina. For $40 per person, the chef at the Hyatt’s Currents Restaurant will grill, blacken, sear or pan fry a fisherman’s cleaned and filleted catch and serve it up with soup or salad, sides of fresh vegetables, other accompaniments and dessert.

A similar program, called “Hook N’ Cook,” is offered at the Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village in Cape Coral, Florida. There, chefs at two onsite dining venues will prepare a guest’s freshly-caught and cleaned fillet for a typical plate fee of $15, with other menu items included with the meal at an additional cost, said Stefanie Eakin, the Westin resort’s marketing manager.

Nita Lake Lodge_foraging

Courtesy Nita Lake Lodge

Each Wednesday morning during September and October, guests may go foraging for wild and edible plants, shoots, lichens and mushrooms with the executive chef of Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler, British Columbia.

Wednesday evenings, those same guests can dine with their fellow foragers on a five-course meal using the ingredients plucked that morning in the Whistler Valley. Tickets are $70 per person, plus tax, for the foraging foray and the dinner.

The class spends a great deal of time talking about and studying false or deadly look-a-likes. “All amateur foragers learn a key rule,” said Paul Moran, the executive chef at the lodge’s Aura Restaurant, “When trying to identify wild plants and mushrooms, even if you are 99 percent sure something is edible, if you still have 1 percent of doubt, it’s not worth eating.”