When JPMorgan Chase began planning its new 57-storey global headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, the ambition stretched well beyond building a landmark tower. The project was a rare opportunity to rethink what hospitality should feel like inside one of the world’s most complex corporate environments.

Adam Slater, Managing Director and Global Head of Amenity Services, understood the tension at the heart of that brief. A building serving thousands of people daily — executives, global clients, board members, investors — could easily become what corporate hospitality has always been: efficient, anonymous and indifferent to the individual standing in front of it.

The traditional buffet — long, linear, fixed to one point in the room — doesn’t answer that question. It forces guests into a single routine rather than responding to how people actually move, gather and eat through a working day.

Slater wanted the opposite:

· Food that could appear where people were, rather than drawing people to where the food was

· Stations scaled for comfort, not volume

· Small, curated moments replenished often, rather than a single sprawling display

There are times when you want abundance and opulence, but there are times when you want to feel that you’re taking personalised portions to give an individual experience.

The brief, in brief, was intimacy at scale.

And the equipment had to make that operationally possible across a 57-storey building, from dawn to dusk, every day.

How the space was redesigned around the guest
The team needed a system that could move with the building rather than anchor service to fixed points. Three Craster systems made that possible:

· STAK vertical shelving created clear focal points on large floors — presenting food at height so guests could see and navigate the buffet, even in a full room

· FARE mobile trolleys allowed coffee to surface where people gathered between meetings, and an evening bar to be set and cleared without disrupting the flow of the building

· FLOW heating units kept food at the right temperature in a format that looked considered rather than institutional

Together, they allowed the building to run multiple service formats at the same time — plated, passed and buffet — so guests could choose how they wanted to eat rather than being directed to a single station.

My vision is everyone should be expected. Everyone should be welcomed into the building with warmth and empathy. We should walk in everybody’s shoes as they are in our space.

The system had to be invisible when it was working. Trays that reduced visual clutter. Presentation formats that kept the buffet small and fresh. Components that allowed frequent replenishment without interrupting the rhythm of a working floor.

What changed for JPMorgan Chase

The new 270 Park Avenue operates less like a corporate machine and more like a residence. The detail of the experience now reflects the JPMorgan brand reputation and values. Guests — employees, clients, investors — feel that their visit was anticipated. That someone thought about their experience before they arrived.

That is what Slater described as the ambition from the start:

Everyone should be expected.

Four words. The entire brief.

The practical improvements are tangible:

· A consistent guest experience across every floor and every daypart, whether the guest is an employee grabbing a coffee or a board member arriving for a client dinner

· Less storage overhead — a modular system that reconfigures rather than resets means fewer duplicate pieces across floors

· Faster turnaround between service formats, from breakfast to lunch to evening reception, without the space announcing the change

· Less food waste — smaller, replenished stations mean less prepared ahead of time and less left over at the end of service