Meetings at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix come with a heavy dose of sustainability, with opportunities for bee breaks, Chef’s Garden tours and resourcefully made pancakes to be easily catered for groups.
Staff members at the resort love the three queen bees onsite so much that they’ve incorporated them into bee breaks for small, executive VIP groups. One of the property’s three separate bee hives will take center stage at the break for attendees to watch as the bees are busy producing their raw honey quota, which is anywhere between 10 to 36 gallons a year. The break fittingly incorporates honey-themed food items such as honey-glazed pork belly, honey-roasted almonds, honey-coconut macaroons or house-made honey goji-berry granola bars.
Groups can also explore the property’s horticultural efforts in its 21,000-sf organic Chef’s Garden. On any given day, attendees can see property chefs carefully choosing ingredients—sprigs of asparagus, artichokes peppers and lettuce—for that night’s dinner menu. Members of the resort’s horticultural team can also give group tours of the garden, which grows 10 different varieties of vegetables and herbs each season based on culinary needs and trends.
With its location on 316 acres of scenic desert, the property also features native Arizona mesquite trees from which pods fall to the ground. These string-bean-like pods have long been a food staple for local Native American tribes and are used to make small cakes. The resort’s culinary and horticultural teams honor this tradition by picking the pods between the months of June and September. They are then ground into mesquite flour and used in pancakes featured on Stonegrill restaurant’s breakfast menu.
