Changes at Cliffbreakers

3 comments November 8th, 2007

If you’ve driven past Cliffbreakers Riverside Resort the past day or so, you may have noticed there’s change afoot. The hotel’s former Comfort Suites sign is blacked out, and lettering says a new Lexington Hotel Cliffbreakers will take its place.

Owner and manager Michael Ellis announced the change Nov. 8.  Ellis, who bought the resort from founder Jimmy Vitale in November 2006,  told me he’d had two major components in mind when he made the purchase: to get the best possible world class chef in his restaurant, and to rebrand the hotel.

Executive chef Philippe Forcioli — former owner of Cafe Patou on Broadway in Rockford — came on board in February after working in Minneapolis as executive chef for Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

The rebranding happened this month. Lexington is a new upscale brand owned by Vantage Hospitality Group.

Cliffbreakers was a franchisee under Comfort Suites’ owner Choice Hotels, but Ellis said Lexington’s structure is a membership rather than a franchise.  “Decisions that affect the members of Lexington are made by the membership…. We are charter members of the membership board that makes the decisions about what the brand standards are.”