In the winter of 1873 his astonishing career in hotel management began when he undertook the direction of the restaurant at the Grand Hôtel in Nice.[2] He once stated that his "years of wandering in the wake of a migratory society had begun".[6] One incident when the central heating packed up and Ritz went out of his way to accommodate the guests and compensate was noticed by Colonel Max Pfyffer, the designer of the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne, who noted his efficiency in a scrapbook. Regular moves then followed, usually twice a year just ahead of the migration of the international tourist set from the hotels of Nice or San Remo in winter to Swiss mountain resorts such as Rigi-Kulm and Lucerne in summer.[2] He had a period working as the maître d'hôtel of the Grand Hôtel in Locarno on the Lake Maggiore, a difficult period given the eccentricities of its alcoholic manager who lived on a diet of raw ham, bread and wine and had a habit of disturbing the guests, ringing bells at 5 am and chasing his wife through the corridors with an army pistol. Ritz meekly commented that "I did what I could to pacify the clients" in the circumstances.[6]
Ritz with wife Marie-Louise in 1888.
In 1878, he became the manager of the Grand Hôtel National in Lucerne and held the same position, in parallel, at the Grand Hôtel in Monaco until 1888. A pioneer in the development of luxury hoteliering, he knew how to entice wealthy customers and quickly gained a reputation for good taste and elegance, and by the mid 1880s the Grand Hôtel National in Lucerne had earned a reputation as the most elegant hotel in Europe at the time.[7] He was the first to mandate that "the customer is always right".[1] His code was "See all without looking; hear all without listening; be attentive without being servile; anticipate without being presumptuous. If a diner complains about a dish or the wine, immediately remove it and replace it, no questions asked."[1] In 1887 Ritz bought the Hotel de Provence in Cannes and the Restaurant de la Conversation and Minerva Hotel in Baden-Baden.[8]