one of the most lavish hotels in Europe at the time, where he met many rich, self-made Americans as guests who had a profound effect on him. In 1873 he was a waiter in Vienna at the time of the World's Fair, by which time he had begun to acquire a considerable knowledge of the industry and the culinary preferences of esteemed people such as the Prince of Wales. First managership 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. He once stated that his "years of wandering in the wake of a migratory society had begun". While working as manager at the Rigi Kulm Hotel in Switzerland, an incident occurred that changed his career. The central heating at the hotel broke during a frigid day, and a group of 40 were arriving for lunch. Ritz changed the menu to hot dishes, moved a table into the smaller drawing room, and heated 40 bricks in the oven to be wrapped in flannel cloths placed at the footstool of each guest. This quick thinking was noticed by 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. He had a period working as the maître d'hôtel of the Grand Hôtel in Locarno on 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 5a.m. 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. 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