50 shades of hotel Le Gray

When you sit down at a sidewalk table of Gordon’s Café in downtown Beirut on a balmy late September afternoon, you can sip your espresso or pot of Sencha (green tea) in the middle of the city, nestled between the restored historic Beirut Municipality building, and the nation’s symbol-laden Martyr’s Square, with a view of the port basin and the coastal mountains behind it. As such, Gordon Campbell Gray, CEO of the company that operates Le Gray Hotel, does not hold back from declaring that he feels, “Le Gray has the best location in Beirut.” However, this is a doubled edged sword since, says Campbell Gray, “when there is trouble, it is the worst [location] because it all happens outside our front door.” This summer, since civil society and political protest movements have regularly converged in downtown Beirut from August 22, “it all” meant roadblocks and cordons of riot police,