DULUTH, Minn. — The Harborview Gateway Inn & Suites, a 112-room property adjacent to a highway interchange, announced Tuesday an expanded pillow menu offering guests 14 distinct options, each of which resolves into the same slightly flat pillow.

The menu, printed on a laminated card and placed at the front desk, asks guests to select a firmness (Plush, Medium, Firm, or “Structural”), a loft (Low, Mid, or High), and a filling (Down Alternative, Memory Foam, Buckwheat, Feather-Adjacent, or “Surprise”). Guests are then thanked and handed a pillow.

“The pillow is the pillow,” said Dale Pruitt-Okonkwo, the hotel’s Director of Sleep Surface Experience Strategy, a title he held for six weeks before the menu launched. “But the guest has chosen it. That changes everything. A person who selects ‘High Loft, Buckwheat’ and receives a flat pillow feels very different from a person who was simply given a flat pillow.”

According to Pruitt-Okonkwo, internal satisfaction scores rose 22 percent after the menu was introduced, a figure he attributed to “agency.”

Guests have largely embraced the program. Travis Eldermoor, a regional sales representative for a commercial gasket distributor, said he spent several minutes deliberating before choosing the “Lumbar Sovereign,” a firm, mid-loft buckwheat pillow.

“I got it up to the room and it was kind of limp,” Eldermoor said. “But I picked it, so I figured the problem was me.”

The hotel confirmed that all pillows are stored in a single supply closet on the second floor, in one stack, without labels. Front desk staff are trained to say “Excellent choice” before retrieving the top pillow from the pile.

Experts say the practice is more common than the industry admits. Dr. Marguerite Vanterpool-Hsu, a senior fellow at the Institute for Perceived Choice in Mid-Priced Lodging, said the hospitality sector has long relied on what she calls “the ceremony of selection.”

“Nobody wants a better pillow,” Vanterpool-Hsu said. “They want to be asked about the pillow. The asking is the amenity. The pillow is just where the asking lands.”

“The pillow is the pillow. But the guest has chosen it. That changes everything.”

Harborview’s competitors have taken notice. A property across the interchange has reportedly begun developing a towel menu, with options including “Absorbent,” “Fluffy,” and “Fluffy, but Absorbent,” all to be fulfilled with one thin towel the color of oatmeal.

Not everyone is satisfied. One guest, who asked to be identified only as a light sleeper from Room 214, wrote in a comment card that the “Cloud Whisper” option, billed as “ethereal,” was “not ethereal” and “has a crease in it.” Pruitt-Okonkwo said the feedback was “valuable” and would be taken under advisement by a committee that does not exist.

When asked whether the hotel would ever consider stocking pillows that actually matched the menu, Pruitt-Okonkwo paused for several seconds.

“That’s a different menu,” he said.

The Harborview plans to roll out a 22-option mattress firmness selector in the spring. All rooms will continue to be furnished with the same mattress.