A century-long story
During his acting period as mayor of Poti, Niko Nikoladze invited German-Lithuanian engineer Edmund Fryk to provide reconstructing and urban developing of Poti city. Fryk turned Poti into a European-type city by constructing modern style buildings all over the Poti area.
The former "Bristol Hotel" building was designed by Fryk between 1906–1910. It is notable that luxury hotels of the same name were simultaneously established in the largest cities like Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, Berlin, Gibraltar, Beirut, Oslo, and Odessa.
and Poti's Bristoli joined this great family."
Hotel marketers name two versions of the origin of the name. One of them is connected to Frederick Augustus Harvey, bishop of Derry, who held the title of Earl of Bristol — known as a rich, educated person, an eccentric traveller who used to be accompanied by his entourage. The places where the bishop stayed during his travels should comply to a high level of comfort and luxury.
Thus, the tendency of calling high class hotels "Bristol" is related to the above-mentioned person, but another version is linked to the British city of Bristol, where the concept of modern hotels was born — when for the first time an inn separated customers from their horses and created rooms for customers and special spaces for horses.
Today, there is a restaurant of the same name in the building of the former Bristol Hotel. The building has undergone rehabilitation works and its authenticity is protected. It is a cultural heritage of Georgia.
— Architect Edmund Fryk, 1906–1910 —
