When Furniture Becomes Your Hospitality Strategy

Hospitality interior design becomes a true business strategy when it bridges brand vision and physical guest experience — a lesson Outrider Hotel owner Jordan Malara learned the hard way on his first property. Jordan and Robin Pasley unpack how choosing the right creative partners — branding, construction, and design — prevents the costly gap between a brand book and a space guests actually feel. The takeaway: furniture and finishes aren't décor decisions; they are the experience your guests will remember and return for.

Welcome to Design To Help Your Business Grow, where we design the unforgettable.

If you need to create unforgettable experiences, then branded interior design is your secret weapon … because we don’t do boring.  Design to Help Your Business Grow. Pasley Commercial Interiors.

Transcript

Why Interiors Shape The Brand

Jordan Malara 0:13

One thing that I I think we overlooked on our first hotel was the strategic role that you guys play. If you have a brand, right, if you build this incredible, you know, brand name and you know, you can have everything doc documented in a brand book, and then you go right to construction, you've missed a key element because everything that people feel and touch in a hotel is part of the experience. And I think you did a really great job. So I could be banging my head against a wall, and then you come in, you're like, oh, we'll just do this. And it's like, yeah, why wouldn't we just do that? And and that's where like it really comes down to like you have to bring in the right people that have the specialized knowledge that are going to walk through that project with you.

Robin Pasley 0:49

Hey Jordan, thanks for joining me today on our podcast, Designed to Help Your Business Grow. I'm Robin Pasley with Pazit Commercial Interiors, and you are Jordan Malara with the Outrider Hotel.

Jordan Malara 1:01

Yeah, thanks

Meet The Outrider Hotel Team

Jordan Malara 1:02

for having me.

Robin Pasley 1:02

You're welcome. We're so excited to just learn a little bit more about you and what you guys are up to.

Jordan Malara 1:13

Yeah, so my name's Jordan Molara. I started in the military, but found myself kind of in the hospitality realm. And so um right now we are crafting this, you know, this hotel experience. And so you're helping us kind of bring that to life. But uh, at the end of the day, we're hotel owners. We own basically two hotels now, and that's what we do.

Robin Pasley 1:32

Do you plan to own more?

Jordan Malara 1:34

Yeah, I think so. Um, I think every time we do something, it's always a balance of you know, what is what's best for our family and like how do we merge what's best for our family with the desires we have for uh the future. It's our desire to do more, but we're opening this new one, which is our second one. It's our biggest, it's gonna be our best. Uh, you know, I I think we're gonna, you know, pause there, kind of regroup, and then, you know, figure out where we're gonna go from there. Hopefully more hotels.

Robin Pasley 2:00

Okay, so then military to hotel owner. Tell us how you got there.

Jordan Malara 2:05

Yeah. I mean, they just go perfectly together. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what's so confusing about that. Yeah, it's it's

From Military To Hospitality

Jordan Malara 2:13

kind of this weird story where, you know, when I was in the military, I it was what I was supposed to be doing at that time. And I really loved my time in the military. But uh, I always had a desire to do more, to do something else, and kind of found myself into real estate, owned some long-term rentals, owned some Airbnbs, and through that Airbnb experience and investment, found that, hey, it's kind of fun to serve these guests who are really happy about things all the time. And, you know, you get this little boost when they say, Yeah, hey, we loved your place. It was so great. It made our trip phenomenal. And it's like, oh, that's nice. Like it's I think everyone probably appreciates receiving some sort of gratitude and appreciation. Um, so kind of took that and figured out, like, okay, what else do I want to do with this? Like, is hospitality for me? You know, a lot of people that enter the hospitality space, the hotel space, they started the front desk and they worked their way up. And maybe in some ways you can say we did because uh, you know, we were always talking to the guests through our shorts and rentals and as we rented them out. But uh really had no like formal experience in hospitality.

Robin Pasley 3:09

Okay.

Jordan Malara 3:10

But got to know other people in the industry and it seemed really fun. Um, and there's a lot to dig into why I think we chose hospitality and why hotels are a great option. But eventually found a point where I was talking about real estate and hotels way more like to my military counterparts than I was talking to them about the actual job that I was supposed to be working. And so I kind of felt this natural transition and tug to kind of pull away from that um and actually just dive right into it. Um, and so took a lot of the experience, I would say, um, of the military and and have applied it in in some various ways to hospitality. Okay. Um, but at the end of the day, uh it's a completely different industry and we're learning every day how to do it.

Robin Pasley 3:51

Okay, so you have a counterpart that is your partner in this project. Is he your partner in the other hospitality project you have to?

Jordan Malara 3:58

Um yes, in the other hotel, yes. Okay, the other hotel.

Robin Pasley 4:00

And that's Connor.

Jordan Malara 4:01

Yep.

Robin Pasley 4:02

And how did you guys meet and decide to do this together?

Jordan Malara 4:05

It's kind of funny. When when we were when I was in college um in Oklahoma, I had this friend who grew up in Colorado Springs. He he knew my business partner, Connor, and his wife, and he said, Hey, I really want you to get to know Connor and Maddie. Um, and so it like almost like a seed was planted at that time that, like, okay, I'm gonna really like this person. And I was like, Okay, like I sure, like introduce us. And so we then kind of all started going to church together. Okay. Really developed like a deeper connection through that. And a lot of times, like most of our friendship, we were really passionate about real estate. And so we're doing that kind of together while also working these, you know, these full-time jobs. We had kind of like this this mutual background and kind of this mutual interest in real estate. And so we kind of kept just doing life alongside each other. And there's a lot of trust built throughout that time. Okay. Um, and when it came time came time to like take on a bigger project, we knew we didn't want to do it alone. And,

Choosing A Business Partner You Trust

Jordan Malara 5:03

you know, when you're going to into business with somebody, you want to be able to trust them, you want to make sure they have the same moral values as you. There's a lot of things like I think people don't think through enough. And so we were really wanted to be intentional about that. And it was just this awesome time to just say, hey, we do a lot of stuff alongside each other. Let's do it together now.

Robin Pasley 5:20

That's very cool. Okay, so the things that you have recognized coming out of you in this role, can you reflect into your like childhood upbringing somewhere in your past to go, ah, that's where that came from. Is there anything like that?

Jordan Malara 5:38

There is. There's actually a couple cool things, and it really has taken reflection. Um, I think as a kid, you just don't really appreciate like your childhood as much. And then as you grow up and you realize these things, you're like, wait, why am I the way I am? Um, and one of the core things that really sticks with me is that um my I come from a line of entrepreneurs, and I never saw it that way for so long. So my grandfather owned a hairstylist in barbershop, and he actually owned seven of them in in the in the city that we grew up in. So I kind of always watched that and I saw that as an example. And then my dad stepped, uh he's an optometrist. He um, you know, to me, growing up, he was just an optometrist. He just checked people's eyes. But he owned his own practice and he grew that practice from one office to two offices. And and he's, you know, constantly been kind of investing into his business. And so I didn't see him as a business owner, but he was a business owner. He is a business owner. And even my my grandmother, uh, she owned a florist shop. Um, and so I just wow, I, you know, you don't realize it when you're young, but I think that really shaped me and really encouraged me to want to figure out what it looks like to like own my own my own business.

Robin Pasley 6:46

Yeah.

Jordan Malara 6:46

Um, and then I think when I look at, you know, the hospitality aspect of it, you know, there's there's an element of serving people. And I think that's all hospitality is. It's just how do you serve people really well? What's the experience? How do they leave feeling?

Robin Pasley 6:59

Yeah. And that's, you know, where you and I really connected, uh, or how our firm connected with you guys on this project was that piece of it of how to help people have the right feeling when they walk in the door. What's been the biggest challenge in the last six months?

Jordan Malara 7:15

I'd say one of the challenges, maybe,

Entrepreneur Roots And Serving Guests

Jordan Malara 7:18

maybe the largest challenge we've had has been how do we take this fragmented idea that Connor and I have and how do we turn it into what we want it to become? You know, there's some people that they go to develop a hotel and they have the name, they have the idea, they have they have everything put together. They're those visionaries that, you know, they they've dreamed about this for forever. And in a lot of ways, we've dreamed about this, but not the specifics of it. And so a lot of the discovery in the beginning as we're trying to like push this project forward is what do we actually want of this place? And so there's a lot of discovery that we had to do on our own to say, like, well, what is meaningful to us? You know, what are the places that we visit when we're traveling that like really have stood out to us? And and what is it deep down? And so I think that's where really it was a focus to choose the right partners in the project because we knew that they were going to be able to take these scattered thoughts and put them together and then carry out that vision.

Robin Pasley 8:16

Awesome. So besides us, you you've had who are the partners that are working on this project with you guys?

Jordan Malara 8:22

So, yeah, you guys, rain building for the construction side of it, um, and then cognizant creative for the branding side of it. Yeah. Um, I think those we kind of see as really the three key elements to a lot of these projects.

Robin Pasley 8:34

Okay, so what gets you out of bed in the morning?

Jordan Malara 8:38

I go to bed at night often excited about what I get to tackle the next day, um, which is really just a dream come true. What gets me out of bed, I think, is I am still kind of formulating, I'm young, so I'm still formulating a lot of my own thoughts, I would say. Um, but one thing that really sticks out to me is this idea of legacy, and how do we develop this legacy for ourselves, for our family? Um, and and really, I think what drives that is what is that legacy that I'm forming? Like, what am I teaching my kids now? And and how does that legacy, like in just in the character of who I am, play into who they become? Um, and then there's you know, the really cool physical aspect of legacy. You know, we have this hotel in Manitou Springs, like the local, like a local community of ours that we get to now say, like, hey, we have this impact on the local community, and this is what we own, and this is kind of what we're hoping to create with it. And so there's it's I think that's what makes real estate fun is there is this physical aspect of it that you know people can drive by and they can see it, and we can take our kids through it and we can say, hey, this is what we've created. You know, I'll always say, like, what we've created is not by our own doing, right? Like, we believe that it's the Lord working through us and this is his plan for us. And so that that's a really big element of all of this is how do we carry that legacy forward?

Robin Pasley 9:53

That's awesome. I love to seeing that thread that is connected through your family line and how you know that where you are today is because of the legacy that you came from.

Jordan Malara 10:02

Exactly.

Robin Pasley 10:03

Which is really beautiful. Tell us the name of your hotel and your concept and maybe

Legacy And A Hotel With Purpose

Robin Pasley 10:08

what excites you most about that this project.

Jordan Malara 10:10

Yeah. Um, so the hotel is called the Outrider Hotel. Um, it it kind of the backstory of the name there is that, you know, back in the day when people were coming out west and really discovering new land and trying to um kind of frontier, they would send the outrider out to kind of scope out the land ahead of time. And so to us, kind of we we loved that name and it really spoke to us because it was a chance for us to go out ahead of, you know, people, travelers, um, even the local community in Manitou, kind of scope out the land and say, okay, yes, we're gonna, we're gonna choose to develop here. We're gonna choose to build something here. And I would say that's even true of us into the industry. We're still young, you know, hospitality and and hotel operators. And so I felt like there was a lot of ways in which this outrider name really felt true to us and true to the area. Um, especially, you know, we are in the west too, we're in the mountains west. And so I I think that just it feeds into the overall feel of of the area too. So it's it's it has a sense of place, it's true to that, and it also holds kind of a special meaning to us as well. So, yeah, what what are we trying to create? And ultimately what we want is a place that's upscale, it's refined, but you know, this isn't a new building. We're taking something existing, we're bringing new life to it, and that's really important to us as well. Um, this this building was an eyesore to the local community, had a really bad reputation, lots of bad stories that we've heard and also experienced ourselves behind this building. And so I think it's really cool to be able to take this, something that was really broken, something that was really beat up and broken down, and make it really something beautiful in the community and something that people are actually excited about. One thing that shaped us a lot is this idea of community and how do you get how do you build community in a hotel? And uh what what really shaped that was my wife and I took about two, two and a half weeks um backpacking in Costa Rica after we got married. Okay. And we stayed at a lot of hostels. And the one thing about hostels is they're not nice, but the community's awesome. I mean, the people you meet are phenomenal. And so that always stuck with us. Yeah. That man, those are some of the best places we stayed. And we had to sleep under mosquito nets and there were massive spiders in our rooms. And I mean, just like the the overall, you know, hotel experience, not great. Um, or like sleeping experience, not great, but the community was phenomenal. And so we really wanted to carry that community into it. Not only did we want to create a nice, safe place for people to actually stay, yeah, but how do we how do we get guests to interact with each other? Yeah, um, and so a lot of it is is centered around like a really nice outdoor area, get people outside what they're coming to Colorado for, anyways, um, get people sitting around fire pits, sharing stories about you know what they did that day, and just really just an open concept where we want people to hang out and we'll see. I you know, like I think it's always it's easier to say like we're gonna develop the area like this, and we and that's what we want to build. But I think it really comes down to then how does the company culture build that too? And so really the next step is hiring the right people

Designing Community Into The Space

Jordan Malara 13:08

to help us breed that as well into the hotel.

Robin Pasley 13:11

Oh, yeah, your workforce there.

Jordan Malara 13:13

Yeah.

Robin Pasley 13:14

I really love hearing your perspective on the purpose of the hotel and how who you want to attract to it. Because of course, we got to work with you guys on this project. And like you said, this one had some of a reputation. It has a location, you know, that's surrounded by some other buildings that you can't control. So I know that some of that was just just how do we, on the budget we have, approach these hurdles and you know, solving problems with, you know, how do we hide that? Or how do we highlight that? You know, how do we make make them look over here, not over there? And I know that we did a lot of that and getting to play with color and you know, bringing some things into that space to brighten it up when we knew that the budget didn't allow for us to, you know, rip everything out and start over. Um, I think was some of the the fun parts of that. And then using furniture to try to help tell more of your story, which is that you guys want people to connect to the earth around them and the all the activities that our beautiful city and our adjacent mountains give them to do. So trying to connect the dots on that. That was really fun. Did you can you recall anything from our problem solving that was the most surprising or helpful in the process?

Jordan Malara 14:28

I mean, a lot. One one thing that I I think is worth highlighting is that, you know, we talked about these these three partners. And one thing that I I think we overlooked on our first hotel was was really like the the strategic role that you guys play. And so if you have a brand, right, if you build this incredible, you know, brand name, and you know, you can have everything documented in a brand book, and then you go right to construction, you've missed a key element because everything that people feel and touch in a hotel is part of the experience. And I think you did a really great job with helping us walk through that of, okay, this is what you're saying you want to create. Now, this is actually how you create it. And what you need at that time when you when you're when you're going through a project like that is you need someone that's equally as creative and strategic, and that is also not going to blow your budget, like you've said, because that's really tough. Like, yeah, there there are ways to solve things, yeah, but there's not unlimited money.

Robin Pasley 15:19

Right.

Jordan Malara 15:19

And so it's like, yeah, there's a way to solve this, but it costs a lot of money. It's like, well, that's not really an option then. What is our next option?

Robin Pasley 15:25

Yes.

Jordan Malara 15:26

What we've learned through the process of of specifically working with you and Zane is that sometimes you need someone that hasn't seen this issue over and over and over again. And then they can reassure you because they could be like, no, this is what you we do in this situation. So I could be banging my head against a wall, and then you come in, you're like, oh, we'll just do this. And it's like, yeah, why wouldn't we just do that? And and that's where like it really comes down to like you have to bring in the right people that have the specialized knowledge that are gonna walk through that project with you. We have a we only have two and a half weeks left. And I should be more nervous than I am because there's a lot to be done. But I'm not because I believe we chose the right partners. I believe that you guys are gonna execute. And I think that's one of the key things that you guys bring is just the

Ideal Guests And Local Partnerships

Jordan Malara 16:08

the experience, the connections. And now we have this amazingly beautiful furniture that can actually stand the test of time. So we're not fixing every bed frame every, you know, every week or whatever.

Robin Pasley 16:17

So that's important. Yeah, you don't want to be doing that. Okay, so if we're going to look for the right people to stay at the Outrider, who is that framework who who fits that?

Jordan Malara 16:29

I would say, you know, our deal client is really, or guest, you could say, is really a younger couple. Um, you know, and by younger, I just mean maybe 20 to 40 years old, you know, someone that is adventurous or coming for the area. We don't really believe that anybody is just gonna make a trip out to Manitou Springs for our hotel. Yeah. Um, and so the whole goal was for our hotel to have a sense of place in where it's at. And so to really resemble the local community. Ideally, we're we're looking at uh probably couples or single travelers.

Robin Pasley 16:59

Okay. Awesome. People that are gonna experience all that Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs and the West have to offer. Awesome. Are you connected? Are you going to connect with local um outfitters or people that maybe do climbing or things like that? Will you have those connections for people that are coming through?

Jordan Malara 17:17

Yeah, we're working on some of those contracts right now. Um we have partnered up with an e-bike company. So they'll be able to, you know, guests will be able to basically book with them and uh they do e-bikes and then they do car tours as well, like little Jeep tours. And so uh guests can get a discount through the hotel with them. And then a lot of the products we use inside of the hotel we're trying to keep local as well. The coffee we use in the lobby is coming from a local coffee shop. Um, we actually have an I'm really excited, we have an outrider blend. So they made a special blend for us that people can buy and that we can bring it in the hotel. I'm a big coffee drinker, so that's just I don't know. That's like a dream come true for me. Um so yes, we are actively working on building up more of those partnerships because we are focused on people that want to get out and do more things. And so uh being locally focused, we want to point people to other great local businesses as well.

Robin Pasley 18:03

Okay, so where can people find the Outrider Hotel?

Jordan Malara 18:07

Um, I mean, the best place is on our website, outriderhotel.com. You know, you can find us on various social media platforms as well. Uh, we have a Instagram page, Outrider Hotel, um, and a Facebook page

Opening Day And Where To Book

Jordan Malara 18:18

as well. Okay. Um, yeah.

Robin Pasley 18:20

And when is the opening day? When are you?

Jordan Malara 18:24

May 1st.

Robin Pasley 18:24

May 1st. Yeah. So exciting.

Jordan Malara 18:27

Yeah.

Robin Pasley 18:27

We're so happy to have gotten to work with you guys on this project. Thanks for being a part of our podcast today. Yeah. And uh, we look forward to grand opening.

H.B. Pasley 18:36

Thanks. If you need to create an unforgettable experience, then branded interior design is your secret weapon because we don't do boring. Designed to help your business grow. Pasla Commercial Interiors.