The Hotel Daddy Podcast
Hotel Daddy is a podcast featuring in-depth interviews with hospitality movers and shakers, offering candid conversations that reveal how the best in the business became the leaders they are today. Listen in for inspiration and behind-the-scenes stories from the best in the industry.
Hosted by T. Blake Danner, Executive Producer, Stephanie T. Bryant, Production and Engineering by David Jewell. Associate Producer, Nelson Luis Ortiz, with original theme music composed and produced by Evan Jewell.
The Hotel Daddy Podcast
Small Town, Big Hospitality Vision: Kat Bangs on Designing Emotion In Hotels
Emotion is the real currency of hospitality, and Kat Bangs knows how to design for it. Blake sits down with the creative mind turned small-town hotelier to explore the choices that turn spaces into feelings, lobbies into communities, and careers into lives that actually fit.
Kat’s path runs from Michelin-level service and national press to leading creative for multiple award-winning hotel openings. She breaks down the difference between spectacle and service, why “never dumb it down” earns trust, and how the cheapest levers—lighting, music, scent, pacing—create the richest experiences. You’ll hear the simple checks she learned to run the moment she walks into a room and how those checks align teams around the guest’s emotional arc from arrival to nightcap.
We also dig into track record versus pedigree. Kat argues that creatives should be judged by solved problems, not cool brand lists. That mindset sparked one of her boldest moves at the LINE DC: scrapping an unprofitable retail space for Full Service Radio, a live podcast studio that recruited dozens of hosts before opening day. The result? A lobby buzzing with locals, weekly content that traveled, and a property rooted in the city’s love of talk radio—community as marketing, culture as strategy.
The conversation ends where many of us are right now: choosing scale with intention. Kat walked away from ever-bigger roles to build a tiny cocktail bar and micro hotels in the Hudson Valley, staying close to the product, the guest, and the craft. Her take is clear: if hospitality brokers in emotion, operator joy matters too. Want to rethink how you design, hire, and grow?
If this sparked ideas, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review so more builders can find these conversations. What bold move are you ready to make next?
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Welcome to Hotel Daddy. I'm your host, Blake Danner. In today's episode, I speak with a true creative in the hospitality industry, Kat Bane. We'll dive right in and get to know Kat, exploring her unique journey and the stories that have shaped her career in hospitality. You can expect some candid conversations, some honest reflections, and you know, whether you're an industry insider or you just love a good business story, you're in the right place. So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and enjoy the ride as we open the doors to Hotel Back. Kat started her career as a Saulnier and service director at Comey, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Washington, D.C., and Little Sarrow, which was named the country's most outstanding restaurant by GQ Magazine. Kat's cocktail and wine knowledge has been featured in Food and Wine, Men's Journal, and Washington Post. Kat and I worked together when she served as the creative director for the Sadell Group, launching such notable brands as Nomad, Line, Freehand, and Sowaro Hotels. While Kat led the creative department, Saddell opened or relaunched seven hotels. Every one of those hotels landed itself on the Condi Nas Traveler Hot List. Today, after expansive scopes in large hotel projects, Kat is focused on small town life in the Hudson Valley. She lives in Woodstock, New York. She owns a tiny cocktail bar in the center of town called Smalltalk. She runs Way Hospitality, a small hotel company with a hotel in Woodstock, a bed and breakfast in Kingston, and a third hotel in development in New Paltz. Sounds very big to me, Kat. I'm excited. Can I welcome to Hotel Daddy?
SPEAKER_02:Hi. And oh, Blake, I'm so happy to be here. It's so it's wonderful to hear your voice.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, well, thank you for being here. Thank you for being on season one. So listen, when I was thinking about the guests that I wanted to have on season one, I wanted a good balance, right? And I've been lucky so far. We've had some of the industry's best and most respective business leaders, but I really wanted someone who represented the creative voice. And that was my go-to. Cat Bangs. I think you are a true creative, but the thing I respect about you the most is you're one of those creatives who just also has a really good business sense. I'm gonna tell a quick little story, do you mind? Not at all. Go ahead. All right. So I'll never forget it was one of the very first meetings you and I were ever in together. And you know, you were pitching a promotion and kind of a marketing campaign, and your presentation was super slick and it was super creative, and I was like really buying into it. And then at the end of what was a really kind of slick creative presentation that I enjoyed, you pulled out a yellow tablet and you started mapping out a diagram of the financial impact and the brand pillars of this promotion. And I just remember looking at you and going, boom, she gets it. She's not only a super creative, but she understands that she needs to speak to me in business terms. And I'll never forget that about you. All right, before we dig in, I'm gonna play a little rapid fire. We like to do something around here I call who's in the lobby. So I'm gonna ask you a series of rapid fire questions, and you just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. You ready? Yes. Name Cat Bangs. Zodiac sign. Capricorn. Your go-to karaoke song.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, Blake, I have never sung karaoke in my life. You are the Leo. I am the Capricorn. Come on.
unknown:All right.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I tell you a lot. We're gonna do it one night, and I'm gonna make you pick a song. Fair enough?
SPEAKER_02:Please though.
SPEAKER_01:All right, carrying on. Sweet or savory? Savory. Book or podcast? Book. Sneakers or heels? Sneakers. What's your hidden talent, Kat?
SPEAKER_02:I live in a cabin in the woods, right? So like we're a long ways away from New York City where we used to work together. Here in Woodstock, I hand dip these beeswax candles and then I twist them together while they're still warm. So I guess my hidden talent is manipulating hot wax.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. By the way, I think there's another podcast for that too. Instagram or TikTok?
SPEAKER_02:Neither. I'm completely off social.
SPEAKER_01:So, so interesting. Because you and I used to be social media friends. And preparing for this, I went looking for you and I was like, I can't find her. Okay, we're gonna talk more. Let's carry on. Rapid fire. First concert you ever went to. Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I remember the first album I ever bought on my iPod, and it was Interpol. I remember that. You can go with that.
SPEAKER_01:Who inspires you the most?
SPEAKER_02:Martha Stewart. Didn't you see that piece on her, that television show? Oh, fascinating. She's just such a badass.
SPEAKER_01:Final question. What's a trend you secretly love right now?
SPEAKER_02:So, as you mentioned, I live in the Hudson Valley and a trend up here that's everywhere, and I pretend to hate it, is traditional American workwear like Carhartt turned into high fashion. Like everyone's doing it. But I I love it. I love it. I really do.
SPEAKER_01:All right, I'm gonna go look for it. So, Kat, listen, I described you as a creative because that's how I think of you. I think of you this uber creative spirit and mind that just thinks differently than I do. I'm so jealous. But what's creative mean to you?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, we worked together for over five years. And you know, I don't think we ever talked in these terms. It's just wonderful to really dig in because I love this stuff. The term creative was in my title for a decade, but I don't think I've ever used that term to describe myself. Like I don't say things like, as a creative, you know, yada, yada, yada.
SPEAKER_01:Very highbrow, right?
SPEAKER_02:I've always just been in tune with how spaces and settings and scenarios make people feel. I'm fascinated by how to create spaces and scenarios that connect people. When you go to a hotel, when you have a great meal, those experiences, those times together can really connect you to what matters most, connect you to each other, connect you to the moment, connect you to yourself. To really break that down in the hotel sphere, it's about designing spaces like a guest room and scenarios like a cocktail service at the bar that elicit emotion. And I love hotels because there's a whole narrative arc of emotion that can be created. The experience of walking into a beautiful lobby, of being greeted, of discovering your room, of pouring yourself a glass of wine, heading to the bar for a drink. These are all settings and scenarios that we get to design for guests. And as you know, there are so many details and decisions that we make to create these experiences for guests. And I just love all those details.
SPEAKER_01:So you said something that I'm gonna follow up on. You said emotion a couple of times. Think about the space that we're in, lifestyle hospitality. And we always talk about what's the difference between lifestyle and what's the difference in kind of a traditional hotel. Tell me more about the emotion of it. Tell me more about bringing up emotion through design, through product, through experience.
SPEAKER_02:Rather than being a creative or doing creative things, specifically what I love is experience design. I really start by considering the guest. We had a core value for all Sadell hotels. It was to show respect for the intellect, interests, and taste level of our guests that we were never going to dumb it down. I love that. I said that for as a core value for us at Sadell because I love that approach.
SPEAKER_01:Talk to me more about never dumb it down. Because I honestly think that one of the things that makes companies special and what is really leading and/or bleeding edge today are those experiences where you can tell someone stuck to their guns, they didn't dumb it down. What's that mean to you?
SPEAKER_02:I think it starts with the guest. It's so easy, Blake, to disrespect the guests, to take them for granted, to think that they're gonna just like what you give them. You know, there's also a real tendency to make it about you. Gone. Right? We've worked with folks like that who have turned hospitality into a celebrity sport, that it's really about spectacle, it's about them, them, them. And Blake, I know we both love sitting at the bar.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my God. We're gonna get to this point in a minute. Keep going because you're headed down a line of questioning that I've got next on my list. Keep going.
SPEAKER_02:We all know that server that comes over to your table or that bartender where you sit down and they just really want you to like them. They're putting on a show. It just really matters to them. And there's like a real wanting feeling in that. And then you also know how different it feels when a bartender comes in or a server comes to your table and they just really want to like you. They've made this about you and not about them. And I think that that is where we need to start with hospitality, is that we need to make this about the guests. We need to be empathetic to what the guests wants in this interaction.
SPEAKER_01:Never lose sight of who's important in this.
SPEAKER_02:And that's something I really truly connected with you on when we were working together, because you always understood and honored the humanity of our guests and also of the people that were working on your team. And I just want to let you know I really respected that.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate that. One of the places I want to talk about is you and I would sit in the lobby and absorb. One of the things that I try and challenge other operators to do is just sit in your space, experience it, just take it in and to your point, understand what the customer is kind of absorbing from it, because that is so informative of what's working. And as you and I know, sometimes super informative of what's not working. I can remember sitting in a lobby with you a couple of times and something would occur and we'd just look at each other and cringe. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, that didn't really just happen. How do I write size for that? So talk to me about when you're in a space, because you've had some great restaurants, you've been a part of some fantastically successful hotels. When you're in the space, what are you looking for? And I think what will be really helpful to a lot of our listeners is how do you correct it when you see something that you know is not the right DNA?
SPEAKER_02:So I think this is a superpower for people who are drawn to hospitality and who excel at hospitality, not to say that I'm one of them. I loved working with you, because you were always taking the temperature of the room. And I learned a lot from you in that aspect. One thing I loved about working with you, Blake, and something I talk about to this day, is every time we visited a property together and we walked into a room, you would turn to me and you would say, Kat, how's the lighting? How's the music? Every single time. And in the beginning, when we first worked together, you know, I was, this is my first hotel job. You were this big hotel daddy. And I was flustered by it. And I was like, I don't know. But I, you know, oh geez, oh geez. Time and time again, we would do this. I got more confident. I said, okay, it needs to go up, it needs to go down. This isn't the right playlist for this time of day, yada, yada, yada. And now, Blake, I cannot walk into a room without immediately. It's occurs. No, it's not. And you know, I, you know, Blake, I believe that you did this on purpose to really train me. So every time I would walk into a room, I would think about that. Something I used to always talk about with creative is I believe that within the creative discipline, it's our job to create value without creating expense. And you know, the easiest way you do that is through lighting, is through music, right? It doesn't cost anything for the lights to be at the right level. It doesn't cost anything for the playlist to be spot on. It's really about that attention to detail. This also goes back to about hospitality being guest-centered, is it's always thinking about the guest, it's considering the guest. And I love this quote, which says, when everything feels considered, then so do you. Oh, I love that. Isn't that nice?
SPEAKER_01:I'm keeping that one.
SPEAKER_02:So when you walk into a room and someone has thoughtfully designed every aspect of this room and like it smells right, and the bed is crisp and white and clean, you just feel like so taken care of.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, everything you just said, it feels purposeful. It's been thought about. Let's go back to your original comment today, which is emotion. The reason I'm so passionate about all these touch points is because that's what builds emotion. I would argue it's easy to do some of the lock and tackling, but what really creates this connection and this emotion is when you understand that someone has been so thoughtful about setting the mood in the environment.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I think that there's a place to in our lives, we have to be so many things to so many people. You, Blake, I mean, like you would just have to be the boss all the time. And you're also dedicated to your friends and family. There's so many people that you're taking care of. There's so many roles that you have to play to go into a place and be able to understand instantly through that level of consideration that you're being cared for, it allows you to relax and it allows you to, I think, connect at a deeper level.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. Let's change uh direction for a second. One of the things I think that you and I have in common is how we got to where we are. We both kind of did it the old-fashioned way. We worked our way up, we learned on our feet. Tell me about how you got to where you're at and your thoughts on building a hospitality career.
SPEAKER_02:So I grew up in South Dakota.
SPEAKER_01:I remember well.
SPEAKER_02:You remember well, yeah. So I'm a small town girl at Harg, and I I've returned to that small town life. So I guess this is just where I feel comfortable. I moved out to the East Coast and you know, I went to college, but I was just really focused on hospitality. That's where I wanted to be. So, like you said, I worked in some bars and some restaurants, made it all the way to the big city to New York City. And um, when I uh interviewed at Saddell Group, I actually didn't put my college education on my resume. I just didn't think it was relevant. I didn't think it was the most interesting thing about me. Someone from HR actually had to kind of tiptoe around it because we were in like a final interview. I think they made even given me an offer letter and they're like, oh shoot, does she have a degree? So I do. But yes, that was not what I thought was most interesting.
SPEAKER_01:You know what's funny about that? When I interview people, and gosh, I interview a lot of folks, we are an industry that really values experience. We value what you've done, your success. I don't remember the last time I looked at a resume and looked at someone's education level. Now, that said, I have a degree in hotel and restaurant administration. I'm incredibly thankful for it. But I would say to folks that are listening to us that want to make a career in hospitality, I'm not the guy who's gonna tell you don't go to college, but I am the guy who's gonna tell you if you didn't for some reason, this is not an industry where you can't go far. We are an industry that wants to see what you've done. So get out there, get some experience, make a name for yourself. You can be the CEO of a company. You can. Nothing against college education. I'm a big fan. I think I learned a lot of stuff in college that wasn't really about books and education that had helped me be the person I am and the business executive I am. But you make a really good point. You know, I think we are an industry that really values hard work, experience, and success.
SPEAKER_02:Agreed, agreed. And you know, we have a mutual friend, David Bowd, with SALT Hotels.
SPEAKER_01:By the way, he's a guest on this series, FYI. Oh, no way.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, wow. Well, then he'll tell you, but I I have to refer to it. It's just amazing to me. David started off as a bus boy.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. He tells that story.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. A bus boy in hotels in London, and he worked his way up to be CEO of a company. Really an inspiration.
SPEAKER_01:This takes us down a great path, which is what advice do you give to people that are trying to get into this industry? You've done it successfully.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I think it's about your track record and about your network. There's an important point here for sure. If you really want to be sought after for these jobs, you can't just work at cool hotels. Right? You can't just be the cool guy who only works at cool hotels. You have to take a hotel that has revenue issues or reputation issues, and you need to solve those issues through creative disciplines like brand, photography, copy, programming, culture. That's track record. You can't just hang out with other cool people. But people who hire creatives, they aren't creative. So spend time getting to know hotel people and operations.
SPEAKER_01:I know I freely admit it. My mind doesn't think the way yours does sometimes. Frankly, I'm not uber creative. But man, can I spot really creative people and put them in the forefront and support them and give them the ability to test some things and to try things and occasionally fail at things? You're right though. I think a really good ops, frankly, knows how to find good creative talent and then hold them dear.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. It's a great collaboration, ops and creative for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Can I follow up? You said networking, and it's so interesting. We've already recorded about four or five of these for season one, and it comes up in every successful person we're talking to at some point brings up networking. Talk to me about how you network. One of the things that I always admired about you is you could always find these up and coming brands that I never heard of until you brought them to the table. You always, through your network, knew an up-and-coming brand or, you know, some new liquor that was coming. Like you just had your pulse. How do you do that? What's that look like? And how would you challenge other people to network?
SPEAKER_02:With what we do with hotels, especially like, you know, you and I, we were in Palm Springs all the time. I had never been to the desert before. I, you know, I was from South Dakota. I lived on the East Coast and, you know, went out to uh the high desert. It was wild. And then to go from there, I mean, while we were working together, we opened hotels in Austin. There was a hotel in London, there was Chicago, there was LA, so many very different places. And what I like to do is I'm just fascinated with subcultures. I love going to a place and really getting in deep into the specifics of that neighborhood or that town and figure out who's really making things happen. I love working with really passionate, enthusiastic, hardworking people. And you can find them in really every town, but some of them are so funky. Oh my God, Palm Springs was wild. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:If you ever want to have fun, tell Cat Bangs, I'll give you$1,000. I want you to go out and come back and layer the lobby.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my goodness. Blake, when we were doing uh the Suareo Palm Springs, we didn't have$1,000. I think you gave me like a gift card to like home goods for like$60. Come on.
SPEAKER_01:I wasn't that cheap. I wasn't that cheap. Come on.
SPEAKER_02:You were at one point I was like organizing, I was like, no, no, no, no. It was rough in the beginning. No, you came up with budget. You came up with budget. We did all right.
SPEAKER_01:Any chance that we can talk about the line DC? Sure. You are correct. You and I were in the trenches. I think you and I opened seven hotels in like eight years together. It was that point in our lives where we were young and we were traveling, and well, you were much younger, but we were in the trenches. You and I, it was a just a crazy time. But one of the stories I think I'd love for you to tell, because I think it's such a great example of how creative can partner with development, can partner with operations. When the Lion Hotel DC was in development, you were very involved and kudos to Andrew Zobler for having this immorsive company that brought everybody to the table. But very early in the process, you were brought to the table, and we decided that the property needed to have some points of difference. So talk to me about how full service radio came to be.
SPEAKER_02:So at this point, every one of Sadell's hotels had a retail shop. And I remember digging into this. And you might remember this about me, Blake, but you know, I'm a Capricorn. Like I get the receipts. You know what I mean? Like, I've got the receipts. I'm like going thrill. Like, I'm like, how much do you make last year? What's going on? And I noticed that all of our hotel retail shops, none of them were making money. In fact, they were losing money. But they always said, like, oh, but it's for the experience, it's for the vibe, yada, yada, yada. And I was like, oh man, if we're looking to create experience and vibe and we're okay with losing a little money, I got a lot of ideas for you. Let's talk. If you're open to losing a little money, but you're want to focus on vibe and experience, I have some ideas for you. And the number one idea was always full service radio. We decided to take that space that was supposed to be a retail shop. So it was actually all marked out for a little shop. They had talked to some shop owners about putting in some retail there. I loved working with you and Andrew Zobler because I got to be involved in every part of the company. Even like working with Matt Livian with acquisitions at times to talk about different neighborhoods and if they felt right or not for a hotel. And then go moving on to working with development and really looking at how to shape this hotel in a way, how to program this hotel, how to activate this hotel in a way that would really be a point of differentiation that would bond us and create bonds of affinity with locals and travelers alike, as everyone used to say back then. That was about 10 years ago, everything was locals and travelers alike. So the idea was instead of to do a retail shop, to do a podcast studio. So to really build this out with everything you would need to record really high-quality podcasts and then have those podcasts be available online, but also in the room. So you could listen to the podcast in the guest room. So the Line DC, that was my baby. I loved it so much. I actually applied at Sadell and I interviewed at Sadell. I wanted to get into the hotel business entirely because I wanted to work at this hotel in Washington, D.C. In the beginning, I thought I was actually uh applying or interviewing for the Washington, D.C. hotel. And then you guys sent me to Palm Springs and Scottsdale.
SPEAKER_01:Surprise. You know, I had forgotten this part of the story. I had forgotten the part that you were at Little Cero in DC. You live next to the property. It's an old church that was um remarkably reimagined. And I had forgotten this part of the story. It was actually your passion to want to work on that project that brought you to the table. That's right. I had forgotten that.
SPEAKER_02:My first hospitality job was a cocktail waitress at Madam's organ, which was the dive bar around the corner from this hotel.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I've forgotten dive bar is a kind way to describe it. But talk about fun. Man, did I have a did I have many a good time there? Woo!
SPEAKER_02:So, yes, I loved the line, DC. I was so excited about this project. And I really wanted it to speak to the neighborhood and to the city itself. I remember putting together a presentation for you and Andrew Zobler that was like, you know, the goal of this hotel is to really establish Washington, D.C. as a world-class city.
SPEAKER_01:You had such passion for it.
SPEAKER_02:I had such passion. You know, people thought of Washington, D.C. as just a government town, but we really wanted to show the B-side of that city, kind of the local mom and pop shops, the culture, the music, the art. When you're looking at this property and thinking about how to fulfill all of our goals, we kind of strayed from the retail model. So instead of uh just putting in a little shop, which I love shops, shops are cute, we decided to put in a podcast uh studio. And part of this reason was in Washington, DC, everyone loves radio. Washington, D.C., you would get in a cab from the airport and the cabbie would be listening to NPR. It used to be like this American life, Ira Glass was like the hottest ticket in town. He'd come and do a talk and it'd be sold out in minutes. So we knew that this town really loved talk radio. It's amazing. This was when we came up with this idea, it was uh 2016, 2015. So this was about 10 years ago. We're on a podcast now. So I guess that's um some enduring staying power for the medium. The idea was to do a podcast studio. We worked with Jack Insley. You know, we couldn't do it by ourselves. We looked to the best people in the space, really ambitious, smart folks that are subject matter experts, as you would say.
SPEAKER_01:I think that was one of your secret sauces. Like your superpower was the ability to go out and find the right people. People that were subject matter experts, had some buzz, were kind of getting known. That was a secret superpower of yours.
SPEAKER_02:Well, thank you. Let's break it down a little bit because it's actually pretty interesting. Jack Insley, who we brought on to run the podcast station, it was his podcast network called Full Service Radio. He was working at Heritage Radio, which was a small podcast studio within Robertas in Bushwick. And I remember going to Roberta's in Bushwick, and I saw that every week, some really interesting person, some really connected person, interesting, somebody who was a subject matter expert at some random thing, was at Heritage Radio talking with passion about something they cared about. And every time they brought a guest. So I'm just thinking about it from the aspect of this pizza place, right? That every day they have this influx of really interesting, passionate people that are coming through those doors. And that's something we wanted to do for DC. And I remember you noting this, Blake. It was you and me. We spent Christmas morning together at the line DC.
SPEAKER_01:I remember it very well.
SPEAKER_02:We had just opened the hotel, and even on Christmas morning, and even the week we opened that hotel, the lobby was full. And I remember you looking at me and you said, Kat, this isn't normal.
SPEAKER_01:It was a very successful opening.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that one of the reasons was we sent Jack Insley with this podcast concept months before we opened. So he was actually recruiting and fostering this community before we ever opened our doors. And so when we opened the Line DC, we had 40 podcasts, all with their own hosts, and they were coming into the hotel to record their show every week. And every week, those 40 hosts brought a different guest. So in this way, it was almost, in some ways, like this guerrilla marketing to introduce these movers and shakers of Washington, DC from all different aspects and all different communities and subsets of Washington, D.C. to the hotel. I thought it worked great as a marketing campaign as well.
SPEAKER_01:Well, look, I think there are two messages from this story that you've told. Thank you so much for sharing. One, it was literally a fantastic way to launch a new hotel in a really close-knit community, the Adams-Morgan area of Washington, D.C. So, one, you know, I think the message for folks listening is what a great marketing effort it was. But I think, you know, what might be lost in this story. And so for a lot of the young creatives were frankly just younger managers who are listening. I want them to pick up on the fact that you sat in a meeting with the most senior people of that organization, development people, construction people. There were plans in front of you that said, oh yeah, this is going to be a retail spot. And you had the spunk to go, well, you know, I think maybe it should be a podcast studio. And but you did it with conviction and you made a case for it. And so for all the young folks that are up and coming in the industry, don't let your voice be lost. One of the great parts of this story is early on in the process, you had the conviction and probably wasn't the most comfortable environment to say, Hey, I've got an idea. Can I pitch it? And you did. And you pitched it with conviction. On our final topic, I know a lot of the folks that are listening. And a lot of them are dealing with life balance issues, what I want to do when I grow up, what's right for me, what's going to give me personal joy. And one of the things that I so respect about you is that you had some very senior, really expansive, large roles in big companies. And then you made a decision to move to the Hudson Valley and to run your own business. And so talk to me as we close out today about what motivated you to do that. And how is it today? Is it what you hoped it would be? That's a lot, right? A lot. But no, I think there are so many people that are asking themselves these questions. Do I want to do something different? Do I want to work for myself? Do I want a different pace of life? And I'm I'm going to assume, and you're getting ready to tell us, the questions that you asked yourself and how has that worked out for you? Because I think there's a lot of people that would really love to hear that part of your story.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Blake. I feel so lucky. I love my life and it's very small. Like if you go back to reading my bio, I have a small cocktail bar in a small town. It's called Small Talk. I run a small hotel company, you know, one hotel with 26 keys, one hotel is eight keys, and we're building a hotel with 28 keys. Just a handful of hotel rooms. But what I know about myself is something that you always knew about me and that you helped me learn from working at Saddell. Things were just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The year that I parted ways and I left Saddell, we were opening up in Vegas. Instead of staying with a company and doing the Vegas thing and staying on that track, I moved to the Hudson Valley to a 1973 log cabin. So really chose that small town life. I absolutely love it because what I learned about myself is I do like to be involved in those big picture concepts. I love sitting in a room with you and acquisitions and development and Andrew and making a hotel, thinking about what it could be. But then the hard part for me, Blake, is I like to do everything myself.
SPEAKER_01:You are very hands-on.
SPEAKER_02:At um, this cocktail bar in Woodstock, I handwrite the menus. You know, that's how hands-on I am. At the hotel in Woodstock, I hand painted the lobby.
SPEAKER_01:And what kind of emotion does that elicit from your guests? Okay, I'm sorry. I just have to have to keep taking it full circle for us. Carry on, but I want to weave that all through this talk.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. It's intentional. That's that's the business we're in.
SPEAKER_01:I remember it's intentional. You just nailed it. It's intentional.
SPEAKER_02:I remember a meeting we were in, an executive meeting, where everyone was talking about such a logic, Blake. It was all logical talk. And I remember just thinking, hotels aren't about logic, you know, they're about emotion. We broker in emotion. You can stay in a hotel. Like booking a hotel is not an logical decision. When you choose to stay in a hotel for that$600 a night, and there's a Weston down the street that's selling rooms for$250, booking that$600 room, like lifestyle hotel is not logical. It's emotional.
SPEAKER_01:I couldn't agree more.
SPEAKER_02:My journey to small town life, deciding to come to the Hudson Valley, that was really based on knowing that I like to be hands-on. Right now I'm formulating a Viscotti recipe with a local bakery. It's like Star's Hollow over here. That's a Gilmore girls reference, but that's really true. And I love it. I really love it. I love being involved in the details, but I also love being involved in that big picture thinking. And to do that, you have to do something small.
SPEAKER_01:And so let me ask you the million dollar question. Are you happy today? I'm so happy, Blake. All right. I hope that everyone listening takes this story to heart because I think you are so brave. And I want to challenge a lot of the folks that are listening to us to be so brave. Sometimes we get on the corporate train and And we get the next job and we get the next opportunity. And we think that the only route to happiness is next bigger. You made a really brave decision. You said, you know, I'm not sure that's what thrives me. I'm not sure that's what makes me happy. And so you made choices for yourself that have proven to make you very happy. And I think that's super brave. Cat Bangs, thank you so much for joining me today on Hotel Daddy. Thank you, Blake. All right, kids. This has been Hotel Daddy. Thanks to my friend Cat Bangs for being my guest today.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to Hotel Daddy with your host, Blake Danner. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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