How Bill Kimpton Pioneered Boutique Lifestyle Hospitality - Jorge Treviño

Jorge: After I left Ritz-Carlton and joined Kimpton Hotels and Resorts as a general manager, eventually I became the director of openings and transitions for Kimpton Hotels, and then both over the hotels and the restaurants. Not only did I get my dream job, it was a full-time job, and it was really exciting. Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants was so influential in what's happening in the world of hotels and restaurants today. I mean, now most luxury brands and lifestyle brands have great chefs running the restaurants, whether they're contractors who work for the company or third-party leases or whatever they are. That is just what Bill was the first one to say. We need our restaurants to be for the locals and our hotels to be for the visitors. And once The visitors know that our restaurants are visited by locals and are incredible. What a privilege it is for our guests to be able to eat there and not only that, have room service from these incredible chef-driven restaurants that were, you know, again, driven by chefs and restauranteurs. And that was the catalyst. And to go around with an incredible team of restauranteurs and an incredible team of hoteliers, all over the United States and Canada to open these little neighborhood gems and then eventually bigger was incredibly exciting. And to see the excitement of the team that we hired and the culture that we brought to different cities and different companies, because we were opening these little hotels in unknown neighborhoods in weird places in a way. But a year later or two, it was the epicenter of what was going on in that city. So that is what was so exciting. And I opened 44 hotels for Kimpton and I think at the end was like 53 restaurants before I moved on to Communion and then what is Two Roads. But again, Kimpton was setting the bar so high for what lifestyle hotels should be and are now today. And Kempton is still. doing great, great stuff all over the world now.

Josiah: Thanks for walking through that because I hear stories about Kempton and kind of what Bill Kimpton and people in the brand like yourself were doing to create that really laid a foundation, I think, for many other hospitality concepts that have come since then. And so I think you talking about everything from the hotel being this epicenter or this hub in the neighborhood, it really stands out to me because I'm very interested in this intersection of hospitality and place. Was this whole nature of how you thought about integrating into communities something that there was a pretty clear vision on from the start, would you say? Or is it something that sort of evolved over as you're opening dozens and dozens of new properties?

Jorge: No, it really was ingrained into the hotel general managers or the restaurant general managers and chefs that you were there because of the community and whether you wanted to reach out to the SPCA or to whatever charity you were passionate about, that was the directive. It wasn't a directive to reach out to A, B, C, or D. It was reach out to whatever you're passionate about because then you will be successful at it, right? And we need to go back because I think Bill and the leadership at Kempton was always that way. They gave us a white canvas. It was like, we're not going to tell you exactly what you're going to do, but you need to do A, B, C, D, right? And how you get there is your decision and your team's decision. So whatever that charity you wanted to work with, and the same for the restaurant division, they had the same directive and the chefs is like, what are you going to do good for your community? And that was the beauty of it, right? That you were empowered. to do what you wanted to do or needed to do to make your hotel, your restaurant incredibly successful.

Josiah: I wonder, Jorge, if I could ask a follow-up question to that, because you mentioned a blank canvas, but there's also a sense of you need to do A, B, C, and D. So there was some frameworks of must-haves, but also it sounds like ways to interpret that. You mentioned you must do good in your community was one of those sort of must-have elements. What were the other B, C, and D in terms of must-dos. I'm curious of the blank space versus kind of the minimum requirements that you had.

Jorge: Oh, it's funny because we got to work with some of the most creative firms, I would say, in the United States. And okay, let's go back to the do not disturb sign in the room, right? You have to have a do not disturb sign in your room. what it looks like, it's up to you. Whether it's shh or a red X or whatever the brand of your hotel was, because there were brands of one, right? Every hotel in Kimpton told its own story. Every restaurant was its own identity. So whatever that story was for your hotel, you had to weave it through everything you do. From the printed collateral in your room, to the way that you communicate to the guests externally. Two, what that experience looked like, again, through the entire guest journey, the different touch points. What did the welcome letter look like? What are the restaurants that most front desk or concierge are recommending because they're coming to the front desk and saying, hey, where would you go? And the front desk agents were empowered to give their own recommendations. You know what? I like this taqueria in this part of town because it's really authentic. And we even had employee recommends and they would put a little frame on the front desk. And this is Joe from this department. And this is what he recommends you do while you're in Portland, while you're in Seattle. So it was really local driven before local was a hot thing.