Why Hospitality Matters to Community Recovery - Gregory Day, Malibu Beach Inn

Josiah: I'm really interested in hospitality excellence, but also community engagement, especially in times where things are really challenging. And because I feel like hospitality has a unique opportunity to do that for so many reasons that fundamentally it's about human connection and care, but also just representing an area. And you've, you know, in the media over months been an advocate for why hospitality matters, you know, kind of why people should support Malibu's recovery. Just to set a little context for our listeners, six months after the fires, the PCH was closed for five months or so, and businesses were getting a 70 to 90% reduction in revenue. As you've been a spokesperson for, hey, we need to get people back to Malibu, I guess I would love to hear your message on that for people listening. Why should travelers think about, or people in the greater LA area, why should they think about coming to Malibu?

Gregory: Because it's not, it's not over. I mean, we're still, you know, this year is really a write off for everybody. And I think if it does, I'm really worried, I'm really deeply worried that if we don't see a return and support from people in this market, you will start to lose restaurants and shops, some of them are already gone. But, you know, I think that it's, it's important. You know, people think about Malibu a lot of times as a place to come just for the weekend, or I'm going to go out for a special occasion in Nobu, right? And that's great. But I think that there's so much, you know, more to that where How do you, instead of just the weekend, can you find a weeknight to come and do dinner at one of the restaurants at the pier or one of the restaurants in, everyone calls it the Malibu Country Mart, but I wanna be very clear, there's actually three different malls there. So you have the Country Mart, you have Malibu Village, and you have the Malibu Lumberyard, and there's now a new one that's being built on the backside over by what's now Whole Foods. So there's a lot of restaurants, a lot of shops that need that support. And obviously we'd love you to come to our hotel as well. Whether you stay for the night or come for the afternoon for, you know, brunch or for the eating for dinner, you know, all of these things help again, sort of that, you know, high tide will raise all boats deal. Because if we don't do that, if we don't see that, I just know not everybody's as lucky as we are with, you know, we were well-insured and we've got amazing owners. And I'm not saying other people's owners aren't amazing, but everyone has a amount of money they can lose. And at some point when you reach that number, it's hard to push past that. Yeah. And I'm concerned about it.

Josiah: We spoke before about how Malibu is really special in a collection of small businesses. And it's really remarkable. You have to come here and experience it yourself. I think to this point, though, it's interesting to think about like during the week. I think this is where the proximity to Los Angeles is interesting because it's a bit of a drive. It's not that far, but it's just enough to feel like you're in kind of a different world. And you think about having a great restaurant evening out, but then also just the evening, you know, like I experienced last night, a morning run with the sun rising. It feels a world away from everything, but it's relatively close. I feel like there's this big weeknight opportunity here as well.

Gregory: Sure.

Josiah: I guess, like, as you think about kind of, you know, moving forward, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that will have to be kind of worked through to get this community back to the place that it needs to be?

Gregory: Well, I think there's going to have to be a collective will amongst the people who are coming out here. You're going to have to accept the fact that You know, PCH, even before the fire, it could always be treacherous, right? In the sense of, I'm not talking about necessarily, although there are accidents, you know, if you get, especially, uh, you, you know, beach days on the weekends, it can take you quite a long time to get home from here. So people always kind of planned that. But now with the work that's being done on PCH by Caltrans, and eventually it'll be work done on people's homes, I imagine as they get re uh, rebuilt. People just have to be patient and understand that it's going to take a little bit longer. And I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing. I think we're such a, as a, as a world today, everything we're so used to everything being at our fingertips and happening so quickly, you know, you can jump on an app and have something delivered to your house to eat in 20 minutes. There's a place for that, and I think that's fine. But I think that, you know, Malibu in a way, without it even trying to be, is already a slow location anyway, right? That's just how it is. And I think that there's, you know, maybe that's a cadence somebody else can lean into and say, Okay, I'm going to pick two days a week or four days a month or whatever it is. Those are my slow days. And maybe I'm going to look at my phone less. Maybe I'm going to not eat any processed foods those days. And I'm going to choose one or two of those days. I'm going to go out to Malibu and I'm just going to sit and let Malibu wash over me. And whether that's, you know, at our place or one of the many great restaurants that are along the PCH or in one of the shopping centers, all of those things will help because it doesn't only help the restaurant or the shop's owners. It also helps the employees that work there. Because I think people forget, people see, you know, a hotel like this, they think, okay, Malibu Beach Inn, maybe it's a, you know, somebody says it's kind of a fancy place and is the leading hotel in the world. Well, that may be true. But two things can be true simultaneously. I also have 60 some odd employees that all have to pay their rent. They all have to, you know, get their dogs, you know, to the vet. They all have to buy food and put food on their table. I can't give that to them without revenue coming in.

Josiah: Yeah. Well, there's opportunity here, I think, for people, individuals, but just what you're speaking to are trends, I think, that are fascinating. I think I'm always interested in these sort of getaways from major metro areas. You know, I think whether it's New York to the Hamptons or upstate, these are usually multi-hour drives. I feel like L.A. to Malibu is an interesting thing.

Gregory: Yeah, it's not even 30, you know, 30, 45 minutes. I mean, it's not that bad. We even today with the bad traffic, it's not that bad.

Josiah: And that's the thing. I think that's an interesting thing for travelers to think about or people in L.A. because I think there's something that time period is a chance maybe to decompress. And I was I drove through, you know, last night at five thirty, you know, peak rush hour time came through Venice, Santa Monica. It was just mobbed around there. So that like little time helped me decompress, had some good music playing, sunsets coming down. And I feel like I was in a state of mind and I come out here, it's quiet. It's just really remarkable.

Gregory: And they can also listen to a podcast like this one. I mean, that's a great way to let the drive wash over you.