Interview: Bunkhouse's Liz Lambert on Going Local With Hospitality Outsiders
Photo Credit: Liz Lambert, the COO of the Bunkhouse Group, got her hospitality start at the Hotel San Jose in Austin when it was catering to down-and-out residents. Bunkhouse Group / Matthew Johnson
Skift Take
Here's one of hospitality's most interesting thinkers on hiring, her approach to service, and the importance of community when launching a development.
When canvasing interesting hoteliers and hospitality figures for who they look up to in the industry, one name is a recurring fixture: Liz Lambert, the chief operating officer of the Bunkhouse Group.
Raised in West Texas and educated in Austin, Lambert pivoted an early career in law at the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan into a varied and vivid career in hospitality. She has launched extremely thoughtful boutique properties along the entire range of price points, from the Austin Motel to the Hotel San Jose and the higher-end, discrete rock and roll hideout, the Hotel Saint Cecila.
Recently, she’s expanded her vision outside of Austin and Texas into a new property in Todos Santos, Mexico, an hour north (but a world away) from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and is in the process of a significant edit of a classic rock and roll hotel, the Phoenix Hotel, in San Francisco.
Liz Lambert, COO of the Bunkhouse Group, is speaking at Skift Global Forum 2017. Get Tickets NowSkift caught up with the hotelier and queried her on her thoughts on hiring, what constitutes her approach to hospitality, and the importance of community when launching a development. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Skift: Can you describe your start in hospitality?
Liz Lambert: When I bought the San José, I wasn’t able to raise the money to do the renovation right away and ended up running it for awhile as the residential hotel it was when I bought it – it was a pay-by-the-week home for folks who had fallen on hard times in one way or another. I saw a lot of things and learned a lot during those years. I was working the front desk, doing housekeeping shifts sometimes, and becoming intimately connected to the lives of the people who were living there.
I think those years are obviously some of the most formative in terms of my understanding of what it means to be a host, and what it means to provide shelter. I certainly learned how to perfect hospital corners during those years.
Skift: You’ve since built several cult properties, each with a different feel but with
