Anticipation, Emotion, and Conversation: Crafting Hospitality Experiences with co-host Ty Maloney and special guests Ash Marsh and Nelson Marsh

Welcome to “The Redemptification Podcast,” where we explore the intersection of hospitality, design, and storytelling. Join your hosts Ash Marsh, Nelson Marsh, and Ty Maloney as we delve into the art of creating spaces that not only serve but also speak to the soul.

In our journey, we’ve discovered that hospitality is more than just a transaction; it’s an emotional experience. As Ty beautifully put it, it’s about being in a place where you’re not just received but anticipated, where your needs and desires are not only met but understood before you even arrive. This anticipation creates a space where you can truly relax and connect on a deeper level.

Nelson brings a unique perspective, emphasizing the importance of storytelling in Southern culture, particularly within food. For him, every dish has a narrative, and every dinner is an opportunity to create memories and forge connections.

Ash expands on this idea, highlighting the significance of the table as a symbol of communication, storytelling, and community. Through thoughtful design and attention to detail, they aim to honor the past while envisioning a future where every space is imbued with a sense of belonging and purpose.

Join us as we explore the power of hospitality, design, and storytelling to redeem spaces and create meaningful experiences that transcend the ordinary.

Insights & Inspirations

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• Ash (02:10): Whenever you think of hospitality, I think why people have a hard time really describing it is because they’re trying to remember what they received in the form of hospitality. But really what it is at the core is it makes you feel a certain way. And so it’s emotional. That’s why you can relate to it whenever you say, Hey, it’s whenever you’re in the home of someone who loves you and who anticipated you and who knows the things that you need and desire and therefore your emotional needs are met.
  
• Ash (02:52): So my definition of I thought of you before you got here actually came through just some meditation time of really thinking of why does it matter and why does it feel a certain way whenever we know that we’ve just been receiving the best hospitality that we’ve had. And what I was shown in that meditation was that it’s because you were anticipated. And the power of anticipation is incredible. I mean a bride, the reason why the groom is so excited for the bride to come down is because there’s anticipation. The reason why it’s so exciting to announce a child coming into the world is because of the anticipation. And so when you come to someone’s home or their business or their city and they are prepared for you to meet your needs, you’ve been anticipated and you can relax. And when we relax, we receive so much better.
  
• Ty (03:48): And I’ve been telling people that the second best hospitality experience that I have had is when I meet somebody who loves their place and they share it from that.
  
• Nelson (05:03): but broadly the south, we still have stories and stories make us who we are and especially within food in the South. And so for me, I mean it was always kind of natural to approach things from story.
  
• Nelson (06:21): my favorite thing in the world probably ever is dinner big, fabulous, ridiculous dinners. And normally I create the story of the dinner before I get to cooking. Now I love cooking and all that, but I’m never ever going to serve something that doesn’t have a story because that’s just impersonal. And I think our world is rife with people who don’t have stories surrounding their hospitality.
  
• Ash (09:42): Now you’re not just eating something. And you’re right, Americans, a lot of times we just go to eat. Whereas I believe when you go to Italy, what we found was that they paused to dine. They paused to have conversations and to actually celebrate the moment of the work and the love that was put into putting that bean on the table. It’s not just a bean to them, it’s literally life to them.
  
• Ty (10:55): but human scale is not nearly as important as human connection and then being present. And I do think that’s what, when food and beverage done well, that’s what it can do. 
  
• Nelson (13:07): I think there’s also a huge difference between eating some food and having dinner. 
  
• Nelson (17:31): And I always tell people, I mean if you want to, the first thing to do is be radically honest with people in hospitality because so many of us don’t understand that a hospitality relationship like any other relationship is based on mutual trust.
  
• Ash (19:30): but really the table’s about communication, storytelling, crying together, building together, dreaming together, the table’s very important. The food is an avenue that gets you to the table. That’s not the primary reason at the table.
  
• Nelson (22:34): And what I do is I tell a little story. So it’s about a two page document. And what I’ll do is I’ll give some context, right? I’ll say, so this is where we are. We understand these things, and I set the stage and then I just tell a little story. And what it creates is imagine if you could just have one set out of one scene of a movie and you said, this is the most indicative piece of this whole film. I’d say they’ve really moved earlier and earlier because once you can define the story of a space, once you can create an understanding around it, it’s very easy to hold it up like a candle and say this, not that.
  
• Ash (25:53): I believe I do more of an emotional architectural type design. How does the space really not just speak to me, but what are the stories that actually existed there? And then you touch on that when you go into the love letters that you’re writing because you’re actually saying, Hey, not only are we talking about the story that existed, but what could the story be? And I believe that’s the beauty of it, is that it gives us a runway Ty to say, Hey, we recognize and honor the past, but if we wanted to really honor this space and this proprietor or this investor that has asked us to walk along with them, how do we actually take this space and say, what would it have been had it kept going?
  
• Ash (27:04): And it goes back to the place of hospitality. People want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like this is for me and this was done for me.
  
• Ty (30:50): We call it a bridging process where we start with the schematic level of a floor plan. This is after we understand the menus, understand the story, we get a floor plan that includes generally we believe that the operational flow is right, everything from the guest flow to the kitchen flow to all those things, working really closely with the operator, the chef, to do those things. So then we have this kind of anchoring floor plan that shows the elements. But then what Ash you do so well is I think you create through revealing a lot,
  
• Ash (33:53): And mainly it’s because we have found that there’s a difference between people that work on new buildings and the craftsmen that actually work in these old spaces. One of the things we have to really practice is not, again, not being perfect. These buildings are beautiful and imperfect in every way that we can find, and they bring incredible challenges to actually problem solve every single day in what we are tinkering because we’re trying to figure out what’s allowed because it only lets us do so much in order to honor its integrity.
  
• Nelson (36:41): You have to give people license and liberty to do things. And I tell you, any of y’all that are in development first, if you are any of your vendors, if you’re not their favorite person, you are not doing cool stuff.
  
• Nelson (37:48): And I just came in here and asked them for a kaleidoscope of hot pink, bright orange, osha safety yellow, and it made their week. But it’s giving people the license to live to the best version of what they do.
  
• Nelson (38:26): And the way that makes them feel to get to do the best, to get to bring their best is huge. So I’d say a great metric for me always is, are you giving people license to act in their brilliance? Because I promise your subs are better than you think they are. If they do something for a living day in, day out, they have within them the ability to do something truly beautiful and they want to, but we have to give them the license
  
• Ty (43:17): And I think in these food and beverage concepts, there’s a lot of opportunity for that, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like the juice is worth the squeeze. But I mean it really is. If you want a really unique and interesting project that’s designed forward, you’re going to have to be willing to be curious with your trades and bring people in that can do fabrication and work with a lot of different materials to get good outcomes, especially in these historic buildings.
  

Information & Links

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