Episode #264
Small Hotels, Big Margins - Ryan Diggins - Defining Hospitality
In this episode, Dan Ryan sits down with Ryan Diggins, founder and operator of The Ramble Hotel and co-founder of Gravitas Development, to unpack how his company, Midnight Auteur, builds boutique hotels that lead with food and beverage instead of treating it as an afterthought. Ryan walks through the thinking behind properties like The Ramble in Denver and Municipal Grand in Savannah, why smaller hotels can outperform bigger ones when you optimize for revenue per square foot instead of RevPAR alone, and how staying involved in the smallest design details, right down to how brass patinas on a toilet handle, keeps a project from losing its soul as it scales. The conversation also dives into how Ryan finds overlooked real estate opportunities, how he builds teams around a fully formed vision instead of the other way around, and what the future of hotel discovery looks like as AI reshapes how travelers find where to stay. Ryan Diggins is a real estate development veteran with over 15 years of experience building in Denver and beyond, and he's spent that time proving that boutique hotels can compete with, and outperform, some of the biggest names in the business. As founder and operator of The Ramble Hotel and co-founder of Gravitas Development, he leads hotel concepting, development, and operations through his company Midnight Auteur, marrying serious development chops with a hospitality first sensibility. His latest project, Municipal Grand in Savannah, was recently named one of the top 19 places to travel in 2026 by Architectural Digest, cementing his reputation as one of the industry's sharpest voices on design-driven, food and beverage anchored hospitality. Chapters: 00:00 Real Estate vs Purpose 00:22 Show Mission Intro 00:55 Guest Spotlight Ryan 02:26 Defining Hospitality 04:00 Placemaking Through Hotels 06:43 Artfulness Over Formula 10:42 Why Secret Sauce Gets Lost 16:25 F&B Led Hotel Economics 26:04 Staying Curious While Scaling 31:34 Process Without Strangling 33:23 Design For The Picky Guest 35:22 Thoughtfulness As True North 37:23 Values Shape The Team 40:58 Winning Over Investors 44:29 Choosing Design Partners 48:22 Future Markets And Pipeline 50:53 Marketing In The AI Era 55:04 Death And Co Origin Story Quote of the Show: "If we can't answer what is this here for or why are we doing this, well now you're just a Pinterest board." - Ryan Diggins Building a hotel, brand, or guest experience? Reach out to Dan on LinkedIn or hit reply on the Substack to share what you’re working on. Links: Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@defininghospitality?sub_confirmation=1 Substack: https://www.defininghospitality.live/ Guest’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-diggins-8a1297a/ Guests Website: https://www.theramblehotel.com/ Dan Ryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/ ✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ Ways to Tune In: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419 Transistor: https://www.defininghospitality.live/
