Forget the Hotel Bar — Welcome to the Bar Hotel

Few hotels lean into unabashed revelry like San Diego’s Lafayette Hotel does. It’s the drinks-flowing, kitchen-always-open encapsulation of the funky fever dream that emerges when a bar and restaurant powerhouse creates a hotel that’s representative of its approach to hospitality.

“Bars and restaurants were a gateway drug for me,” says Arsalun Tafazoli, the owner and founder of San Diego’s CH Projects. Before turning its attention to hotels, CH had already made its mark in the local dining and bar scene. It’s a full-fledged San Diego kingpin, with projects including Raised by Wolves, Polite Provisions, J & Tony’s, False Idol, Born and Raised, and Noble Experiment, among others.

It was clear that the team could build out and run successful and profitable bars and restaurants. Now it was time to see if it could do the same with a hotel. “I never thought it would be possible financially, but we found a big enough audience locally that we could raise enough capital to make it happen,” Tafazoli says.

With CH’s demonstrated ability to replicate a winning concept, the group already has a second hotel on the way: Baby Grand. The venture is set to open in early 2026 in Coronado, the small peninsula that doubles as a resort hot spot within arm’s reach of downtown San Diego.

CH isn’t the only group making such moves. Death & Co. is now in the hotel game as well. After putting a D&C in the lobby of The Ramble Hotel in Denver and collaborating with the hotel’s ownership, including founder Ryan Diggins, the group teamed up with Diggins directly to launch Midnight Auteur. The new joint effort hospitality group debuted its first hotel in July: the 44-room Municipal Grand in Savannah, Ga.

Credit: Death & Co.

“Working with The Ramble Hotel showed us how dynamic a hotel ecosystem can be when anchored by strong F&B — from morning to late night, the energy is constant,” says David Kaplan, partner in Midnight Auteur. “With Midnight Auteur, we’re taking that a step further with one unified team shaping every detail of the guest experience.”

For a group such as CH Projects or Death & Co., comfortable amid a steady stream of offshoots and expansions, hotels represent both the logical next step and an enormous leap of faith. “Hotels are the pinnacle of hospitality,” Tafazoli says. “They’re built-in environments that incorporate all of life’s core rituals — eating, drinking, sleeping, f*cking.”

Forget Hotel Bars. How About Bar Hotels?

The hotel bar, when done right, is life’s most glorious and comforting third place. For travelers who appreciate such fine things, the bar hotel goes further still, wrapping itself around the concept and expanding it into a full stay.

You’d expect the strength of a bar hotel to be its food and beverage offerings, and a concept such as the Lafayette delivers. There’s the 24-hour Beginner’s Diner; the bustling Lobby Bar, most true to the many establishments CH has opened across the city; The Gutter, a game room and bowling alley; Lou Lou’s Jungle Room, a live music venue and supper club; the raucous pool bar; and Quixote, a mezcaleria and Oaxacan-inspired restaurant. Rooms also feature remarkably well-stocked minibars, with dozens of spirits, cocktail kits, classy custom glassware and tools, fresh citrus, delectable bar snacks, and more, for all of your 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. in-room cocktailing needs.

Tafazoli refers to a hotel’s food and beverage program as its heart and soul, and Kaplan calls it the beating heart. Entering the game with that as a strong suit makes plenty of sense. “It anchors the lobby, creates energy, and sets the tone, and beyond that, we obsess over the guest journey and the connective tissue of design, narrative, and quality,” Kaplan says.

“There is so much more room for mistakes in a restaurant than in a hotel. The secret is that F&B is a lot harder and most hotel developers will tell you that.”

Part of that ideology is also creating an environment that appeals to locals. A more vibrant space attracts more travelers, while a local’s friendly restaurant and bar program keeps the business steady during off-seasons or travel lull. “A thriving bar and restaurant creates a magnetic community hub that amplifies the property as a whole,” Kaplan says. “Our job is to ensure hotel guests feel like insiders in that world, almost as if they’re hosting the party.”

In this way, locals breathe life — and cultural credibility — into the hotel itself. “For hotels, there’s less of an incentive to build relationships because you’re dealing with a transient population,” Tafazoli says. “But with our background, we can create something that really connects with people within that given community, versus just tourists.”

Such bar hotels aren’t limited to the states, either. Take Experimental Group‘s Cowley Manor Experimental. The posh property is a member of the Mr & Mrs Smith portfolio, itself now under the Hyatt domain, and reopened under Experimental’s stewardship in 2023.

The historic 55-acre estate in the Cotswolds is said to have partially inspired Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” during his stays in the local village. First built in 1695, Cowley Manor offers visitors a quintessential English countryside escape — complete with an on-site Experimental Cocktail Club.

Another name to know is METT Hotels from Sunset Hospitality. After beginning in Bodrum, Türkiye, the hotel brand is expanding into five locations by the end of the year, with each of its party-centric hotels leaning into the group’s nightlife background. It’s not as if METT pioneered the nightclub-to-hotel pipeline, though. Studio 54 founder Ian Schrager launched the now widespread EDITION brand, after a prior multi-decade run with Morgans Hotel Group.

Credit: Municipal Grand

Back in California, Santa Barbara-based Good Lion Hospitality has also opened its own boutique hotel, Petit Soleil. Located in downtown San Luis Obispo, the 17-room property debuted in early 2024 and operates as a B&B. It joins a portfolio of eight bars and restaurants from the married team behind Good Lion, Misty Orman and Brandon Ristaino.

Meanwhile, Broken Shaker parent company Bar Lab sold the bar concept to Generator Hostels, now owners of Freehand Hotels. There are currently five Broken Shakers.

Same Principles, New Setting

There are obvious crossovers and parallels between running a great bar or restaurant and operating an exceptional hotel. And Tafazoli argues that the harder part is the one these operators with service industry chops have already conquered. “Hotel operations are so much easier,” he says. It’s a surprising comment, perhaps, but he suggests comparing how many direct staff interactions a restaurant diner or bar-goer has over a couple of hours versus how often a hotel guest does over a full day and night at a property.

“Their expectations are much lower than at a restaurant—as long as the room is clean, the water is hot, and things work,” Tafazoli says. “There is so much more room for mistakes in a restaurant than in a hotel. The secret is that F&B is a lot harder and most hotel developers will tell you that.”

For Kaplan, first dabbling as a non-owner provided the foundational confidence needed to roll up his sleeves further. “Ryan’s expertise solved the most intimidating parts — development, capital negotiations, room optimization,” he says. “But every project is a master class, and we’d never have attempted this without the right partner.”

“We’ve spent two decades building a hospitality-forward ecosystem across bars, books, retail, and education. Extending that thinking to hotels feels natural.”

Whether analyzing the substantial capital needs, the challenges posed by everything from economic turmoil to global pandemics that can wreak havoc across the industry, or competition from global brands with enormous scale, the process is anything but easy. Great hotels are nobody’s idea of simple.

But the similarities between bars, restaurants, and hotels create a pathway where such operators are well positioned to both anticipate and solve many of the problems that arise. “The scale may be bigger, but the mindset is the same as it’s been for us opening bars for years: Learn fast, refine constantly, and never stop raising the bar,” Kaplan says.

Bar Hotels Are Here to Stay

Both Kaplan and Tafazoli believe that having an intentional, specific through line that connects every aspect of a hotel is crucial to success. That’s the secret sauce that makes the restaurateur to hotelier leap more achievable than ever, rather than stitching together the disparate and perhaps conflicting points of view coming from dozens of different parties.

“Many hotels have a developer, an operator and then often the F&B component is outsourced,” Tafazoli says. “Our approach allows a much more seamless experience.”

That type of synergy suggests we’re still at the very beginning of the bar hotel movement. “We’ve spent two decades building a hospitality-forward ecosystem across bars, books, retail, and education,” Kaplan says. “Extending that thinking to hotels feels natural.”

The most daunting obstacle, and isn’t it always, is the financing. For those from an F&B background who are able to put that jigsaw puzzle together, the sky’s the limit. “We live and breathe hospitality,” Tafazoli says. “We aren’t just spreadsheet jockeys.”

Whether it’s a cocktail drinker looking for a place to rest their head, or a traveler seeking a more socially oriented hotel with excellent food and drink, the appeal is clear. “Done right, [bar hotels] benefit everyone: Travelers get a richer, more connected experience, and locals get vibrant hotel spaces that act as community hubs,” Kaplan says.

“People from that community making things for that community,” Tafazoli says. That’s something we can all get behind.

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