Living, Not Just Lodging — Inside StayAPT Suites with Jennifer Kearney

Glenn: Read up, everybody. It’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn. Here at the lodging conference, I found a new friend, Jennifer Kearney of StayAPT Suites. But before we get to know each other, I want you to get to know our sponsor, Unifocus, Unifocus technology that drives value. Follow them at Unifocus.com. So I suddenly became an old man. This business. I’ve been around for a long time and I haven’t met you yet, so it’s so exciting to find someone new.

Jennifer: It’s great to meet you. Yeah, great to be here.

Glenn: So tell us a little bit about what you do at Stay APT.

Jennifer: Sure. So I’m the chief marketing officer for Stay APT suite.

Glenn: It’s closer to me. There you go.

Jennifer: And and I had the pleasure of being on board with Gary Delap, our CEO, at the inception of this brand. So from the very beginning. Yep. It’s been a wild ride. It’s been so much fun. And we are just, you know, beaming with pride and excitement over our brand.

Glenn: As you should be. It’s fun because it’s. We all know that extended stay is really the nuts and bolts of hospitality right now, representing more than a complete third of the hospitality pipeline. But you can’t just do the same thing over and over again. And what I like is you guys are extending the dialogue of what these types of properties should be, and taking more of the service department model rather than the extended stay model. And that’s kind of just, so you guys know, different mindset, a different point of view built more really for that longer term stay.

Jennifer: You got it. So we’re really we refer to ourselves as an apartment style hotel. Right. So we’re a hybrid between an apartment and a hotel. You’ve got all the the comforts of an apartment with the flexibility of a hotel. Yeah. There are a lot of new extended stay brands in the market, especially the last couple years. I would say. Yeah, ours is hands down the best guest room, right?

Glenn: Like, spoken like a true marketing person, but you got stuff to back it up.

Jennifer: But I’m serious when I say that. So the reason that we’re apartment style and our name stay apt suites really denotes stay apartment. All of our guest rooms are full suites, so we only have two room types. We have a king and a double queen. They are all 500ft² plus. And you walk in, you’ve got a living room, a real living room. You’ve got a real full size kitchen with full size appliances. So I’m talking four burner stove, oven dishwasher. You know, everything is furnished. Pots and pans, dishes. There’s a beautiful long center island that’s great for dining or just doing work.

Glenn: Maybe you guys could redo my kitchen.

Jennifer: But. But the best thing is you physically walk down the hall to a separate bedroom. Oh, you know, so it feels apartment style. Yeah, in the truest of senses. And And you’re not cooking in your bedroom.

Glenn: So it’s it’s a different mindset.

Jennifer: You got it. So it’s not just about sleep. It’s about living your life. Right? A lot of these extended stay guests, you know, it might be two weeks. It might be two months that they’re on the road. Out and what it does kind of psychologically, when you get up in the morning and walk into the kitchen, right, and you’ve got your pot of coffee and you turn on the the morning news. Have some breakfast. And then you walk back to your bedroom, take a shower, get ready. It’s just it feels normal, right? Like you have that normalcy. And that’s really what stay apt provides.

Glenn: I love that that’s real. That’s really nice. And you know, you can’t say enough about something like that. There’s a real legitimacy. Whenever I stay in some of these more apartment style things, it feels like a totally different experience. It really sets that mindset. And all of you out there are trying to tap into what’s it like to be a local, and this really sets the stage for that local community.

Jennifer: You got it. Yeah. And I think a lot of extended stay guests, you know, they want to be independent. They want privacy. And that’s what stay apt provides. We really purpose built this hotel for extended stay guests. And and and we put all of our focus on the guest room. And, and you know, offering. We’ve got a, you know, obviously a guest laundry facility and a fitness room. But then we also have this really unique attribute. We’ve got an interior outdoor courtyard.

Glenn: Interesting.

Jennifer: Right. Totally secure. Right. So you have to use your guest key to get in. But it’s this beautiful green area. There’s a built in grill station. There’s a a fire pit, soft seating. But it’s really just this beautiful aesthetic as you walk to and from your room. And nice to just have a glass of wine. Yeah. Grill something, and and our guests love it, and it’s just nobody can get in that area unless you are a guest and you have your your guest keys. So really, really nice.

Glenn: Way of saying that. I’m not. I’m not local.

Jennifer: He can’t unless he stays with us, which he should.

Glenn: Yes, I will, and I will. Tell you what, Jennifer. You’re making it hard for me not to want to stay with you, because I really want to see what this experience is like, because I’m really trying to, you know, preach bringing humanity back to hospitality. And I think by giving people a place to live as opposed to exist, is really a step in the right direction.

Jennifer: You got it, you got it. And, you know, one of the things that has surprised us is the amount of transient guests that are attracted to our product. And I think with more, you know, awareness of the segment overall, which I think is a positive of all of these news to apt brands that you know, more transient guests love the amount of space and all of the additional amenities. So so we, we rent by the night, the week and the month. Wow. Yeah.

Glenn: Awesome. Yeah. All right, so this is going on longer than we expected because it’s much more interesting than I expected, but I think maybe we got to get you guys on for a full No Vacancy live kind of show at one point. Really? Get into all that. We can throw some pictures and all that kind of stuff, too. All right, so this has been a really fun conversation. I made a new friend. I don’t know how she feels about this, but I feel pretty good. She’s. Jennifer. I’m Glenn. You’re gonna, like, share and subscribe. Thanks so much. See you later.