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Opened in Spring of 2022, The Madrona is a 24-room luxury hotel and restaurant in Healdsburg, California rooted in an idea of uncommon hospitality. Developed alongside partners Jay & Kyle Jeffers, this project is the culmination of endless ideas and creative expression developed through two decades of opening hotels and restaurants for other brands. Every aspect of The Madrona was directly touched by the ownership team, from construction to PR & marketing to guest programming and amenities.
You can read more about this incredible opening here…
Architectural Digest - Step Inside The Madrona, a 19th-Century Manse Turned Wine Country Hotel
Forbes - To The Manor Reborn: The Madrona Opens In Healdsburg
Vogue - The Ultimate Northern California Road Trip, From Supercars to Farm-to-Table Cooking
7x7 - Healdsburg's 141-year old Madrona inn has never been more exquisite
InsideHook - An Exquisite Renovation Makes the Madrona More Alluring Than Ever
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Click here to follow @themadrona on Instagram
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Scope of Work:
Full Concept Development (both Hotel & Restaurant)
Construction Management
Design Development
Selection & Ongoing Oversight of Management Company
Creative Direction of All Aspects of the Guest Experience (Branding, OS&E, Uniforms, Music, Events, Content, Photography, Video, Digital)
Hotel and Restaurant Programming & Partnerships
Marketing & PR Strategy
Ongoing Investor Relations
Development of Long Term Plans for Expansion
Engagement Length: Ongoing; began May 2020
Scope: Concept development, creative direction, marketing strategy & implementation, PR, communications, construction management, pre-opening strategy, menu development, impact strategy, and other special projects.
Engagement Length: Ongoing; began July 2020
First opened in 1987 in San Francisco, Izzy’s Steaks & Chopsfrom famed restauranteur Sam DuVall is a quintessential legacy steakhouse. The restaurant concept is inspired by the infamous bootlegger and Portuguese immigrant, Izzy Gomez, who first opened his eponymously named saloon in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast during prohibition. Having served the Marina district for almost forty years from its flagship location, and a second restaurant in the South Bay, Izzy’s is entering its new chapter of existence while honoring its storied history.
Izzy’s on the Peninsula reopened on January 10th, 2024 and Is quickly becoming the area’s go-to steakhouse.
UP NEXT: The flagship location will undergo a historic renovation and reopen late 2024.
Head of Creative & Marketing (in-house role)
Engagement Length: 3+ Years
In 2008, Bamboo Sushi became the world’s first certified sustainable sushi restaurant. Over the last decade the brand has become one of the most unique full service restaurant concepts in the industry today with a dedication to innovation, sustainability and operational excellence.
In 2016, Cory was brought on for some strategic branding projects that led to a larger scope of work: a full-time, in-house role to lead creative and marketing efforts as the brand prepared for national growth.
With an investment from Bain Capital’s Double Impact Fund, Bamboo Sushi was ready for expansion. At the restaurant group, Cory was able to help grow, not only the footprint of restaurants, but also the mission-driven brand story, leading the following initiatives:
-Refreshed brand look & feel for multi-market appeal, including new brand messaging enlivening the restaurant’s mission.
-Creative direction on interior design, photo & video content, branding, digital projects, and more.
-Marketing strategy, including a strong refresh of digital platforms, an innovative paid media strategy, and enriched partnerships.
-Sustainability & Impact programs, including leading the restaurant to become the first to know its carbon footprint down the the menu item. More on that in Fast Company here.
-All PR efforts, gaining the brand international exposure in outlets such as Forbes, Food & Wine, the SF Chronicle, and more.
-New market launch strategy, bringing the company from 4 locations in one state, to over 12 in five states.
Check out more examples of engaging content created for Bamboo Sushi here.
Services Provided: Concept development, creative direction, guest programming, amenity selection, service training
Engagement Length: 9 months
Urchin Workshop was engaged to help develop the flagship property of this new and innovative hospitality group. Designed by Roman and Williams, Greydon House combines the warmth of a village inn with the service experiences of a luxury boutique hotel. From designing cocktail programming to curating in-room amenities, Urchin Workshop touched every aspect of the guest experience.
With only twenty rooms, we were able to have a bit more fun with the guest programming. Instead of just having an afternoon wine and cheese hour in the bar, the hotel also offers aperitif cocktail cart service direct to each room as guests are getting ready for dinner.
Urchin Workshop also curated a unique mix of guest amenities that are truly intuitive to the quintessential Nantucket getaway. Think: beach bags complete with complimentary sunscreen sticks, waterproof & touchscreen-capable iPhone cases, Ursa Major face wipes for a quick refresh and portable bluetooth speakers (something other hotels won't let you take with you).
For employees, we engaged GANT as the uniform label for the property. With a history of heralding the preppy look, we took their pieces and styled them in a unique way to offer contemporary, yet classic uniform ensembles with the versatility to allow individual employees to accessorize with nautical bandanas and choices of layered outerwear.
Overall the service at Greydon House effortlessly blurs the line between a quaint bed & breakfast and a full-service property - offering a new and innovative style of accommodation on Nantucket.
Services Provided: Pre-opening logistics, critical path support, guest-facing content, amenity selection, training program development and implementation, hiring support, service guide creation, music curation, in-room technology design, SOP development
Engagement Length: 18 months
What started as simple training support for Highgate Hotel’s newest luxury property, The Knickerbocker Hotelin New York City, ended up becoming a long-term project focused on multiple areas of both the employee and guest experience.
As hotel openings can sometimes be the most confusing and stressful time for the first wave of staff, we made sure their on-boarding experience was filled with exciting programming and deeper involvement in pre-opening tasks. The program we designed went beyond basic technical training to include a strong focus on a culture of service. We curated a team of amazing thought leaders to produce a training program that included:
-Intuitive service sessions to help colleagues truly anticipate guest needs and connect with their experience on a much deeper level.
-Storytelling workshops to ensure that all employees could articulate the rich history of the hotel as well as give relevant concierge recommendations in a story-like way.
-Training from renowned communications strategist, Richard Greene, to ensure the Sales team's own marketing language matched the actual guest experience.
This innovative approach manifested itself in the guest experience as well. Urchin Workshop brought the narrative together curating the musical styling of the hotel’s public spaces, amenity selection and creating content for in-room guest tablets.
Services Provided: Brand transition support, service assessments, hiring support, service coaching
Proper Hospitality is a group of innovators in the industry. Founded by the same people that started Viceroy Hotel Group, they are dedicated to creating a strong hotel concept from the ground up. One of their first steps was expanding their Avalon Hotel brand beyond its original Beverly Hills location. Part of this expansion included taking on the daily operations of their owned properties from another management company.
Urchin Workshop was able to provide support during this transition to maintain a high level of guest satisfaction, while helping employees to learn about their company culture. To do this, we first worked to understand how Proper was different from other hotel groups so we could communicate this to employees in small, collaborative sessions. One big message was how much freedom each employee now had to customize their interactions to be truly engaged in the guest experience. After, we worked with each department individually to provide coaching to individuals so they could stay focused on providing that same intuitive service. Employees were also able to provide valuable feedback to their leadership to help improve the operation overall and support the brand vision.
Bamboo Sushi’s sustainability story runs deep and wide. When it comes to telling that story to guests, employees, and the public, it can be a daunting task to distill all of the scientific language into content that is easily understood, yet engaging. Over the last few years, we rolled out numerous pieces of internal and external facing content to tell this unique story…inside the restaurant, on the website, at outdoor events, and even during the employee onboarding process.
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Within the marketing team at Salesforce, with a focus on emerging products, Cory and his colleagues produced a series of internal videos to incentivize the thousands of salespeople to sell a newly integrated product. Partnering with The Build Creative, we were able to create engaging video content never before seen within the organization that helped build buzz around the new offerings on the platform.
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For the revival of The Knickerbocker Hotel in NYC, we were tasked with creating similarly engaging content to tell a unique story, but this time rooted in the property’s history and the hotel’s dedication to intuitive service.
Many companies are looking to develop creative, guest-facing content to provide an amazing customer experience. This can come in many forms including hotel room tablets featuring custom concierge recommendations, local area information, etc. Today’s guest tends to find much of this information on their own, so how do you innovate when it comes to content? For The Knickerbocker hotel, we produced a series of meditation videos to give their guests a truly unique in-room wellness experience. We teamed up with Jenna Gessay, an intuitive consultant from California, to ensure the content was poignant and powerful. These videos, combined with extensive fitness programming and a fully equipped workout facility, offer guests a holistic approach to wellness that's hard to find in an urban property.
Then we thought, "why not have both guests and employees share in the same content experience?" So the videos were designed to be shown, not only to guests via in-room tablets, but also to employees in a private meditation room they can hop into during a quick break during their shift.
Services Provided: Training program development and facilitation, leadership coaching, service assessments, leadership keynote presentation
Modus Hotels was recently named one of the top 10 mid-sized companies to work for in Washington D.C. Needless to say, their company culture is far from broken. But that’s due, in part, to their dedication to ongoing learning. Modus Hotels engaged Cory to put together a program that develops all levels of management into true leaders.
The program manifested itself in the form of short and effective, goal-driven workshops, rather than the lengthy off-site meetings most companies are used to. Also, by adding follow-up workshops 6-8 weeks apart, leaders are held accountable for their success metrics, but also given the opportunity to share best practices among their various hotels. To ensure understanding, we also conducted two-hour, personalized coaching sessions between workshops. As each leader received this one-on-one attention, they were able to refine their leadership skills to get tips on how to execute their action plans.
Phase 2 of our work with Modus is developing an innovative educational program for new colleagues. Rather than the technical checklists and policy-heavy orientations the industry is used to, Modus will be using a training guide that includes content relevant to today's workforce: links to engaging web content along with daily exercises to bring the Ethos of the company and the training program together.
