Top Floor
Top Floor is a weekly podcast with tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. Host and elevator operator Susan Barry explores the idea that everything is marketing in the hotel business. Our interviews with creators, thought leaders and hospitality groundbreakers are designed to provide practical tactics that hoteliers, restaurateurs and travel mavens can use to promote their businesses. Along the way, we answer burning marketing questions submitted on the Emergency Call Button and share the funniest, craziest, just-plain-weirdest stories down at the Loading Dock. Need to press the Emergency Call Button? Or have a story to share at the Loading Dock? Reach us at 850.404.9630 to be featured in a future episode.
Show episodes
Chris Tripoli is a veteran restaurateur, consultant, and podcast host with decades of hospitality experience under his belt. From teenage busboy to industry sage, he's seen it all—launching concepts, advising entrepreneurs, and mentoring the next generation. Susan and Chris talk about hospitality, hiring, and hitting t
Scott Roby is a lifelong hotel enthusiast whose love for hospitality began during childhood stays at the Ritz Carlton. After studying at Cornell’s Hotel School and cutting his teeth in revenue management at Hilton, Scott co-founded Evolution Hospitality and is now president of Pacifica Hotels. Susan and Scott talk abou
Shelley Brown is a keynote speaker, artist, and former hospitality pro who has built a career by challenging the status quo with heart and humor. After decades navigating buttoned-up boardrooms and high-stakes sales, she ditched the script to help leaders embrace imperfection, foster belonging, and lead like actual hum
Sarah Moss is the Chief of Staff at Hunter Hotel Advisors, where she’s the operational glue behind both the firm and its booming hotel investment conference. A hospitality lifer, she started as a maitre d’ and worked her way through college before joining Hunter full-time, pausing only briefly to crunch numbers at Coca
Donte Johnson is a hospitality veteran with a 20+ year career of transforming hotel experiences through cultural integration and community connection. Now GM at Thompson Atlanta Buckhead, he’s known for blending operational excellence with authentic local engagement. Jason Bass is a serial entrepreneur turned hotel inn
Adrian Balcan is the founder of Feed Check, a platform that helps hospitality businesses decode customer feedback and outshine the competition. With a brain wired for both economics and engineering, he started his company straight out of university, pivoting from tech reviews to the tasty world of hospitality insights.