Sep 28, 2026 · 42 min · 12 segments
In this episode of The Industry Podcast, we sit down with Christin Marvin, founder of Columbine Hospitality, author…
Christin MarvinGuest
Kip SaundersHostDanHost
Do you find that there's more of an openness to this now for people trying to scale their businesses or start their own businesses? Because I sort of grew up in the era when you worked in a bar for a while, then you got tired of working for people because you knew more than them.

And so the notion that I would pay somebody else to come and show me how to do it was like it never would have even crossed my mind.

Brain, and now looking at it, I think that maybe there's more of an openness in the industry to that sort of help.

When I was 20, when I was 25, I'm like, you're going to come in here and tell us what we're doing wrong, and then you're going to leave? Like, no way.

COVID, when top line was a lot healthier and bottom line was a lot healthier, it was easier to run the businesses, right? Those top line sales hit a lot of things.

The industry, as we know, has never been harder and they're trying, owners are trying to do more with less.

And they still have to be the experts in marketing and HR and operations and all of these things and be able to figure out how to scale without taking their eye off the ball of what is the existing businesses and what's happening on a day-to-day basis.

And so what we've found through all the workshops we've done and we've worked with over 40 clients is...

There's more honest conversations happening these days of what people need help with.

And when you get people in a room, nine times out of 10 people start crying.

And that's when we know we've truly unlocked something that they haven't talked about before.

resiliency is key and they can't do it the same way that they did it 10 or 20 years ago it just it doesn't work there's got to be more intention and more clarity and more systems and systems used to be a very corporate word but there's got to be more structure to the business than there used to be in the past because it's so hard to find experienced people

Yeah, and structure is not a word that you would normally, in the entire time I grew up in the hospitality industry, you wouldn't even use the word structure when it came to small independent bars and restaurants.

Do you find that there's more of an openness to this now for people trying to scale their businesses or start their own businesses? Because I sort of grew up in the era when you worked in a bar for a while, then you got tired of working for people because you knew more than them.

And so the notion that I would pay somebody else to come and show me how to do it was like it never would have even crossed my mind.

Brain, and now looking at it, I think that maybe there's more of an openness in the industry to that sort of help.

When I was 20, when I was 25, I'm like, you're going to come in here and tell us what we're doing wrong, and then you're going to leave? Like, no way.

COVID, when top line was a lot healthier and bottom line was a lot healthier, it was easier to run the businesses, right? Those top line sales hit a lot of things.

The industry, as we know, has never been harder and they're trying, owners are trying to do more with less.

And they still have to be the experts in marketing and HR and operations and all of these things and be able to figure out how to scale without taking their eye off the ball of what is the existing businesses and what's happening on a day-to-day basis.

And so what we've found through all the workshops we've done and we've worked with over 40 clients is...

There's more honest conversations happening these days of what people need help with.

And when you get people in a room, nine times out of 10 people start crying.

And that's when we know we've truly unlocked something that they haven't talked about before.

resiliency is key and they can't do it the same way that they did it 10 or 20 years ago it just it doesn't work there's got to be more intention and more clarity and more systems and systems used to be a very corporate word but there's got to be more structure to the business than there used to be in the past because it's so hard to find experienced people

Yeah, and structure is not a word that you would normally, in the entire time I grew up in the hospitality industry, you wouldn't even use the word structure when it came to small independent bars and restaurants.
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