Where the magic begins

Before I ever had words for it, I felt it.

I remember watching adults change when they stepped into hospitality spaces. Not just pubs, but cafés, restaurants, hotel dining rooms – places where the atmosphere softened people. Shoulders dropped. Laughter came more easily. Conversations stretched. People seemed more themselves.

It struck me, even as a child, that something important was happening in those rooms.

At home, life could feel tight. Busy. Heavy with responsibility. But in these spaces, people came alive. They connected. They belonged to something that wasn’t about obligation or performance. Hospitality gave them room to breathe.

I didn’t know it then, but that was my first glimpse of what this industry really does.

Years later, I realised that most people who fall in love with hospitality recognise that same feeling – even if their stories look different.

On the Kith & Kin podcast, I ask every guest the same question: What made you fall in love with hospitality? The answers are strikingly similar.

Some talk about early memories – a family restaurant, a local café, a hotel breakfast room where they felt quietly welcomed. Others describe their first job: a pot wash shift, a bar back role, clearing tables, prepping vegetables in a busy kitchen.

What stands out isn’t the glamour.
It’s the moment they felt useful.

Often from day one.

In hospitality, you don’t need experience to matter. A pot washer on their first shift is not peripheral – they’re essential. The service cannot run without them. They are immediately part of the whole. Valued not for who they might become one day, but for what they contribute right now.

For many people, that is transformative.

It’s the first time they feel needed. Trusted. Included. Part of something bigger than themselves. Hospitality offers belonging before status, contribution before confidence. You don’t have to earn your place slowly – you step into it.

That’s why this industry changes lives.

Hospitality has always been about more than food and drink. These spaces – restaurants, cafés, pubs, street food markets, hotels – are what sociologists call third places. Not home. Not work. But somewhere in between, where roles soften and expectations fall away.

In a world that constantly asks us to perform, hospitality offers something profoundly human: the freedom to simply be. To show up as you are. To feel recognised without explanation.

That’s the magic.

And it’s easy to lose sight of it when pressure builds. When margins tighten. When the work becomes relentless. When hospitality is reduced to systems, transactions and outputs.

But belonging isn’t a trend.
It’s hospitality’s oldest promise.

When you reconnect with that – with why this mattered to you in the first place – something shifts. The work regains its meaning. The noise fades. You stop chasing what you think you should be, and start protecting what you know matters.

That recognition isn’t the end of the journey.
It’s the beginning.

This is where the magic begins.