Living lobby

Living lobby is the hotel-industry term for what 1 Hotels, The Hoxton, Edition, Soho House and similar lifestyle brands have done to the traditional hotel lobby: turned it into a buzzing, all-day social space where non-guests are encouraged to hang out, work on laptops, take meetings, drink coffee in the morning and cocktails at night. It blurs lobby, café, bar, restaurant and coworking into one big lounge. Ian Schrager pioneered the idea in the 1990s with the Royalton and Paramount in NYC. Today, the test of a successful living lobby is whether locals use it, if it feels half-full of laptops and dates rather than just checking-in guests, it's working.