Sam Vaden · Hospitality Business Broker
Helping hospitality
entrepreneurs navigate
what's next.
Buying, selling and scaling hospitality businesses with strategy, empathy and experience. Nationally, and quietly.
50
States served
15+
Years in hospitality
2,000+
Businesses sold*
$2B+
Transaction value*
Who Sam helps
Owners, operators, and the quietly ambitious.
The chef who built something rare over fifteen years and is beginning — carefully — to consider what comes after.
The multi-unit operator preparing a portfolio for institutional review, or a family navigating succession with more heart than urgency.
The investor searching for a concept worth stewarding, or the hotelier ready to hand a beloved property to the right next hands.
Featured industries
A single lens.
An entire industry.
Unlike general brokers, Sam represents hospitality exclusively — because a restaurant is not a dry cleaner, and a boutique hotel is not a franchise unit.
Restaurants
From neighborhood institutions to chef-driven concepts.
Bars & Lounges
Cocktail bars, wine bars, listening rooms.
Hotels
Boutique properties, inns, small collections.
Breweries
Independent producers and taprooms.
Wineries
Estates, urban wineries, vineyard sales.
Coffee Shops
Single locations and micro-roasters.
Hospitality Groups
Multi-unit operators and portfolios.
Mixed Concepts
Food halls, hybrid F&B real estate.
Why hospitality is different
A P&L cannot hold
what a room feels like.
Hospitality businesses trade on things spreadsheets are poor at describing: goodwill, staff loyalty, neighborhood memory, the rhythm of a room on a Tuesday night.
Selling one takes more than a listing. It takes a broker who has stood behind the pass, poured wine at the counter, and understood — quietly — why any of it mattered in the first place.
The human side
"Brokerage is never just a transaction. It's a family's next chapter, a founder's quiet exit, a young operator's first real chance. That is worth doing slowly, and doing right."
— Sam Vaden
National reach
Local in feel.
National in reach.
From wine country to the Gulf Coast, from small mountain towns to major metros — Sam represents hospitality businesses across all 50 states, in affiliation with Hedgestone Business Advisors, the country's leading business brokerage firm.
In their words
"Sam understood our restaurant before he ever talked about a number. That's rare in this industry — and it's why we trusted him with fifteen years of our life's work."
Chef-Owner
Farm-to-table restaurant, Pacific Northwest
"He treated our sale with the same care we brought to hospitality itself. Calm, patient, and always three steps ahead."
Founder
Independent boutique hotel, New England
"We spoke for a year before we ever listed. That conversation is what made everything after it work."
Multi-unit Operator
Wine bar group, Southeast
Latest insights
Reading room.
@SamSellsHospitality
Field notes from the road.
Begin the conversation
The best deals begin
as long conversations.
Whether you're years from selling or already fielding offers, the earliest conversations are the most valuable. No pressure. No pitch. Just a considered exchange.