MAD Hospitality of downtown Madison was established in 2020 by Thomas Preston Real Estate. After four years of business, the company owns seven projects, including five restaurants, a unique event venue, and The New South Motor Inn at 1240 Eatonton Rd.
The hospitality company opened in 2020 and officially opened its first outlet, The Sinclair, in September 2021. MAD Hospitality most recently opened its brunch location, Betty Gene’s, in September of last year and reopened the New South Motor Inn earlier this year.
Preston Snyder, owner of MAD Hospitality, has a real estate industry background and practiced in Atlanta before moving to Madison. Shortly after moving to the area six years ago, he found good opportunities to invest in multiple properties.
“A number of those [properties] were around the square, and what I had done in Atlanta was historic work and lawful developments of industrial and commercial buildings,” said Snyder. “So a lot of this was a good fit for me.”
According to Snyder, he had the idea of setting up a hospitality company due to the need to use the retail spaces he began to invest in. He found it essential to keep his ideas moving on his terms when getting started.
“We had to figure out something to do with the retail spaces, and we had the option of waiting for other people to come up with good ideas or just going ahead and making something happen,” said Snyder. “That’s where [we got] the idea to set up a hospitality company.”
Before starting his real estate career, Snyder worked in the restaurant business to “help pay the bills.”
He credits his background in the business for helping him create new options for the community while simultaneously filling in the commercial spaces in town.
“[Working in the restaurant business] is what I did to pay the bills when I was getting started in the real estate business and to get through school,” said Snyder. “So, it’s funny, I can kind of circle back to it.”
According to Snyder, when working to establish MAD Hospitality, he contacted multiple past connections to help him get started.
“I reached out to some of the people that I knew from having worked in hospitality for years, and many of these guys stayed in it and have become super accomplished chefs, wine stewards, sommeliers, and in some cases hospitality professors,” Snyder said. “So I had this network of people that I reached out to and said, here is what I’m thinking. Am I crazy? And they’re like, no, you go ahead, we will help.”
As the first official project established under MAD Hospitality, The Sinclair has become a popular outlet in the community as a “European-style street café.”
The café building formerly housed an old gas station in Madison Town Square and operates only two doors down from Betty Gene’s.
“It just seemed like it needed to be a coffee shop,” said Snyder. “So coffee shop by day, and you can get breakfast, lunch, and even dinner in the evening. And then it’s got a full bar, so you can come and have cocktails, tapas at night, you know, whatever you want.”
The dining room is another project owned by Snyder and MAD Hospitality that has been open since December 2022. The fine-dining restaurant is more of a “chef-driven experience” and includes multiple courses and a variety of wine selections.
“It is more of an occasional restaurant for special events,” said Snyder. “That was inspired by some time I spent with the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead up in Atlanta when I was much younger.”
With the creation of the projects on the square, Snyder believes that one of the company’s priorities is to “create a new energy around the square.”
“We did not want just to lease the spaces to insurance offices or, you know, law offices that nobody wanted to visit necessarily unless they had a problem,” said Snyder. “So, the idea of doing something for entertainment and creating a new culinary destination is always part of the program.”
Overall, Snyder has been content with implementing MAD Hospitality’s projects and believes that the “development pipelines” are nearly complete.
“We finished all the buildings and the restaurant buildouts,” Snyder said. “Now, we are really getting fully into the restaurant and multiple outlet operation mode.”