Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohemian bungalows on the beach, erected eclectic off-grid and nature-immersed escapes, and so much more. Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more. Behind the States is hosted by Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance.
Episodes
Wednesday May 13, 2026
Wednesday May 13, 2026
Explore Epicurate: https://epicurate.vip/
Connect with Max: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-porterkhamsy/
Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/
Apply to join the Journey Alliance: http://journey.com/alliance/
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Every once in a while on this show, I get to share news that I'm personally invested in — and this is one of those episodes.
A few weeks ago, Journey acquired Epicurate, a private chef and experiences platform that has become one of the most beloved platforms in the luxury segment of the short-term rental world. If you operate in the high-end residence rental space, there's a good chance you've either used Epicurate yourself or you've stayed somewhere that does. The platform powers private dining, in-home wellness, gear rental, grocery delivery, and a growing list of curated services for some of the most respected vacation rental brands in the country — AvantStay, Abode Luxury Rentals, and Red Cottage just to name a few.
The man behind it is Max Porterkhamsy, and his story is one of my favorite kinds. A would-be patent lawyer who walked away from mechanical engineering to go to culinary school. He went on to work at a storied michelin star restaurant in New York, then designed and executed a 7-course tasting menu for a tasting room in Sonoma, to cooking private dinners and running concierge for vacation rental guests staying at some of the most coveted homes in wine country. And then, Max started noticing something the rest of us in this industry had been drowning in for years — concierge is broken. The relationships are there. The talent is there. But the tooling underneath it all is a tangle of spreadsheets, email chains, and tribal knowledge that doesn't scale.
So Max built the platform he wished he'd had as a chef. And six years later, it's become the connective tissue between operators who want to deliver hotel-grade hospitality and the local providers who actually make that magic happen.
In this conversation, we get into all of it — Max's path from growing up in farm in New Hampshire to how covid rocked the hospitality industry but accelerated Epicurate’s growth, what hotels can learn from the private external concierge model, and why Journey acquired Epicurate.
Alright friends, without further ado, get ready to meet Max.
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