Boutique Hotel Owner: Dave Neupert

Owner of Gold Diggers

Dave Neupert is a hospitality entrepreneur and real estate investor who has helped launch many of LA’s best nightlife establishments in recent years. Following his early career in the music business, Dave became a digital marketing pioneer in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Dave’s years of experience in the local nightlife and music scenes gave him the acumen to pinpoint opportunities in burgeoning neighborhoods on the brink of transformation in Los Angeles. 

In 2000 he purchased The Short Stop in Echo Park, which went from a quiet “outpost” in an otherwise gritty neighborhood to being named “Hottest Bar in America” by Rolling Stone in just nine months. Dave was also an early adopter of the now red-hot communities of Highland Park (2003), Downtown Los Angeles (2006) and Chinatown (2011). Identifying the latent potential in these colorful, affordable neighborhoods, he acquired six languishing bar properties that went on to have a crucial impact on the transformation of their surrounding area.

Dave also extended his vision beyond Southern California to include hospitality properties in New Orleans and Mexico. His latest project, Gold Diggers in East Hollywood, transformed a legendary dive bar into a vibrant music campus including a bar, 11-room boutique hotel and a state-of-the-art recording studio complex.