Vikram “Vick” Patel, a registered pharmacist, is writing his own prescriptions these days, and they have more to do with achieving business success than with curing what ails his customers.

Patel has worked as a pharmacist since 1992, but these days dispensing pills and other medicines is taking a backseat to his growing entrepreneurial ventures.

The 49-year-old can still be found behind the counter at a Bowling Green Walmart pharmacy, but Patel is increasingly concerned less with filling prescriptions than he is with filling rooms.

That was apparent on a recent morning as Patel showed a visitor around the 74-room Holiday Inn Express he developed in Glasgow. Built in 2015, the hotel retains its brand-new feel. Patel is happy to show off its features, right down to sampling the coffee in the breakfast room, as he greets workers and checks the grounds for anything out of place.

It’s his newest hotel, but it’s certainly not his last. Patel, through his Laxmi Hotels LLC, recently received approval to build a 77-room dual-brand hotel near the General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant in northern Warren County.

Bowling Green doctor Nirav Sheth is Patel’s partner in the $7.7 million development, which will combine the Mainstay and Sleep Inn brands in an establishment that will cater both to those looking for an extended stay in an apartment-like suite and to those wanting a traditional hotel room.

“It’s a good fit for that area,” said Patel, who has developed hotels in Cave City and Glasgow. “The extended-stay side will be mainly for General Motors people. They can stay there a week or more, and they’ll be within walking distance of the plant.”

And Patel isn’t stopping there. He already has a Hampton Inn in the works for Cave City, a development that will give him three hotels in that Barren County town and five total in southcentral Kentucky.

So how did someone who chose a career in the medical field wind up as one of this region’s biggest hotel developers? You could say the hotel business is in Patel’s DNA.

Patel, a native of India, came to America at age 15 with his mother and two sisters and was immediately exposed to the hotel business through an uncle, Sam Patel.

“He helped me a lot,” Patel said of his uncle, who had a 40-room hotel in Madison, Tenn. “I did everything in that hotel. I cut the grass, worked in the office and cleaned rooms. I was a jack of all trades.”

Patel loved the hotel business from the start, but the same uncle who introduced him to it insisted that he go to college instead of entering the lodging industry full time.

He earned his degree from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy in 1992 and went to work for SuperX Drugs. But his uncle soon lured him back into part-time work at a 62-room Comfort Inn Sam Patel had developed in Cave City.

When the elder Patel was looking to sell the Cave City location in 1998, he found a buyer close to home.

“I told him I would like to buy the hotel,” Vick Patel said. “I asked my wife (Nima Patel), and she said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ I still worked as a pharmacist in Bowling Green.

“Before going to work I would go to the hotel. I did that for 10 years. It was tough. But there’s something about the hotel industry. You take care of the guests and you take pride in that. My wife helped a lot in those years. I couldn’t have made it without her.”

Patel’s career as a hotelier could have ended in 2008, when a short circuit in an exhaust fan caused that Cave City Comfort Inn to burn to the ground.

“I could have taken the insurance money ($2 million worth) and walked away,” Patel recalled. “My wife said no. She wanted the hotel back. It was like a baby to her.”

Despite the tight money environment of 2008, Patel was able to get the financing to build a 61-room Sleep Inn on the property. He oversaw that construction project while continuing to work as a pharmacist and study for an MBA degree at Western Kentucky University.

“I still wanted to use my MBA and go to the corporate side of pharmacy,” Patel said. “But I wasn’t getting a break, so I thought I would grow in the hotel business.

“I would come home discouraged (about the lack of pharmacy opportunities), but I kept plugging in the hotel area.”

That plugging has led to Patel employing 45 workers at his hotel properties. He expects that number to grow by 30 more with the new Bowling Green and Cave City projects.

Patel is also involved as a minority partner in a couple of Tennessee hotels.

With so many projects on his plate, Patel is looking to gradually reduce his pharmacy workload and concentrate on renting rooms. It’s a good fit for him, his wife said.

“He loves this business,” Nima Patel said. “If he walks up to one of his hotels and sees a weed, he plucks it. He takes a lot of pride in his properties and likes for them to be perfect.”

“He’s very particular about the appearance of his hotels,” agreed Kenneth Simpson of Franklin’s Kenneth Simpson Construction, builder of Patel’s hotels. “We enjoy working with him, and I have a lot of respect for him.”

These days, Patel seems to enjoy the challenges of developing hotels.

“My role is working with franchises, banks, architects and contractors to put all the pieces together,” he said. “But the real work begins when you open the doors. You have to be on your toes day-in and day-out.”

True to his pharmacy roots, Patel has come up with a prescription of sorts to keep his employees focused and his properties successful.

He calls his formula the “Three C’s,” for customer service, compliance and common sense. To meet his goal of keeping his hotels clean, Patel develops schedules for extra cleaning at times when business is slow. And he searches for employees who live up to his customer service standards.

“One of the toughest challenges is finding the right people who are customer-oriented,” he said. “Your philosophy has to be transferred into them. That’s the day-to-day battle.”