How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 74

ceases to amaze us how many people imagine that a love of food and wine qualifies
them to open a restaurant. They seem to think that this is a self-indulgent and sybaritic
lifestyle and ideal for a relaxed semi-retirement to escape the rat race of the office and
the daily tube. Nothing could be further from the truth. Restaurants are very hard
work, hot, stressful and deprive you of any private life during the hours when everyone
else is relaxing and socializing. Nobody but a madman would want to run one –
unless they were absolutely obsessed and passionate about it and have never wanted to
do anything else.
So please, please pause if you were considering serving meals as an “extra”. Unless
you have worked in catering before, you are underestimating the work, the time
commitment and the difficulty of making meals pay. Where it does work, it is either as
a completely separate stand-alone business in its own right, OR in a strictly limited way
– for example, a simple table d’hote menu on Friday and Saturday nights only, offered
at a B&B where guests have few alternative choices for meals nearby.
Having warned you off becoming a restaurateur, there are other, less all-consuming
steps you could take as far as food is concerned, to increase your revenue. We list a
few below:
“A la carte” Breakfast Dishes
You should include a standard English cooked breakfast, or a “substantial” continental
breakfast, in your room price. Over and above this, however, you could offer extra
dishes priced individually, such as porridge, kippers, eggs Benedict, omelette Arnold
Bennett, or kedgeree. If you are licensed, you could offer Buck’s Fizz or champagne (as
we do at The Pheasants) – it won’t sell every day, but when it does, it is extra revenue
and all adds up.
A word of caution: if you do decide to offer a la carte dishes, you need to keep the
appropriate stock, and unless the dishes sell often, constantly buying some of the fresh
ingredients (like smoked haddock), or making components like hollandaise sauce for
eggs Benedict, may not be worth it. You also need to price them at a level where the
effort, ingredients costs and wastage is worthwhile and you are actually making a good
gross profit.
Packed Picnic Lunches
Another idea to consider is offering packed picnics to your guests in Summer, on a pre-
ordered basis. You need to think through exactly what you would offer, produce a
“picnic box menu” or perhaps two or three alternatives, and set a price per person and
a minimum number of people.
Again, the problem is stock. Ideally your options will be based on a combination of
ingredients you carry in stock anyway (bread, eggs, drinks etc.), packaged items that do
not perish, and fresh ingredients that are available every day at shops within a few
minutes of your B&B. Otherwise you may think you have scored a big hit getting an
order for lobster salad for £25, then find you cannot buy a lobster anywhere that day!
It is the practicalities, as ever, that you need to think through. These include the
equipment: if you offer picnic boxes, you will need several suitable re-useable picnic
sets, with means of keeping drinks and fresh food cool.
How to Start & Run a B&B
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