How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 75

Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea
There are “meals” that do not require much cooking, but which could bring in extra
revenue. Morning coffee with biscuits, cakes or pastries is one. When you look at the
prices people are used to paying for a coffee and a pastry at Starbucks or Costa Coffee,
for instance, it is easy to see how a few morning coffees can add up to a significant
amount of extra revenue.
The other “meal” is afternoon tea – and this can be quite substantial. It’s up to you to
decide whether a simple “cream tea” is enough, or whether you want to offer a full
English afternoon tea with finger sandwiches, pastries and cakes. Top London hotels
now charge over £20 a head for this – how much you will be able to charge depends on
your clientele and your location and the level of the market at which you operate.
Of course, both these suggestions depend on your having a suitable place to serve
coffees and teas, and one that guests will enjoy lingering in – for instance, a comfortable
lounge with a view of the garden, or a conservatory. Your breakfast room may not be
suitable.
Other practicalities
Keys
One of the key issues, forgive the pun, is the key issue. If you have not run a B&B or
hotel before, you do need to think carefully about this.
Bedroom Keys
You may think that you don’t need lockable bedrooms. Forget it. When you go and
stay in a hotel, do you leave your room unlocked? When you are browsing the local
antique shops, are you happy to think of all your personal things being in an open room
back at the B&B where you are staying? Most testing of all, do you enjoy taking a
shower, or doing even more intimate things, in a house full of strangers with the door
unlocked?
People want the reassurance of turning the key as they close the door behind them,
both on the way in and on the way out. It is as simple as that. The only question is
what sort of key, and what your key policy is (“hand in on going out”, or “keep with
you during your stay”?).
Second question: do you give your guests front door keys? This is one of the ones that
worried us most before we started (though not much since, which may either reassure
you or convince you of our recklessness). Guests will want to come and go when they
choose, within reason. Are you going to be there every minute of every day, to let in a
guest? This is not a trick question, but it needs thinking about. You may say “I never
go out anyway”, but Sod’s famous Law states that, the one time you do leave the house
for half an hour to buy eggs, orange juice and sausages will be the exact moment that
your guest returns from a long and tiring walk with an urgent need for a bath, a pee
and a cup of tea. And believe us, he will not be in a happy mood by the time he has
waited on your doorstep in the rain for 25 minutes.