I read somewhere not to long ago that the life expectancy of an Innkeeper is less than 6 years. Then they put the For Sale sign up! I can't remember where I read that. I do believer it. A lot of Innkeeper have come and gone in our town. It's not an easy job and not for the weak!.
Okay I'm odd, still enjoy (most times) after 25 years.
Perhaps others are more financially successful than I, but if the inn runs the owner and the owner is not enjoying the business on a personal level are there changes that could be made, a compromise between wealth and happiness?
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JimBoone said:
Okay I'm odd, still enjoy (most times) after 25 years.
Perhaps others are more financially successful than I, but if the inn runs the owner and the owner is not enjoying the business on a personal level are there changes that could be made, a compromise between wealth and happiness?
I think you may miss out on one of the biggest issues we face on a daily basis - the breakfast part. That adds another 4 hours to the workday, everyday. We can't be off doing something else behind the scenes while guests eat.
There is also the stress of the constant whinges of people who have to have exactly what they eat everyday. The fads. The allergies.
You've got the rest of it. But I'd hazard a guess, if you asked retiring innkeepers what's the one thing they are not going to miss, it's going to be making breakfast for whiny ingrates.
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Perhaps we are plain and simple enough that we get everyday folks, most aren't whiny and that helps. In most areas I try to cultivate guests that like what I like as it makes it easier to please them. What would a simple breakfast do to business? I'm not educated on the breakfast side, my one bed and breakfast visit served family style at a common table, nice variety of food and plenty to eat, but no special orders that I was aware of, counting us 29 guests at the table.
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Our first couple of years we weren't getting 'folks like us'. We get more of them now, tho. But, there are still those times when we get guests who just stayed at a posh b&b and assume we're all the same so they don't like their stay, or that we didn't have a menu, or we didn't have bagels.
It's rare that we get complaints about the first b. It's always the second.
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Going back to Hillbilly's post/comment that the life of an innkeeper was around 6 years before we become burnt out with the business and wanted to move on to something else, run away from the business and the guests.
Guess what I'm trying to ask, is it possible to change the way we do things so that we as innkeepers don't get tired and burnt out running the business and still manage financially. Are we trying so hard to be the best that we grow to hate the business? Would a change to breakfast or some other area improve the innkeepers personal life without killing the business on a financial level?
So many on the forum seem to be counting the days until they can retire and do something else, count me as the odd one, I wanted to retire to be an innkeeper. I probably do everything wrong, but after 25 years we still have fun, for us this is retirement.
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