Winning aspects of a 2-person kitchen with staggered breakfast times.
Many of you interested in running (or wanting to improve aspects of) a guest house, B&B or small hotel will be doing so as a couple. Needless to say you need your spouse or partner on-side in this venture. It’s hard work for two people…even harder for one person alone.
It’s unnecessary to have a commercial kitchen although more space always helps. We have only a small kitchen (about 9 and half feet by 14 feet) but do benefit from sizeable L-shaped island, an attached walk-in pantry and exterior scullery.
Our 3’x5′ L-shaped island is the central station in our kitchen. It’s essential for final prep and plating up dishes and supports the toast making station.
On the other side of the island is the cooking station – a Rangemaster induction range with 5 cooktop zones and ample space either side of it to support Ninja Foodi multi-cookers and a portable induction cooktop (when required). On the other side of the island is the coffee/tea station.
In a small kitchen (or any kitchen) you need to define working spaces and job responsibilities.
As in our case, you may have one of you that has the more outgoing personality and one happier as the support act. It works perfectly for us.
One of us does the cooking, primary plating-up and table-waiting, the other handles the toast-making, tea and coffee station, final touches to each plate before served to guests and generally oversees that everything is in order.
If there’s just one of you, I’d recommend investing in a really good toaster and coffee machine and setting aside an area in your dining room (or adjacent space) for guests to make their own toast and coffee.
If you’re flying solo, it becomes even more important to master the following step…
Staggered breakfast times!
In our guest house we’re licensed to accommodate 8 paying guests. (Might not seem like a lot but is ample to provide a very good income – more about this in a later episode). However, you definitely don’t want all 8 guests arriving in the breakfast room at the same time. It would make for a chaotic, uncomfortable and sub-standard breakfast experience.
By staggering your breakfast times you create a harmonious breakfast environment where each set of guests is greeted on arrival, introduced to the sumptuous cold buffet mentioned in a previous post and then introduced to other guests already in the dining room (Yes, introduced!)
Ideally, you want 30 minutes between guest arrivals in the dining room, but 15 minutes will do. And, in our experience, all guests either don’t usually choose the same time (say 8:30am), or are quite happy to arrive 15 minutes earlier or later than their preferred time.
And here’s how it works at our winning guest-house:
- Guests arrive at the dining room at their chosen time
- Guests are introduced to other guests already in the dining room and provided with a conversation opener, even if it’s just to state where they’re from (allowing fellow guests to run with the topic of conversation)
- Guests are introduced to the extensive offerings of the cold buffet (cereals including home-made granola, a variety of nuts and dried berries as toppers, Greek yoghurt, berry compote, fruit juices, honeys, fresh fruit salad, chia puddings and overnight oats)
- Now is the opportune time to discover whether they want tea of coffee with their breakfast (but you might already know their preference from the all important 30 minutes you spent with them on arrival the day before – see prior episode)
- Opportunity to remove any empty breakfast bowls or dishes from the tables of earlier guests and ask if they’d like more tea or coffee
- While the newly arrived guests are helping themselves to the sumptuous cold buffet, the new tea coffee order is relayed and preparation of their hot breakfast choice (given to you the evening before) begins
- When their tea or coffee order is taken to their table you’re able to see what they’ve selected from the cold buffet (if anything) which then allows you to either hurry the hot dishes along or slow things down to allow them time to enjoy their cold selections
(Note: as mentioned in a previous episode, guests are asked the night before to select their breakfast choice for the following morning from a variety of hot dishes available as per the breakfast menu placed on their bed the day before)
With the above guest-management in place each of your guests is going to feel valued and that they’ve enjoyed a premium and personal breakfast experience.
