The Lord Mayor's Inn in Long Beach: "10% Occupancy Would be Great!"

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The Brassers were truly amazing, and we assumed unique among bed and breakfast owners. Reuben once confided that "even 10% occupancy year round" would be a blessed improvement for his business, and for a while, we began picking up serious momentum towards a far more effective target...50%.

What happened within a very few weeks of our arrival in Long Beach at the end of October, 2003, was that Reuben--then aged about 80--fell seriously ill and had to be admitted first to hospital, then to a local extended care facility. Laura became understandably preoccupied with her husband's frail health, and the two owners made it clear that for the time being at least, we were on our own.

Jenny and I compared notes, and agreed that we had learned nothing from Laura and Reuben that was not for the most part contradicted by but in some cases supported by plain old common sense.

What guests wanted most of all from their bed and breakfast experience was cleanliness and comfort, good food, and the feeling that they were welcome...not always in that order, but there was never much daylight between priorities #s 1,2 and 3. Value for money might have nosed in at #4, but "B & B people," as many of our guests thought of themselves, were perfectly happy to pay more than the rack rate at local hotels so long as they were made to feel special.

The Brassers fell down in every possible way when it came to guest relations, from first contact when phone inquiries came in (a specimen conversation might on their end consist of, "No, we don't do that...No, I'm sorry, that's not possible...The Visitors' Bureau might have information about that... No, we don't offer discounts" and that would be one of the friendlier ones!).

As the Brassers backed away from their own business, reservations started to climb, and by the time Reuben was back on his feet late in December, Jen and I were confident that we had learned infinitely more without the owners around then we could hope to discover with them "supervising" us.

For a while, we fell back into a routine where we would work Thursday through Monday and the owners would step in while we took our "weekend" off on Tuesday and Wednesday. We lost track of the number of longer-stay guests who would welcome us back at breakfast on Thursday like long lost best pals, regaling us with tales of the chilly treatment they had received while we were gone. There was no doubt that in spite of (or perhaps because of) 15 years in business at the Lord Mayor's Inn, Reuben and Laura Brasser were wholly unsuited to running a bed and breakfast.

As time went by, our relationship with our bosses deteriorated beyond the bizarre into a conflict in which we did everything we could to make their business more successful--and profitable--and they conspired to undermine us.

On New Year's Day, we had had our first really serious butting of heads when I was summoned to the Brassers' loft apartment three blocks from the Inn as if it was a matter of the most extreme urgency--the call came in while I was in the shower, and I had to run through the rain to address what I assumed was a problem related to Reuben's health. It turned out that Laura was almost literally fuming because I had flat-out refused to comply with Reuben's demand that the hot water system in the main house be kept on low (tepid water from the hot taps) until 6pm.

I had explained to Reuben that when guests paying in most cases quite a bit more than $100 a night arrive at the Inn after a long day's travel, they have the right to expect amenities that include enough hot water for a refreshing shower before dinner. I told him, politely I thought, that it was unreasonable to deny our guests something that they would find in the cheapest of cheap motels, but that if he wanted to handle all check-ins in future, I would be happy to let him explain why hot water was being withheld.

I was lectured on my lowly status at the Lord Mayor's Inn--"We're the owners here!"--but I held my ground and said that as long as Jenny and I were in place as resident innkeepers, we would do the job to the best of our ability, confident that the already noticeable improvement in the bottom line would continue and that any extra expenses incurred because of our policies would be fully covered by additional cash flow.
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