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Our place is called Poolside Cabana With Gourmet Flair. My partner and I have stayed in both conventional and AirBnB properties all over the world, and we WANT to provide our guests with what they don’t get at the cheap, tacky places – a really good bed to sleep in, and a really good breakfast to start their day. No lumpy beds with cold cereal, instant crap coffee and stale bagels at our place!!
Once a guest reserves, I send them my Breakfast for Two menu which has about a dozen hot breakfast items listed, from a Egg Bagel to a Cajun Omelet to Scotch Eggs, to a full English Breakfast. Long-term guests get some additional choices. I ask them to tell me in advance what they want for their first morning’s breakfast, so I can shop ahead and have what they want on hand. Breakfast is served at the guests’ choice of time between 7 and 11. I’ve done the cost analysis, and our most expensive breakfast for two comes to $4.87 total food cost (4 eggs, one sausage and 4 strips of bacon, a fried tomato, 1/2 cup baked beans, 1/2 cup sauteed mushrooms, 4 slices of toast and handmade marmalade).
It DOES help that I’m a certified Personal Chef, but anyone can make egg bagels, simple omelets/scrambles, French toast, waffles/pancakes, etc. We have a coffee pot and a hot water pot with regular and decaf coffee and tea for the guests to make their own beverage. We provide liquid and powdered creamers, a couple bottles of water, a small bowl of hard candies, and a bottle of inexpensive wine (3 Buck Chuck from Whole Foods) for each new guest who comes to stay. We spent more on bottled water and half & half, than on wine.
We figure we’re making darn good money charging $84 to $90 per night
Are you licensed to cook food like a true Bnb though? If we Airbnb hosts over in the UK started doing that and the health standards department got wind of it - we would face extensive checks and costs. I think I’ll stick to offering several cereals, instant coffee and toast in the morning.
We have been hosting on Air Bnb for 6/7 yrs and have hosted 300+ different reservations and not once have we run into this problem. I personally think @Eberhard_Blocher person is just trolling us for a ‘rise’. His arguments are baseless and he continues to flip flop on his own ‘breakfast’ rule.
I have enjoyed reading what other hosts provide as extra amenities to guests.In Barcelona we provide a large jug of water, local beer, and a bottle of cava this costs 5Euro. In SF we usually leave a bottle of Wine and we do have an honor system bar that we invite guests to use, and either replace or leave a few $$. The only reason we even ask for $$$ is to prevent people from going nuts and drinking all of our liqueur. We have been toying with the idea of leaving a little gift basket in our Wine Country house but the logistics of re-filling it may be problematic given we don’t go up between every guest. (We have a very reliable and amazing cleaning crew) I might look into it now that its on my radar
Question for you hosts out there that leave snack baskets…How do you judge the proper amount of food to place in said basket? Our house sleeps 8 and I don’t want to go over board with snacks ie $$. Thoughts?
Our rental only sleep two @azreala so I can’t help you there. It is a self-contained apartment so we expect guests to realise that it is self catering (which they always do). But as check in time is 4pm we always leave a bottle of wine and snacks for their first evening. (Plus I point out the takeout / delivery menus of local restaurants). These snacks are cheese, crackers and fruit.
We also leave a few breakfast items for their first morning so they don’t have to rush to the shops - individual cereals packs (2), yogurts (2), packaged croissants (2), small bottle of milk, butter and jam. There’s also a large bottle of Perrier in the fridge and we provide coffee capsules, teabags, sugar sachets and those little tubs of creamer.
@jaquo Thank you! All of our properties are self contained houses/flats with us not on premise at all. We also provide 2 for 1 wine tasting coupons, local restaurant guide (we are for blocks from ‘main’ street), info on wine tasting etc. I have the pantries stocked with non-perishable items and condiments, but nothing ‘snakey’. We try and keep a good supply of coffee, but it is inevitable that someone takes the entire bag or somehow uses up a bag during their stay. We have had weirdos take half used balsamic bottles, etc. I have given up on the coffee for the reason that I can’t find a way to control it with out buying a keurig or something similar. We have one in SF and then we run into the problem that we didn’t provide them enough pods, etc. So, I’ve kinda moved to a BYOC (bring your own coffee) stance.
I was thinking of doing a little basket made up of Costco type of items: granola bars (6) chips (2) trail mix (2) candy (2) and a bottle of wine. Yes, I know not the healthiest but our cleaners would have to be filling it when I can not be there, so the items would need to be non-perishable etc.
To be honest, often the guests don’t eat the fruit (the healthy option) and so I get the benefit when they leave
I leave one coffee capsule per person per day (so ten if it’s two people for five days). Any real coffee-monsters can buy their own after that. I have the coffee machine for the capsules and a cafetiere for people who supply their own coffee.
My last guests asked me where they could buy the capsules locally because they enjoyed it so much. I had to tell them that I can only get it online and so gave them an extra box. Some people don’t use the coffee at all so it balances out.
It’s great if you’re retired or not working full time and you have the time to cook for your guests. Your cooked breakfast is cheap. Cheaper than the basic bread, butter, jam, and drinks that I provide.
Funny thing is, most of the food gets left behind. People buy their own soy milk, or oat milk and most don’t touch the bread and butter. It was just this strange older couple who complained as in their mind Airbnb meant BnB and from their generation that meant a cooked breakfast. Never mind what it said in the listing which they hadn’t bothered to read.
I think expecting people to provide a cooked breakfast defeats the whole purpose of providing an alternative to a hotel. It’s cheaper for a reason. I also don’t offer 24 hour room service, cable TV, fresh towels every day or a maid service.
I wonder what percentage of accommodation on Airbnb is made up of entire apartments/ houses? Because we have a separate apartment guests have never expected anything other than the bare bones. The fact that we supply snacks and so on tends to delight them.
I am Chef and Nutrition Coach who has Meal Delivery Service that offers lactose, soy and gluten free organic meals. I originally offered cooked breakfasts, but no one ever wanted them. I do offer to have meals for the guests, as long as I have three days notice. Many guests guests book day of or next day. I’M just not set up to be a short order cook. But guests don’t want to pay full price for meals, but I make everything from scratch, am always slammed keeping up with the meals for clients, as well as teaching Nutrition. So I offer mini fridge, microwave, China, coffee maker, Organic hand ground coffee, instant oatmeal, bottled water and Almond milk.
I was just wondering this very same thing this evening - how many airbnb listings are entire home vs shared? The experience is so completely different.
For example, tonight, my friendly and gregarious guests from Michigan introduced us to pickled bologna! We wouldn’t get that if we converted the space to private apartment!!!
I love meeting guests too! Although our rental is a separate apartment I have almost always met all our guests on arrival. This year they have been from Russia, Canada, Korea, Switzerland, Germany …
My current guests are from Australia. To come, I have Irish, German and Danish guests. Such fun!
I am about to bring 3 more rooms onto my account which are in a separate house across the road. I do offer breakfast in my home since I live here and it is no trouble to make it and I have strangely found it quite enjoyable. However I do not have the space or the man power, I run my Air by myself, to cook breakfast for potentially 14 people. In my listings I make it very clear from the get go, whether or not breakfast is served, in multiple locations in my listings. I will be providing “hotel” style amenities like a kettle and small fridge which I will stock with enough items to get them started. There are thousands of hosts across the world that do not offer breakfast for a variety or reasons. If the listing says no breakfast, then a guest can just skip over that listing and find another. People make booking choices for a many reasons, breakfast yay or nay is only one of them.
I’m not serving breakfast. I barely have time to make breakfast for myself! I clearly mention in my listing that a small assortment of breakfast items will be available (instant oatmeal, granola bars, yogurt in the refrigerator). I get 40-70 US dollars per night. I’m not cooking for people and no, I’m not letting them make the mess of scrambling my eggs for themselves.
Well I guess if you barely have time to make breakfast for yourself, not preparing breakfast for guests seems to be a “true Airbnb experience”. Guests should always feel like they are at home with a host, and if a host doesn’t have breakfast himself, neither should his or her guests.
I get less than 40 US dollars (equivalent) per night, and yes, I always offer breakfast to guests, because that’s what I like myself. It all depends on the host’s own preferences, I guess.
What do they pay? I hope not 50$ per night for all these goodies. By the way if it was my husband and I we would use all of it but the Coke. He would drink beer, me wine and eat all the nuts, chips and chocolate. Then we would think, wow, what a strange and unusual host in an amazing way. During our 6 years of traveling with Air we never encountered anything like that:grinning:
We don’t provide quite as much as Clyde does, @Yana_Agapova - but our regular rate is 125 per night with 135 at weekends and up to 250 for special events.
Eberhard, out of curiosity I want to know why you think that? We’ve had the discussion about the name and everyone seems to agree you don’t expect to sleep on an air mattress despite the fact that it’s in the name.
Airbnb prides itself on having some really strange and wonderful places to stay - tents, igloos, treehouses - some of them are terribly remote. Would you expect breakfast to be served there as well? If most of the items on the amenities list such as wifi, shampoos, airconditioning, heating, smoke detector, is an ‘opt in’ rather than assumed that you have it, why should breakfast be different?
I wonder, if in the shark-tank experience they are advertising ,if they feed the guests breakfast. Or do they feed the SHARKS breakfast? OR, do they feed the sharks the guest for breakfast?!
