Editor's Note: The Valley Reporter checked in with the owners of three new businesses that enjoyed their first full year in The Valley in 2014 to see how things were going. Read on for details about Mad River Barn, The Elusive Moose and White Horse Inn.
So far, so good at The Elusive Moose
By Rachel Goff
It's been over a year since Marty Locke and Ginger Delin opened The Elusive Moose Pub & Eatery in the purple bungalow on Route 100 in Waitsfield and so far business has been good.
"Obviously, when the mountain's busy, we're busy," Locke said, referring to the hordes of out-of-staters who flock to The Valley ski areas, lodges, restaurants and bars during the winter. But in addition to the snow seekers, "We seem to have a very dedicated following of locals," Locke said.
In opening The Elusive Moose, the biggest change for Locke and Delin, who used to own a restaurant in New Jersey, has been adjusting to the "abrupt seasonality" of The Valley," Locke said. At times, it feels like "an on-off switch," when ski season starts and ends, he said, but he's excited about the growing popularity of summer sports like mountain biking and moving forward would like to make The Elusive Moose "more of a focal point" for those Valley visitors.
Eventually, instead of restaurants catering to those coming to the area for outdoor recreation, Locke is hoping people will come to the area for the restaurants themselves. "I'm hoping that over time we can make this a food destination," Locke said of The Valley. "There are so many talented people here."
Right now, The Elusive Moose Pub & Eatery serves breakfast and lunch on one side of the building and dinner, bar bites and drinks on the other. Before, the building was split into two separate businesses, Purple Moon Pub and Easy Street Cafe, and "I think if there's anything we need to work on, it's messaging," Locke said, so that people know the two sides of the building are now operating in conjunction.
"Someday, we'd like to knock this wall down and make it one big space," Locke said, but the owners' future plans for the restaurant will honor its history. "This building has been a lot of things since the 1960s," Locke said. "I think eventually we'll pay some homage to that," he said, maybe in the form of putting up old signs or bringing back old bar stools, but for now, "I just want to thank all the locals for being so supportive," Locke said. "What makes this business so rich is not the sales but the relationships we've formed."
Things got busier sooner than expected at Mad River Barn
By Lisa Loomis
"We got busier sooner than we thought we were going to," said Heather Lynds, who with her husband Andy re-opened Mad River Barn on Route 17 in Fayston shortly before the start of the last ski season, after an extensive renovation.
"We've been thrilled. Living here is everything we thought it would be. We're so grateful for the support of the other business owners in The Valley," she said.
How quickly the business grew caught the Lyndses off guard. They exceeded their first year expectations and were delighted to find that they formed such strong relationships with their staff.
"They feel like family to me. We wake up and have fun with the people we work with. We had a feeling The Valley would be like this. We researched it before picking it and it turned out to be true. I love the people here," she said.
The success of the restaurant has been their biggest surprise. The upstairs pub and game room is packed many nights of the week with people ordering a la carte and kids playing foosball.
"We weren't really counting on that when we started but it works for people who tend to enjoy the barn. We try to be very honest with people about the fact that it is loud and there's a lot of activity and people have to be OK with that," she said.
Initially they were offering menu service upstairs and family-style buffet dining downstairs in the dining room, but after this holiday season they've gone to menu service in both places.
In terms of their guests, they found they had a lot of guests from before the inn was closed and renovated as well as a host of new ones and they found that their guests enjoy how social the inn is.
"Andy and I walk around with a grin most weekends. We get so much joy from watching families make memories here. We've got kids who are growing up here at the Barn. It's their weekend getaway," she said.
They have a number of rooms that are small suites where there is room for kids and a separate sleeping area for kids. Those rooms are their most popular and were already booked for the entire ski season by the end of October. So next spring they are going to remodel four of the eight units in the annex building just up the hill from the inn into similar suites.
They are looking for a new name for the annex and are accepting suggestions from locals and guests. The winner gets a free dinner.
Sold out every weekend at White Horse Inn
By Lisa Loomis
In their first year of owning and operating White Horse Inn, Bob Heffernan and Alan Zeiner hosted 5,378 guests, surprising themselves and exceeding their business plan by 71 percent.
"That's pretty surprising considering the place was closed for two years," Heffernan said.
"The biggest surprise was that we were sold out every weekend from July 1 to November 15 at a time we were supposed to be slow. Our year was heavy with weddings and we did some retreats, conferences and foliage buses. We went after the group market because we can, with 26 rooms. Needless to say, a cool thing about White Horse Inn is that the place has paid its bills in its first year," he added.
Their guests were a mix of former customers who had stayed their 5 or 10 years ago and new guests. Last year they had a group of Cornell medical students, the leader of whom had stayed at the inn as a child.
"We have those Cornell students coming in two weeks. It is very gratifying to have all that," he said.
The biggest surprise for the innkeepers was how busy they were on the off season.
"There was no off season. October was as high in sales as a big ski month. That was nowhere in our planning. The Valley is such a vast wedding destination that there's a shortage of hotel rooms on most weekends from July to October. I just had people jockeying for a weekend in July because of a wedding. The Valley can support 5 to 15 weddings a weekend and with each of them attracting 100 to 200 people, there aren't enough hotel rooms," he said.
And with the guests come the questions about what to do and where to eat.
"We didn't realize we had so much power to recommend where people go to eat. We weren't prepared for that. We have a book of menus. It's amazing how much guests lean on us for their recommendation," Heffernan said.
"We found ourselves a big, huge family destination and our guests have big families and there are lots of kids here. We're heavy with children, which is fine by us. Sometimes we get phantom groups, which are groups of people who book independently and when they all get here they show up and have a party. We've had a lot of fun with that," he said.
He and Alan enjoy what happens when a phantom or wedding group take over the inn.
"It's really fun when people know each other and are there to have a great time. It's great to see people telling stories and laughing and having a party," he said.
They are learning how to balance all their new duties and the simple things like going to the post office. They had a rare night with no guests in November so they drove to Montreal for the night. Other times they've sneaked over the hill to Bristol where Heffernan's mother lives.
They've been heavily lobbied by locals to open a breakfast restaurant, but they don't see that happening soon due to parking lot and kitchen limitations. They were sold out for 10 days over the Christmas holiday and are sold out another 10 days coming into the Martin Luther King birthday weekend.
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