Hello friends and travelers. Thanks for listening. You are riding along on the Hostel Road Trip podcast. Our mission is to spread awareness of the true hostile experience in the Americas and share stories from the fascinating hosts who create those unique facilities.
I'm your host Jimmy Black, joined alongside co-founder of International Travelers House Bobby Dyer and Eric Feria, co-founder of World Packers.
Each session we sit down with hostile operators or travel influencers to hear about their road success, discuss trending hostile topics, and close with tips for travelers who are seeking to have the ultimate experience when visiting each destination.
You can't afford to miss this trip. Now fasten your seatbelts and let's hit the road.
Welcome back to Hostel Road Trip. It's Jimmy Black with my good man and co-founder Bobby Dyer. Great to be here in Ludlow. Co-founder of World Packers Eric Feria. Thank you so much. Very excited to be here.
And the founder and owner of the Homestyle Hostel, Justin. Gentlemen, pleasure to have you in my home. Thank you. Yes. And Homestyle is such a perfect name because as we just took a tour of this badass establishment,
it's just got so many cool features to it and the story behind the hostel and very excited to jump into this first section. So you told us a bit about it and you purchased it in 2014.
But give us a little bit of the history of this building. It was built as a doctor's residence back when? Yeah, so 1832. Ludlow was incorporated in 1761, which is a long time ago. Yeah.
It started off as a rural farming community. However, there's a lot of mines, stone mines, marble quarries, different things all around Ludlow. So it always was a source of wealth.
So the wealthy aristocrats from the bigger cities of Vermont would come do a little bit of farming around here, invest in the land. Plus we have a river running right through our valley, which means fertile soil for everybody.
So a little gestalt of history there. This house was built in 1832 to a Dr. Haven White. It's gone through many transformations since then, but a lot of it is all original. Staircases are original.
The flooring was obviously not 1832, but very, very long ago. Yes. And all the wood trims and fine details went through many things. But when we purchased it in 2014, it was operated as an art gallery at that point, which I can see would be pretty cool because as we talked about it, it's got like a labyrinth to it.
And so many passageways and you're walking through the house and I can't believe how big this place is. As you're looking from the outside, you didn't think that it had this much space.
So you know, you could see how it could be used in art gallery, but definitely what a cool space and project for a hostel. And you know, from some of the things you showed us to the old growth boards that you got in the kitchen there that are, you know, as wide as 18 inches in some of them.
24 inches. I mean, you just don't see that type of old growth wood anymore. And you've also got old horse stalls in the back that you've kept. What was that you kept back there?
It was an old horse stall, but we needed a restroom for one of our dorm rooms. So I took the boards out of the old horse stall and made a bar top out of them.
Which is so cool because as you enter the first portion of this homestyle hostel, you're very much in a little cozy restaurant bar, which we want to dive into a little bit in the next section.
But before we do, just to talk more about the facility in itself, in the first portion and upstairs, we've got a lot of private rooms.
But then you've got in a cool way and something that I've always enjoyed separated in a different part of the house is the dorm rooms, which gives it that option of the backpack or bunk feel. But then you can still have this social experience by staying in a private room.
Tell us a bit about the different style rooms you have here.
So we're at the base of O'Kimo Mountain. People like to call it a four season resort, but it's a three season because mud season, aka spring is not what Vermont is known for.
Mud and stick season, I'm told.
That's when we go and travel.
So it's a three season resort. It's always been known as a family mountain.
So when we were building the hostel, we wanted to appeal to as many broad spectrum of potential travelers as possible.
A, because it's good for business and B, because with the ever changing economy and the ever changing dichotomy of how people spend money and what family makeup is going to be.
Maybe some guys from Manhattan that are young professionals want to come up for a weekend. Maybe a whole family wants to come up. So on and so forth.
So we built a suite. We built some private queen rooms. We built a queen room with a bunk bed, private set of bunks, obviously the dorm rooms.
So we have eight rooms total and honestly all walks of life come and stay.
And that's what's so cool. And a big part of this podcast series is to highlight that hostels are safe, they're secure, but when you get past those elements, it's not just for the youth. They're not youth.
And in America, as we're traveling around and going to all these different fine locations, we're finding more and more that the operational setup is dedicated to a wide range of demographic.
Just like you have here where you could clearly come as a couple getaway, a family with kids or a couple of backpackers traveling either solo or together on the road. You really have it all.
Now, what about price range within these rooms? Dorm rooms to privates. What's our price range?
So a lot of people in the area do what they call dynamic pricing. So it means it fluctuates throughout the year and the given dates.
When we first opened, I was so opposed to dynamic pricing. I just said we're going to keep it real cheap. Get our name out there. Learn from the moves. See what's selling, what's not selling and set an aggressive price point, which we did.
We started off selling our dorms at 35 bucks with breakfast included and all the amenities that we offer. Awesome.
We were getting beat up because a lot of people wouldn't stay in the dorms. They would want to stay in the private rooms. So the dorms were taking a hit because the only way that you can sell a dorm at 35 bucks or 40 bucks a night is if you sell more than one bed.
Otherwise, they're getting a private room for 30 bucks. Yeah. So we learned through that. We do do dynamic pricing. I capitulated. I can't. We do it now.
But it's seasonal and we're right off the long trail. A lot of people like to do the Appalachian Trail. Yeah. And we're part of it on the long trail. That's the remote portion. So we're about 20 minutes off from that.
We kept our dorm rooms at 40 bucks. That's every day. Low price. Okay. And then the private rooms fluctuate between $75 is what it starts at. And it goes up to $350.
And that fluctuates depending on what size room, what kind of room, how many people, the day of the week, all that good stuff. Cool. So you have the range of pricing, the range of experience.
And then they've got this ability to enjoy this cool bar and restaurant. But now, how about a little bit of your personal story? How did you find yourself getting exposed to the hostel industry? Was it first as a backpacker?
Or did you ever work at a hostel before this? How did you get into it? Yeah. I never ever thought I would ever even work at a hostel or a hotel or anything like that. I was in my bag. I was a bartender. Okay.
I graduated Black River High School, which is a local high school here, 2006. Means I'm 31. Almost. And when I turned 18, I said, you know what? I got to go. I've been in this podunk town, not doing anything forever.
I moved out to Boulder, Colorado. I spent five or six years there. Started bartending to pay the bills. Loved it. Relocated with my girlfriend, who actually is co-owner of this with me. We've been together for about 11 years.
Relocated to Saratoga, New York. Worked there for a track season. They're a big horse racing community there. Yeah. Track season is mid-July to I think late August.
It was a crazy six weeks. Saved up enough money to travel South America for a year. That's where I was from. Yeah. All right. Brazil. I'm from Brazil. Nice.
Actually, my new bartender over at Man of Mountain is from Brazil. He is killing it. I'm super happy to have him. Shout out to Gabe.
So I budgeted out to be $17 a day. We went for 10 months. I started in Ecuador, did three months. Then we went to Peru for three months. I taught kids how to skateboard and surf, which is killer. Awesome.
Went to Olivia for three weeks and then went to Columbia for three months. All during that time, because I was living on $17 or $19 a day, I would do work trades. I would go up to a hostel and be like, I will work for you whatever you want me to do.
I just need free place to stretch this dollar out. Yeah. And they all open-armed welcoming. So this hostel is adapted from the South American model of hosteling, which is why there's a bar, why there's a restaurant on site. We wanted to be all under one roof. Yeah. Outstanding.
Do you have a particular hostel that inspired you or one that... There are quite a few. I think the one that we decided this is what we wanted to do was in Minca and it was called La Casa Loma.
Minca is in Santa Marta, outside of Santa Marta, Columbia. We really started writing the business plan and getting the nuts and bolts to this place there. Big shout out to Parawanna Hostels and Cusco as well.
You'll probably be listening to us. Oh yeah. Parawanna, Cusco. Love you guys. Thank you.
That's great. Now, Eric owns World Packers, which is a staffing company that was formed in Brazil, but really is talking about what your experience was, but putting it into the more digital age format where you can find hostel workers with different language
chats, skill sets, help set up time periods. What used to happen organically with you just walking out to him, he's really created the business model for a platform. Well, that's great because if you think about how many people teach English as a foreign language and travel
is that way. Or woof, working on organic farms. How many people would want to just travel World Pack and stay at hostels? Home run. Good way of learning, right? Great way of learning. If I didn't do hands on it, I didn't actually see the
nuts and bolts of what this business contains and pertains to. I would never have done it. And that's so cool because I think we've had similar paths. Bob and myself, if you had told me at any point during my time studying
that you're going to be in the hospitality industry and you're going to own and run a hostel, I'd be like, what is a hostel? Because I didn't get to see one until I studied abroad in college. I was in Ireland and I started to think, if these things were around my buddies, I would never stay in a hotel. Where are these places?
So that's a big part of what we're doing on this podcast series is just highlighting that there are all of these awesome places that have popped up in the past five or 10 years from people like ourselves that went abroad, saw this experience, realized that we've got to bring it home.
And we've got to open up establishments and we're on the road taking this hostel road trip to show that you can travel the country by just staying in hostels. Absolutely you can. I think our infrastructure is and our how spread out we are is a major obstacle.
Yes. But then you look at the market trends and you say, okay, well, big name hotel companies getting into it. They're doing it. And there's multi-million dollar hostels opening up in these big city centers.
And venture capitalists are pounding down the door trying to buy out smaller operations. So another part of our objective is to highlight the smaller operators like ourselves so they don't get smothered up, eaten up before the millennial demographic has a chance to experience it. Because I think that the larger operators can't capture the same experience.
They won't be able to. Hostels almost by definition are mom and pop. Yes.
Because there's something intangible that you bring to the business. Your character. Yeah. Yeah. That transcends the stack. And you can really feel it. Right. Yeah. Similar. Those larger companies like Marriott and, you know, generator and free hand. They're creating these hostile like experiences. But the end of the day, they're just a hotel. So, you know, it's a clear cut difference. What you get when you stay at a, you know, premium hostel versus if you stay at a hotel that's trying to have hostile like events, you know, because the mom and pop operators got into it because it was their passion and their blood.
Sweating tears was in the walls. You can feel it on the day to day operation. Where these larger operators are getting into it because the margins and they're seeing the bottom line and they're wanting to get into that niche of the industry for that reason. But you can tell it's not the same. The traveler can definitely tell. Yeah. The authentic backpack. He says something before in the other podcast. I think it's pretty cool. You can fake a party. Right. Yeah. So you're going to be real. It's going to be you. It's going to be real. It's going to be what you want to do. Right. And you love it.
All right. Well, we are just getting some fantastic info here about the homestyle hostel here in Vermont. And we will be back after this short break by our sponsors with Justin. We're going to talk a little bit about the trending topic in the American history of having a bar restaurant in your
hostel since you are one of these operators that has taken that step and obviously knocked it out of the park. All right. Stay tuned for more. This podcast is fueled by cloud beds. The Americas premiere real time property management cloud based software managing over 17000 properties worldwide, including six of my own handling all of our needs from managing guests and reservations, distributing room availabilities, saving inventories and collecting paints.
Welcome back to Hostel Road Trip. We are here with Justin. Hey, Bobby. Good to be here. And Eric. Thank you. And we are cruising through another smooth episode in Vermont. What a pleasure it has been to be here. Our third episode in the Spine State compared to two in New Hampshire. And we're heading to Maine next to record with the Black Elephant Hostel in Portland, which is a new thriving spot.
We're going to be with them tomorrow morning, but we have just had an amazing New England tour and we're excited to hear more about what Justin's got going on here. But obviously one of the main features is this really cool restaurant bar you have here. And we were just at the Hostel Tevere on the Mad River Valley. And they've got this cool burger bar joint, same type of layout within an old house that's connected smoothly into their hospitality option.
And we got to pick his brain a good deal. Giles, shout out to you. And we got to hear his experience of the obstacles of building that bar, having the operation in, the advantage of expanding the financial footprint of your existing guests, but also the wildly advantageous situation of being able to accept people from the outside of the hostel that are not staying there.
And the profound positive impact that can have on community outreach and your perception within the community. It's a lot of hostels struggle with the neighbors not liking them. So Justin, please tell us more about your experience that was crafted in Brazil or not Brazil, but South America, and seeing a lot of these operators down there that had the bar inside.
And how that's gone for you in establishing a separate business entity or separate business model or operation within your existing hostel.
Yeah, as you guys already know, a lot of South American hostels, the model is all under one roof. That way they can maximize their profits. When I was writing my business plan in Minka, because the bank, they just look at the cold hearted numbers. They don't care what gut feeling you have.
So my goal was to try to tell them that the $35 a night traveler is going to be willing to spend $11 on a cocktail. That's a hard sell.
That's a good point.
So it took a lot of finesse and a lot of because I'm from here. I understand the drinking habits of the people. I understand the moods and the attitudes of the people. And I also understand that I will be probably more welcomed in my neighborhood as a neighbor than John Schmoe from Connecticut or whatever.
Very true. Very true. So that's what I hung my hat on in that regards. I'm a bartender by trade. That's what I've always really liked to do. So yes, we wanted to open up a random cocktail, a Negroni for instance. A lot of people don't know what a Negroni is from around here.
So I would be able to make them their first Negroni plus all the other experiments. So what I did was I said, okay, well, I'll do an $11 cocktail and I'll do a $3 PBR.
Nice.
I'll fill the gap in between. So you can come in and you can have a $3 beer. You can have a $12 or $13 cocktail. Totally up to you, up to your budget.
Yeah.
And I would no shit.
No, you can swear.
I would sit there because people would come up and they say, God, I don't know how you're doing it. Eating and drinking, selling a $35 room. This is great. I'm getting a deal of century. I'm like, cool, man. You're only like 80 bucks from your dude.
Can I get you another beer? So by offering a lower price point lodging option and having the ability to not necessarily over serve people, but have them definitely enjoy themselves here, you're able to get more money.
Very good point.
Yeah, we experienced when you have that lower price point, you're freed up a lot of their spending money to spend it elsewhere. And because they're here, they're spending it with you anyway.
That's right. I agree.
Okay. So I mean, that is just a great example for people to hear though. In the same way you have your range from the private room that might be over $300 to the bunk that's 35 or 40. You also have within your model of the bar that $3 PBR to that $12 cocktail.
And I also built, so when we first did all the price pointing on these rooms, it was not to exceed $50 per head.
So if you fill the room to the correct amount of people that are supposed to stay in that room, that's great. That was very affordable. Yeah, that definitely works out well.
Now, with the experience you've had dealing with the stigma of hostiles having a bad perception of bad reputation, you know, as a person that was clearly breaking in and making the first ever hostile in this town, and probably the person that might have introduced the word hostile to some people in this town.
How would you say this bar restaurant that's open to the community has helped be a form of community outreach and perception barrier breaking down of the hostile industry as a whole.
So I think almost the most important thing is when people come to eat here that don't stay here just open to the public, we're known as the hostile. So that right there will at least de stigmatize it in a lot of people's minds that you're not even necessarily staying here.
Oh, we're going to the hostel for dinner. Yeah, cool. So they're going to associate, you know, down the road, hostiles aren't that bad. And I don't mind carrying that weight, you know, like a needle song.
Old troubadour.
You know, I, I've never minded everybody's, you know, got connotations about any word in your life that you've ever heard personal or societal or whatever cultural. So I've never really taken offense to people that say, Oh, are you a youth youth also or I'm a little older or whatever the case maybe I've always explained it to them like, No, you know, we have a guy named Alan who comes every Tuesday with a Miller Lite case and stays in the dorms and skis. He's 83 and he's retired.
There you go. You know, just hostels are for anybody that are looking for a social style of stay. Yeah, that's really what it is. That's a great way to put it and I and we all have these same type of experiences. And one of them, you know, we've got a couple hostels out in San Diego, and I've got friends that come and visit over the years.
And I'm like, Hey, man, I'll get you a bunk. I can get your private room. And the other one, I'm not doing that. I was in college. I know I could get a room at the super eight and have a better man. It's so sad to see you blocked from having this experience because of all the bad perceptions that are out there.
So I think it is huge impact that you can have an operators like yourself that they say I'm going to eat at the hostel. I'm not staying there. You know, I've never heard of one but I'm going to have dinner there and I'm proudly saying I'm eating at the hostel because our previous episode with hostels very where they had the mad burger joy.
That was one of his obstacles he's surrounded by this condo community of like 100 condos behind them. And at first they tried to stop them from opening, and then slowly but surely they started coming in and eating and drinking and now they're all regulars but for the longest time, they have the obstacle of like, I'm going to eat at a hostel.
This doesn't sound safe. Yeah, you find with the guests that come in for dinner or drinks to you often have a conversation with most of them about what a hostile is and what goes on upstairs or.
So I have found that there are certain people you don't want to stay at the hostel, as weird as that sounds like there's a certain type of traveler and type of mindset that allows people really really appreciate and enjoy what a possible can bring for them.
There's other people that just don't. And that's totally fine bars sitting down a couple that comes in for dinner. And then you got a guy who comes out of the back room of the dorm with his hair on place.
And then you got a business traveler comes upstairs, kind of like a joke you know back packer businessman walking the bar. It's going to sound so cliche.
But I've seen more friendships built at this bar than anywhere else in my life.
They'll go out and they'll ski together, they'll keep in touch via Facebook or via email. Yeah, and then they'll come back at the same dates and stay together it just it's, it's great.
It's a great feeling. And it does sound corny sometimes and I, but I tell my friends that all the time it's like man, you feel like you're changing the world one day at a time when you see all these beautiful relationships being made or these perceptions culturally being broken
down because now you've met this guy from Iran and all Iranians aren't bad people because you know that team was a great guy you know so stereotypes can be smashed to yes smithereens.
Yes, at a hostile absolutely it's an incubator in that way of kind of getting rid of those kind of bad vibes and can work out so well to see that happen.
We just recently got a postcard. I don't even personally remember the couple, but this guy said this long winded postcard as much to fill on it.
So I was hey, I met my wife at your hostel, we were both traveling solo managed to each other we start traveling together. We got engaged a year later, we just got married, she's pregnant.
I just wanted to say thanks for opening up that shop and having that. And that's why we do what we do. Yeah, they came back and wanted to stay in the same room in the same beds when they first met.
So you get really cool like stories like that experiences like that, that I think it's, it's cool for other potential hostile operators to hear about.
It really isn't just about the party, you know, and isn't just about you know chasing girls or having fun. There's a really genuine authentic experience that you can have where you do feel like you're having a profound impact on people's lives and making a positive change.
And there's not many jobs anymore that you can say do that. You know what's hilarious. I'm still 30 not 31 yet. You would think that two people that are in their late 20s early 30s would just have a party hostile.
I, this could not be further from a party hostile is so weird. It's very yeah you can tell we have.
It wasn't the natural progression of the place wasn't a party hostile. It was more like, we have people from the area that will come and do staycations here for a weekend with all their friends.
And we'll have the same people return to us, you know, season after season month after month to stay with us, almost for an experience but not the party experience. So it's so weird because I like to party.
That's so true but the hostiling the authentic constantly experience isn't necessarily a blackout party. It's not just isn't can be.
But the real one is not deep connections. Yes, that's right. Real connection. I feel like nowadays, it's almost like a skate from the online world. Yeah, so you don't get those connections and those opportunities right.
I think they are made by people. You can like increase your networking right. Yeah, I always say we're so desensitized with all of our apparatus is an iPad and iPhones and everyone's always checking away and this is one of those raw moments where you're like I want to turn my phone off and just soak in the people that are in this room.
Yeah, and you don't get that much anymore. So I think it's a experience we have to protect in that way and make sure that hostels once again are something that British field to shout proudly that I own a hostel and not have someone say, are you doing okay.
Do you need some help.
I feel that question. I think I almost went crazy the first two years.
I wouldn't be that busy right. Well, how you doing.
The hand on the shoulder. You were doing so good.
There's not one dude in the waiting room.
You guys got everything.
Okay.
You're really gets you angry. I almost just had a QuickBooks report.
I'm apples. You want to invest in some VCs. I just bought the place across the street. That's how I'm doing.
But it's so true and it's hard for them to understand or pontificate how this work. Yeah, you know, they're more just curious not again, different market.
Over and over and over again. Yeah, if it comes tough, I'm doing it all over again over there. Yeah. All right. So we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to get back into it here.
And we're just having a final time here in Vermont at the Homestyle Hostel of Justice. You stay tuned.
So we are here at the Homestyle Hostel in Vermont, just before we travel on to Portland, Maine for our next episode.
We're talking a bit more about what makes this hostile experience special and some of the events and things that you have going on too.
But really wanted to first highlight as we talked a little bit earlier in the episode about is that this hostile like most genuine authentic hostiles caters to all walks of life, all ages, all demographics.
And as you said, you have it set up so that you have the private rooms to the bunk rooms.
Do you say would you say that there's any operational challenge to cater to all of that demographic under one roof?
Short answer is no, because as you gentlemen know, reading somebody and their body language and being able to have that skill.
If you're the one doing the day to day operations, you're able to kind of mitigate and patrol based on that. And also this is just the restaurant and bar so small.
It's just a square. Yeah. So when we're full, we're full. You know, the public is not necessarily integrating with the hostile guests.
The rooms are all, you know, scattered out throughout this old house and the public is relegated to right here.
So I've never had a fight or any sort of argument here.
That's great. And I think that's so important for people to know, because a lot of times you would think having a bar inside of this hostile would only throw gasoline on the fire as far as your safety concerns your liability.
But it sounds and looks like to us that you have a nice flowing operation to the point where the hostile guests are not exposed to any further liability or issues by the restaurant guests and vice versa.
So would you say that there's any type of operational tactical strategy you use to have that success or is it just more so the setup and the layout of the building?
I'd say it's a combo of both, you know, if you're ever going to be open to the public as a place that offers overnight accommodations, you're going to want to segregate those spaces anyway, just by natural flow of people.
And then also, you know, it sounds so cliche again. I love being full of cliches. Go with your gut. You know, if you get a bad read from somebody when they first walk in, chances are they're a bad read.
As we've talked with on other episodes and what we experienced with our staff when we're training them and they'll ask, how do you know? And I was like, it gets better with time.
And then all of a sudden you feel like you're like a voodoo magic person, like you're a bad-ass.
It's just calling out. I think that does come with time and the flow of things, but definitely a very important aspect to have is when you have those combining of those two groups that you would have it set up so that neither one of them are exposed to any type of liable situation or dangerous situation.
You were mentioning there was a three season town. What kind of travelers show up in each season, would you say?
So we're going into what we call leaf peeper season because our green mountains turn a brilliant gold, orange and red hue.
The foliage.
So with that brings a lot of international travelers because Vermont and the Northeast, New England in particular, are known as very, very vibrant colors.
So we get a lot of Asian tourism. We get a lot of European tourism. We get a decent amount of Canadian tourism year round just because we're right next to Montreal. We're like three and a half hours south.
But I'd say the bulk of our business is Northeast travelers coming up here.
By no means does that mean that we don't get international travelers.
But that's been one of the cool experiences we've had on this kind of sector of the road trip podcast here that we're doing is that in these Vermont hostels, New Hampshire hostels, it is predominantly Americans staying here.
And that's a big part of the objective of this podcast series is to bring awareness to the American demographic to try out hostels.
So we've been very encouraged to see how many Americans are meeting on the road staying at these hostels as we were at the Burlington Hostel last night where we did an episode last night.
I don't know if I ran into an international person there. The closest thing were the two Canadians that we ran into.
Yeah, but that it was very much an American feel, which was encouraging to see.
Now, within your operation, we also saw some cool things within your operational strategies that kind of give you your unique experience. You had a lot of local art laid out on the walls.
Yes. Tell us how you set that up so other operators might kind of follow that lead.
Yes, I'm from around here. So it's a little easier for me. I just reached out to local artists that whom I I've known their work.
Cool with the new. Exactly. So I knew kind of who I liked and who I want to feature on these walls. But what's been a home run for us is we don't have a lot of money to spend in art and certain interior design things.
So I just reached out to the artist and I said, listen, I don't want any commission from selling your artwork. I'm not in art.
You're not an art dealer. I want you guys to work hard enough. And if you sell it, that's great.
You know, starving artists. Yeah, really. Just, you know, fill our walls.
This lady, Amy Mosher, who does all these oil canvas paints, she sold probably 20 of them since we opened.
Wow. And they're all original prints and people come in for dinner. If it's a birthday dinner and the wife likes one, the husband will buy one.
We have Amy, there's Rebecca, there's Dan, there's Marsha. There's all these local artists that make not just paintings, but wall art and lithographs and graphic designs and whatever it might be.
And we just say, hey, put them on our walls. You know, and I think that's it's got so many valuable assets within that strategy.
One is, you know, you're in a bar, tenured by trade, you're a hostile owner, you're in real estate now, you got a portfolio, you got enough on your plate.
You don't need to be doing interior decorating and you don't have the time, maybe not even the passion or the money to do so.
As those interior decorators, you can charge an arm and a leg just to walk through your space. That's right.
And give you an opinion, you know, that you probably already knew.
This needs a picture. You don't know.
$2,000! That's a change!
Where you could have local artists come in, put up some badass art, fill that void that you don't have, but then back to that community outreach.
How popular you are now amongst that artist community. Exactly.
You're very much well received. Now they tell their boyfriend, well, this is who I'm selling my art through.
Now that guy tells everyone at the mechanic shop, well, that's not a bad place.
It spreads through because you're interacting with the community in a positive way, in a mutually beneficial way.
And I just have always been a big fan of that style of bringing in the local artists.
We at ArtPlace don't do the consignment camps, but we bring in artists to paint wall murals that are permanent.
But then they get to tag it and they Instagram it and they do their thing.
So it's the marketing for them and they'll put their information on it.
But we've always been such a fan of that and bringing in the community.
Great way to showcase local artists.
My buddy Sam Hammer does work stays at Hofstorl's and he trades instead of actually working there.
He goes, I'll paint a mural. That's it. Shout out Golden Milk.
I love it. But that's it.
That is a great way to get the community involved, a great way to bring a unique decor to your spa.
And just a really cool way to fill that void of interior decor, which a lot of us just don't have the time or the money to handle.
Or the eye.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'd have everything decorated with like bearskins and everything.
Oh, I saw this show. She's like, you want something real regal, like golden red tapestries with like the paisley prints.
That's so true. So yeah, that's a really cool thing that you got going on there.
Now, how about just a little bit more over into the restaurant side of things?
What kind of food do you serve? Yeah. So great question.
We have a very limited menu, about 15 items. It's all meant to be shared.
As you can see, we don't have heat lamps. It's not a proper industrial kitchen, a social kitchen by any means, because we weren't a restaurant when we opened up.
So what we do is we have a great chef.
She is from Weston, which is just over what we call Terrible Mountain, about 15 minutes away.
She did her residency to be a chef in Italy. So she's quite good. She knows what the hell she's doing.
We make everything from scratch. She hand rolls her own pasta, hand makes her own ice cream, hand makes her own bread, hand makes literally every single thing on the menu.
That's awesome. And we just serve them in big dishes. When it's ready, it's ready. It's all family style.
And we've cultivated quite a following because of that. Just doing it how we would like to eat.
When I go out, I don't want just a steak. I want a little bit of Eliza's chicken. I want a little bit of salmon.
So by doing it this way, we're able to.
That's awesome. I think I'd enjoy it. I'm the youngest of six kids. So by just growing up, I felt that how everyone would eat.
I was like, what do you mean? I can't touch your plate. Everyone touches my plate.
So watch out when we go out to eat later tonight.
But I think that's an awesome thing. The Hostel Taveri episode, he was talking a lot about just keeping it simple, you know, and not overdoing it and not trying to overextend yourself.
And as we talked about last episode, everyone's got an opinion about the bar. You should do this. You should do that.
And if you hear all that noise, you can really get off course.
Now, what would you say the average plate price or menu?
I would put the average per head with a cocktail and gratuity around $50. That's great.
You know, but for everything being made with hand fresh ingredients and kind of a farm to table type of aspect, that's a good deal.
Again, you have to price it as almost what would you pay?
What do you think will be the best profit for you guys?
Well, not just, you know, if I was in this for the money, I'd be playing with people's money down Wall Street. I wouldn't be running the hostel.
You made that choice a while back. I want to have a sense of community. I want to meet people. I want to do what I do here. This is what I want to do.
So I'm not a greedy person by nature, neither is my business partner. So we do profit sharing with our employees. We pay them. We close down on vacation. They still get a paycheck.
There's certain things that we do and it's not all about the money. So when you go to a place like this and all of a sudden, you know, an entree is $30 for a steak.
Well, realistically, who are you going after? What is that demographic? Trial by fire.
Yeah, that's true. Now, and then just pivoting quickly, tell us a bit about this cocktail list.
I mean, you said you're a bartender by trade. She ain't enough. I wish we didn't have to hit the road because I just love that bar right there for the rest of the day.
But tell us about your one of your favorite or staple most popular craft cocktails that you make in here.
I would say it's a drink called the good old boy, which is like you.
It's a brown butter bourbon drink with pear nectar, spice, burnt orange syrup, lemon Angostura bitters Amaro.
And honestly, it is quite fucking delicious in the fall. I designed it for a fall menu.
It comes with a nice dehydrated below torched orange on top of a big cube.
You're right. But it was so popular for the fall that I kept it on for the winter because I change menu seasonally.
I took it off for spring because who wants to drink brown butter spice, burnt orange drink in the spring?
I had a revolt. People walking out, you don't have the good old boy.
I'm like, not man, try this one. Now I'm good.
Which is great. You never know what's going to be your swan song.
But yeah, that one turned out to be. But that's a great example, too, for listeners out there that you got to stay creative and you got to try things.
And you got to be bold and you got to be brave when you do try things.
But then you still got to listen to your guests. And sometimes you're not going to be right.
And sometimes you're going to pull something out they still want.
Sometimes you're going to be like, they're going to love this. What do you mean you don't love it?
I thought everyone would want to play risk with me tonight.
But you got to try these things out and be bold and see how it goes. But I think that's a great example of how to operate a nice restaurant bar, keeping it simple, doing what you believe in.
It's passion for you. So it's going to come through in that.
And the biggest thing I can possibly say to anybody that is looking to be a hostile owner or is already a hostile owner.
And, you know, you pour your blood, sweat, tears, life, soul, energy into this business and you work at it and you love it and you believe in it.
And if somebody leaves you a shitty review on Yelp or somebody is rude to you at the reception desk or somebody doesn't like a cocktail behind the bar, don't get your feelings hurt.
Yes. Take it in stride and say, you know what? You can't please everybody.
If you're doing what works well for you and you're happy with the product and you're happy with your work and what you put in, fuck everybody else.
That's great advice. Don't take it personally.
Don't take it personally.
Learn that in the four agreements there.
It's so true because when you do put yourself into it and you lay it all out there and everyone identifies you as the owner and it's a rare thing and more and more of a rare thing to have them on Pop Shop as we have Walmarts and all these big things popping up.
You really are taking it on the chin sometimes and you can't let that stuff get you down or take it personal because then you're going to lose your momentum.
That's right. And that person then that the only reason why they do that.
Yep. I think is because they're deeply unhappy person.
They want to bring other people down. Yes, exactly.
And you're thriving and you're smiling and you're loving life and you can't stand it.
I need to rip that motherfucker down or I'm not going to sleep tonight. And they're out there and you have to be ready for it because once you take this bold jump into being a hostile manager or owner, you're going to be prepared for that thick skin.
And watch the South Park episode. You're not yelping. It's hilarious.
It is good. I wouldn't recommend doing anything in that episode that pertains to what they do, but it is funny.
Okay, we're going to be back after the short break and we'll be closing up here with Justin at the Homestyle Hostel in Vermont.
It has been an absolute pleasure thus far.
Welcome back to Hostel Road Trip. Jimmy Black here with Eric Barita, Bobby Dyer and our man Justin from the Homestyle Hostel.
Hey.
We are wrapping it up here, but it has been such a cool episode. This house, the bones of this building, the layout, the flow, the restaurant, the bar, such a cool experience all under one roof.
And as I mentioned before, I just love how you're right on the main strip, literally just step out onto the main road and all the action and restaurants and bars are all here.
So it's really kind of got that almost Wild West feel. Okay, throughout a paintball shoot out in the back.
Yeah, and then right off of the backside of the house, you've really got a river running right behind you.
This is just cool outdoor, but centrally located, a really great spot that you've got to come see.
And if you've just been at the Burlington, Vermont Hostel, a very short drive away to come down here and see you guys.
So definitely recommend it. But we want to talk a bit about that potential guest experience that we're talking to out there listening and hear what would they be able to do in,
let's say, the perfect day in this town.
So we are going into foliage, which is a great time of year for Vermont.
So why a lot of Vermonters like Vermont, actually, we like the changing of the seasons and we like all of the atmosphere shifts that go along with that.
So with that being said, perfect foliage day, we do check ins at three.
So depending on what time you got here, you could drop your luggage off in the mud room.
We'd be happy to store it for you in a locked basement. I would drop off my items.
I would go up to one of the beautiful local farms that we have, either a dairy cow farm or a sheep farm.
And I would literally just walk around, take some pictures. We're called the Green Mountains.
It's more green hills, but there's a lot of plateaus that you can go up to overlook just acres and acres of beautiful changing trees.
You can almost feel it in the atmosphere as you take a deep breath.
Jenny Farm. Yeah, Jenny Farm is a very famous one, about 20 minutes east of here in Reading, Vermont.
So I would start with that. Vermont, I don't know if they still do, but we did have the most breweries per capita out of any state in the Union.
I think we had heard that stat in Burlington last night, too.
So if it's still there, awesome. I would go and drink a beer after looking at some trees and say, God, makes me thirsty.
Go drink an Oktoberfest or something. Or go for a cocktail with some muddled leaves in it or something.
Yeah, so I would go to a brewery. I always liked Woodstock. Woodstock is a town that's about 30 miles north of here.
It was built by the Rockefellers. They would come up and travel. This is where they kept all their horses and a couple of their farming items.
So that's a beautiful town, walkable, really, really great little town. Those one percenters tend to have good taste with it.
Yeah, it looks like a real life Sim City, some village or something. It's weird. So I checked that out.
There's beautiful lakes region where the hues and the pops of the color off the trees actually reflect off the lake.
And with like a little bit of fog, it's just damn near the best thing I've ever seen. Awesome.
If you haven't gotten the gist of what I'm trying to say, outdoor, just go outdoors. There's so much to do.
Now, in that, I mean, the foliage and we can see it starting to turn a little bit in some areas are dry and it's so beautiful.
But we also saw that you had the mud room and construction in the back, which looked like kind of the entrance for when you're snowboarding or skiing.
What is the local mountain option for that in the wintertime when you're doing that snowboard?
Yeah. So we have Oquimont Mountain Resort. The cool thing about Ludlow and the real charm of Ludlow,
as opposed to a lot of other ski resort towns in Vermont and probably in America, is the ski resort tends to own the whole town.
And it's just one big resort town. Ludlow is Oquimont Mountain Resort and Ludlow, Vermont. There's two very, very different styles of stay.
OK. So Oquimont is our home mountain. I am 1.5 miles to the first chairlift out of this front door.
Wow, that is close. Super, super close. The shuttle stops right here and actually drops people off at my property across the street.
So they could park there and forget about it. Oh, yeah, that's great. Oh, that's perfect.
Skiing, snowboarding is a big thing for me and for the culture and for everybody that works here and lives here.
You know, we buy our manager's season's passes. We go up together on our lunch breaks. That's great.
We go skiing. I've met numerous friends just from being here that have stayed with us. We keep in communication. They come up.
We go snowboarding together. That's just a great little. Yeah, that's a nice touch with getting the managers passes.
We have a location on Big Bear Mountain in Southern California. And during the ski season, we get managers passes.
Yeah, we'll do our manager retreat up there with all the San Diego people.
And it's really actually this big bear calling me right now. But here's the way.
Listening live. Yeah. So it's a really cool experience to share.
And I think one of the cool things is in the hostile environment, when you get that solo skier or snowboarder that comes in by themselves
and then you see them walk off the slopes of five or six people in a group. Exactly. Really cool.
And especially with the dorms, you know, the dorms are versatile here because of him was a family mountain.
So you get families that rent out the whole dorm and just use it as their private space or you'll get six totally random people.
And then all of a sudden they'll chat, have a few beers, have some dinner, their best friends and they're, you know, snowboarding together.
And that was back to what we were talking about at the beginning about not only protecting this hostile experience in its genuine form,
but promoting it and standing behind it and being proud of it because it really is a fulfilling thing to see that chemistry happen and see the relationship sparked.
The world needs a little more love, doesn't it? Yes, it does. We can do that. We will. Amen.
All right. Well, it has been just an absolute pleasure.
We need to hit the road before I start drinking these signature craft cocktails and make our way to Portland for the next episode.
But I want to thank you so much, Justin, from the Homestyle Hostel in Vermont here.
Well, thank you, dude. It was awesome. Love meeting y'all.
And a shout out to Bobby Dyer. I had a great time here with Justin. Yes. And Eric Feria from World Packers.
Thank you so much for introducing us to the Hostel and the podcast was great.
Our pleasure, guys. If you're ever in little quaint Ludlow, Vermont, which is a ski town with a drinking problem, come see us.
That is a great closing. Until next episode, we'll see you on the Hostel Road Trip.