From “Ask Kit!”:
Q: I have taken a 3 day seminar and now I am looing to do an intership with a b and b. I live in So. Ca. Do you have any suggestions?
A: There are several approaches you can take to this aspect of your education. You can call all the B&Bs in your area and ask if they would hire you so that you can get experience. You can buy an internship with a variety of B&B innkeepers. Or for ideas on who is providing internships, contact Yellow Brick Road (http://www.yellowbrickroadnl.com).
Good luck and have lots of fun.
Before I became an innkeeper I was a teacher for 17 years. I taught in North Carolina, Texas, and Oregon. I also spent 7 years teaching at an American school in Saudi Arabia and 1 year at another American school in Beirut, Lebanon.
After I quit teaching, I entered a culinary school. Although I greatly enjoyed culinary school, I decided half way through that I really didn’t want to work in a restaurant. Since the culinary school required a 3 month externship, I opted for a side path and found an externship at a bed and breakfast.
I really lucked out. The lady who owned the B&B was also a co-owner of a Victorian botique hotel that had an attached French restaurant. Since the culinary school required my externship to be supervised either by a chef or a person with a minimum of 5 years of restaurant experience, the restaurant chef became my nominal supervisor.
I externed as a breakfast chef at a small 7 bedroom B&B.
It was great.
Since the B&B staff was quite small, just the housekeeper and myself, I often found myself drafted into various roles. I checked guests in and out. I did maintenance, housekeeping, and gardening. I even acted as a concierge, arranging theater tickets and restaurant reservations. It was a good practical experience for owning/operating my own B&B.
It wasn’t easy finding anyone to be my extern. I was turned down by six B&B’s before lucky seven came up and I got my externship. The externship was unpaid – but I was happy to work for the experience.
The timing was also lucky because the B&B owner sold the inn to work full time at the hotel. The new owner was a surgeon who wanted to convert the B&B back into a private residence.
I had just enough time to complete my externship when the inn was sold and closed down.