Many of our guests at Casa Bella have questions about our lifestyle and wonder what makes a successful innkeeper. I'm sure there are many thoughts on the subject but I believe a background in hospitality or food and beverage gives one an edge.
My husband is Italian and grew up in an neighborhood market that his family owned for over 75 years-Gironda's Market in Maranoneck, N.Y. Customers became extended family!
I'm the daughter of a career military man. My family often lived overseas and accommodations weren't always in base housing but sometimes in small apartments or gasthauses "on the economy".
The gasthauses had a profound and lasting effect on me.
The owners treated us like family. My older sister and I were invited into the restaurant kitchen for ice cream after school. We were treated as adults at the breakfast table . . .a memory that I cherish fourty something years later!
