Well….we thought January was supposed to be quiet?! What with the hotel full of group bookings, a very busy bar and restaurant and even more refurbishments, we’re all feeling like we’ve hit the ground running…nay, sprinting into 2020!
Can’t complain. We’re very lucky to have everyone’s continued support, and thank you for that.
So what’s on the horizon for 2020 for The Bath Hotel and The Ancient Mariner?
REFURBISHMENT
We’re finishing off the last of this batch of rooms, and starting another four, which will see the most extensive change to the hotel rooms in a number of years. Everything is going to be re-categorised, re-organised and re-grouped. We’ve listened to feedback and have more king beds, so expect to see more king options when you book from now on. Keep your eyes peeled for the professional photographs that will be coming up soon.
We’re also going to be refurbishing and upgrading our kitchen – the hub of The Ancient Mariner, to make sure that we’re equipped with all the mod-cons, allowing us to push our menus and dishes to the best that they can be, under the direction of our amazing team of chefs. This won’t be until the tail end of 2020, but we’ll keep you posted as to when this will take place as it’s likely to have a little bit of an impact on food service (!)
EVENTS
We are beside ourselves with the number of events we have coming up; and the variety and standard of them are approaching the realms of ‘epic’ for 2020. We’ve chosen the best of the local live music acts that we know to come back and perform again, we’re going to be hosting SeaCider 2020 again (our cider and live music festival), we’ve got some super special acts from further afield coming up that we can’t reveal JUST yet…but it’s pretty exciting!
As always, we have our locals discount card running, with special additional discount on a Thursday for card holders.
ECO CREDENTIALS
We’ve always been conscious of our impact on the environment as a business. We’ve made steps in previous years to reduce our purchasing of single use plastics and The Ancient Mariner is pretty much single use free. We buy as local as we can do from our suppliers to minimise our food miles (and booze miles!), and have moved over to ‘Who Gives A Crap’ toilet paper throughout the hotel and the bar. They don’t use virgin wood, and instead use ‘forest friendly’ bamboo. They also donate 50% of their profits to help those in need build toilets. Given that we have 25 toilets across the hotel and bar, that adds up to a fair amount of toilet roll!
This year, we’re driven and dedicated to going further. Our ‘beach clean’ initiative is still going from outside The Ancient Mariner (collect a bucket full of rubbish from the beach and return it for a free scoop of ice cream or a tea and coffee, on us, and bask in the warm, self satisfied glow that you’ve helped our local environment).
We’re looking into ways of removing all single use plastics from our hotel rooms – no more individual bottles of shampoo or plastic wrapped soap bars (and who needs a shower cap anymore?!) and no more tiny, tiny milks. We’re making sure our tea bags are plastic free, and looking into having bins in your room into which you can separate out your plastics and paper from general waste, so that we can dispose of it correctly for you without it unnecessarily going to landfill.
We’ve moved the vast majority of our cleaning products over to chemical free options, such as vinegar with lemon oil, and have banned the use of bleach on the premises. There are a couple of things that we need to investigate further – the line cleaner for our beer pumps in the bar for example, which we have to use, needs a safe and suitable replacement…but we’re on it.
We’re also looking at composting our food waste, and even looking into suppliers on our doorstep who, although they may not be able to meet our entire supply requirements, can certainly help supplement the food that we sell.
None of this is straight forward, as doing so involves additional work for our busy staff, lots of thought and some considerable investment in eco-friendly products and services. But the call to action is clear, and has been increasing in volume for the past few years – and we are definitely listening.
Other than that, there’s just Easter, Summer holidays, Halloween and then Christmas before we do this all over again…! Here’s hoping 2020 is a good one for us all, and if you’re coming to Lynton & Lynmouth, consider us as a place to stay or somewhere to stop for a bite to eat and something to drink.
