If you want to build a hotel, you need engineers, but do you really
want them running the place afterwards?
Well, that's the plan for one very optimistic Kerry family.
They need help, and that is a gross understatement.
I know that the Brennans are going to come in and tell us that we have
no experience in running a hotel, because we don't.
That's the simple fact.
Meet the O'Carrolls, mum Norma, Dad Tony and their sons, Thomas, Paul and Anthony.
A tight knit family taking a big step way outside their comfort zone.
Our family business is in joinery, in cabinetry and stone fabrication,
but this is venturing, I suppose, into something a little bit unknown.
Well, that's to say the least!
They've demolished an old bar in the middle of Tralee and built
themselves a brand new hotel with 26 bedrooms.
We've gone through several different aspects of what it's going to take
to run it, and it's just a complete minefield.
A minefield it certainly is, and they have no clue what they're
getting into.
It might be a big chunk to bite off, but look, let's see how we go.
I have just one simple little question, right?
Why are you doing it?
Back in 2015, the O'Carrolls bought this derelict building in Tralee town.
After several years of planning, they cleared the site.
Then after Covid, they got to work building a brand new five-storey
hotel from scratch.
I'm Paul O'Carroll.
I'm the eldest in the family, and my background is in accountancy, so I'm
the financial controller for the company, I'm the numbers man.
So I've been the one tearing my hair over the last three years watching
the cost of materials go through the roof.
I'm Anthony, I'm the youngest in the family.
I'm the half twin to Thomas, so I'm only the youngest by about six
minutes, but the youngest, nonetheless.
My degree is in aeronautical engineering, so I don't know
does that help me in terms of building a hotel or running a hotel
or anything like that?
My name is Thomas, I'm the middle brother.
I'm the older twin with Anthony.
I'm a qualified engineer.
I worked in different industries, so it was electronic, mechanical engineering.
So I'm the site engineer and project supervisor for the
construction stage of the hotel.
So that involves ensuring that everything is installed in the right
position, making sure that the concrete is correct newton.
Ensuring that all the steel is installed correctly, down to pipe
work installed correctly and in the correct location.
From a very early age, Thomas was, you could say the doer, Anthony was
the thinker, and then Paul was always there to oversee what was going on.
They were always very close and very involved in what they were doing
with each other.
The O'Carrolls already have a rock solid business down the coast, about
half an hour away, where they make granite, quartz and marble worktops
and bespoke commercial furniture.
We've done a lot of hotel fit-outs, bar and restaurant fit-outs and everything.
That's what we're good at, but we haven't done any running of the hotel.
Here we're doing the whole lot from top to bottom.
The next step is going to be to open the hotel, to run the hotel,
and look, we'll put our hands up, we haven't done that yet.
A lot of the job that we're told, hospitality, is actually just being
there, being seen, smiling, you know, meet the guests.
I mean, that's what they've come for.
We would love to be open for the Rose of Tralee.
We could make it with a push, but it's quickly, quickly coming at us.
You would be worried that Brennans coming in, what they're going to say.
Of all the shows we've ever done, this is the one that baffles me,
because I wouldn't open a quarry tomorrow in a million years,
because I know nothing about it.
I know the Brennans are going to come in and say that we're out of
our minds and that we don't have any experience in running a hotel.
They've never served a cup of coffee in their lives,
never mind run a hotel.
We've had people come in and say, Oh, why didn't you do this here,
or why didn't you do that there?
But like all of these changes have major consequences to the timeline
and to cost as well, I suppose.
All of them want to be involved in the operation, and none of them have experience.
So, personally speaking, I think it's all for the birds.
Yeah.
Nicely built.
Yeah, it fits into the site very well.
It's very nicely built.
How do you get in? Through that door there?
Another door there. More stuff in there.
There's a big door around here.
There's five doors.
Oh yeah, here, look. John!
Oh here, we're here Fran.
How are you? I'm good now.
Good, nice to be here indeed.
Hello. How are you doing?
Now, we'll get you suited and booted.
Nobody allowed here without being fully dressed.
Yeah, a lovely white hat anyway.
Right now the building is still just a shell.
The plan is to create a reception area next to the bar on the ground floor.
With 26 bedrooms upstairs.
A restaurant in the basement.
And a retail unit at street level.
These guys might know their granite, but running a hotel is much harder.
Before Francis and I address the big picture, it's time to see the blank canvas.
You have a lovely, clean site.
Yeah, isn't it very tidy John? Very neat, yeah.
And your wiring. Hello, boys.
How are you? How are we doing?
So what's this area here?
So this is the main bar, so this is the main public space downstairs.
And you have a door going out onto the street.
That's one of the doors.
Okay, so can we see this on plan, so we understand it, it's much
easier to read it. Do you want to come with me?
Lead the way.
Normally, I love a blueprint, but already I can see a problem with this one.
So obviously, this is the bar here, okay, I want to park that for a moment.
What happens here then, what's this space here?
This space is a retail unit, so it's ideally suited for, say, a small
shop or something like that.
And financially, is that crucial to your plans?
We see it as a unit, basically, to generate revenue.
Yes, yeah, like we had played with maybe moving reception there, but
reception doesn't generate you, doesn't generate any revenue down the road.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, absolutely not.
Reception generates the ambience that gets the guests through the
front door, that gives them the first impression, that knocks them
for dead the minute they arrive, if the thing is right.
Reception's down here, correct? Yeah.
And this is the potential area in here?
Exactly. We might have a look at this.
God it's a fine space, isn't it?
It's a great space.
It's a great vantage point here, coming up the street.
There's great light in here.
There's a really nice welcome for a hotel, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
I'm delighted you agree with me.
You need to make it feel like a hotel.
What you have at the minute is bedrooms over a bar with a small
little counter at the end.
And you need to get that luxury feel into it, because that gives you a
premium, if it's only 5, 10, 15 euros a night a room premium, over a
year that's a lot of money.
Right Francis, we'll go to the bedrooms now on the first floor.
Very good, isn't there lovely natural light here?
It is, look at that view out there now as well.
It's very welcoming.
Now, it might sound obvious, but the most important part of any hotel
bedroom is the bed.
I just hope they get the basics right.
Into this bedroom.
All right. Nice, spacious room.
Oh, now, are you doing all the bed bases like this?
Yeah, so all our bed frames are sitting at home in the workshop.
They're ready to go in really, we just need a bit of manpower.
And are they on wheels now?
No, they'd be on pads. On pads.
Housekeeping will be delighted, as long as they can move the beds
easy, they're quite happy. Yes, yeah.
The basement is a big space, but it's a basement,
and therein lies the problem.
Too big and awkward, if you ask me.
Do you see this then as breakfast and occasional...
This could potentially also be a restaurant, you know, for maybe a
couple of walk-ins, but more so for the residents who are staying here
in the hotel. Okay, okay, not a hope.
I'll tell you, it's very difficult to get people to stay, eat in a town
hotel that they're staying in, unless it's a signature restaurant,
very, very difficult, because you come to cities and you come to towns
to stay in a location, and then you'll go out to a restaurant
someplace, which is part of the experience, to get them into a room
like this, would be difficult.
This is fantastic for breakfast.
This is fantastic for small groups, for funeral lunches, for baptisms,
divorces, separations, small wedding, all those things.
Interesting angles, interesting spaces, not as a restaurant, but as
an event room and as a breakfast room, fantastic.
Well, so much for the grand tour.
Some pros, some cons.
But as usual, it's all in the detail.
Travelling up this morning now to Tralee, I wasn't sure about what we
were going to or what we were going to see or whatever, but, you know,
having spent some time with them there, there's plenty of energy,
but they do need help.
I get the vibe up there at the moment that it is a bar with
bedrooms over it, but I think they really want a boutique hotel.
I'd say their heart is in it, but I'm not quite sure they know the
work involved in running a hotel, like...
Well how would they?
I haven't seen them make a cup of tea.
Yeah, that's true.
And I haven't seen them making a hundred cup of teas in an hour.
So it's a very different thing when the front door opens, where's
the linen stock for the rooms?
Who's the housekeeper, a head chef, a bar manager, reception manager,
all of those things, of which you know as well as I know, in the world
today, it's very hard to get staff. Absolutely.
So to open a new hotel like that with no expertise at the top,
is a huge challenge.
If we're to be of any use to the O'Carrolls, myself and John need to
get a few things straight.
Let's start with the basics.
I have just one simple little question, right?
Why, are you doing it?
If I said to you now I was going to open a quarry tomorrow, or dig for
quartz, or whatever it might be, would you think that would be a bit unusual?
It would be, it would be.
We wouldn't go into the quartz business or the marble business
tomorrow, because we wouldn't have a clue.
So we were told all the time, just go for a three star and make it lovely.
You know, and it'll run itself, basically.
Who told you that?
I'd say it was a cousin of ours who told us.
From the day you open, this business never closes.
It's 24 hours a day.
So at three o'clock in the morning, when the guys come back from town
and they forget their keys, it's you they're phoning.
So it is a very difficult business because it never sleeps.
You have a number of decisions to make, which are very, very serious
decisions on how you're going to run the business.
And we see you have three options, okay, one, you open as you see it
today, with a reception at the end of the corridor, with the bar and a
retail unit.
And you do a credit card hotel with no frills.
So you have really good rooms, really good housekeeping, nice
toiletries, but you actually code in on your app or your computer, and
you get your card and you go to the room, and there's no interaction.
Okay, you do your bar, you can move into food in the bar over time if
you want, but really it is a bar with rooms over it, which is
actually what you have created.
Did you ever look at a model that you'd just do room only?
We didn't to be honest.
We kind of just felt that, you know, as a hotel, you had to be able to
offer, you had to have food offering.
As a hotel, you have to survive.
Okay, second option is that you move reception into the retail unit,
forget the retail unit.
Put the reception in there.
Then you have your hotel entrance, which is boutique, and then you have
your bar, and you have your food operation, and you run it as a fully
fledged boutique hotel.
Third option is that you do that plan, but you bring in a management
company to run it, and then you stand back from operations.
You take a yearly fee, lease, lease it to somebody that will do whatever
they want to do with it, and you take the money.
So you keep the asset, you keep the hotel, and you have no headache.
You're in doubt about our ability to make it a success, yeah.
Don't view that the wrong way. No.
I mean, everything can be learned without a doubt.
The problem is, in our business, day one, it's open.
You need to know it all. Yeah, exactly.
Because your customer knows it all. Exactly, like, who's going to open
it up every morning or on the first morning, because it's open forever
then, like, who's going to be there like that?
So I suppose it's myself and Nancy are going to take the lead with
looking after the business once it gets up and running.
Two bosses isn't right.
It needs a boss, otherwise Peter in the bar will say, well, Jimmy
said this, and Harry said that, and you'd be driven mad.
So one leader is important, and whether that should be yourselves or
should be a professional, is a question mark for yourselves.
I heard it discussed that your opening date might be around Rose of
Tralee day.
That'd be a big mistake at this stage, because you're not going to be ready.
You'll be fighting against the clock, okay?
And then you'll have a whammy amount of business and not do it right.
And that's the worst thing you could possibly do.
So I think, personally, I'd be saying, sorry now, but we need to get
a date, because it can run on forever if you don't actually say
we're opening on the 30th of October, or whatever it might be, I don't know.
So you need to, we need to tie down a date and work towards it, because
otherwise it just runs on, and that's not good for anybody.
Now, dad, what do you think of all that? Food for thought.
Dad won't say much now.
(Laughter)
No, but you have a lot to talk about. We have, yes.
Dad is on option three.
Paul is on option one.
Anthony's on option two.
We have to have a family conference over this.
I might be the casting vote on this!
So far, the O'Carrolls have presented a united front, but this could be the
one thing that divides them.
It always amazes me why people go into this business with no
experience whatsoever.
The O'Carrolls have us completely baffled.
Their business is making worktops and commercial furniture.
None of them have ever worked a day in their lives in hospitality, and
now they're about to open a 26 bedroom hotel right in the middle of Tralee.
They thought it would run itself, but we knew it wouldn't, so we gave them
three options.
One, offer a contactless service with no reception.
Two, open a boutique hotel with all the trimmings.
Or three, lease the place out to a management company and step away.
A few days later, the boys are still chewing it over.
It's still very early on the decision making like so we just need
to trash it out a little bit more.
We need to put a bit more information into it.
I think look at the figures more in depth and go from there.
I think the face to face is essential for that welcoming aspect of it.
I know you don't mind, like, just getting your keys,
but for me, coming in the door, face to face with someone,
that's extremely important.
I think option two, it's like the full bells and whistles.
And I suppose that's ultimately where we were going.
For option two, it does need to have the double doors there, because it
has to be, it has to be fairly clear that this is the reception here to
the left. Yeah.
But for us to do that, it is a major change, and it's gonna cost a lot as well.
Tony will shoot us!
Because of the size of the hotel, the number of rooms, I don't think
it's going to be a viable business for somebody to come in and pay us a
fee for the year and then also make money themselves.
Maybe we were a bit too emotional about the whole thing, because we
put so much time and effort into it, but, you know, I think it would
kill us to lease it out really.
It looks like we still have a lot of decisions to make, and the Brennans
will be coming quite soon.
So you know, we need to start making decisions and deciding on
what direction we're going.
We're not hoteliers, per se, so we need to work something that's going
to work for us, and it's going to be good for the guests coming in.
I want to push the boys to make those decisions as soon as possible, which
is easier said than done, because right now, they're more focused on
the furniture than the future.
Hi Anthony. Hi Francis, how are you?
Come on in and we'll show you a few bits.
Fine big place. We're glad to have it, yeah.
Will I guess? I see you spotted it.
Will I guess? Do.
I presume this is the bar or counter of some sort?
So this the main bar. Yeah.
What type of wood is that?
So that's oak, that's oak stained a dark stain.
We've our black backing then on it just to kind of bring out the colour.
Well, hopefully many a pint... This is the plan.
Served out over it in the time to come.
So now, what have we got here?
These are the handrails for the stairs. Oh, right.
So we're looking at making timber work, we'll look after it ourselves.
And what sort of timber is it? This is walnut.
You have it grooved here.
So that's where your handrail sits into, all these guys, lovely,
intricate, kind of ends and shapes.
So this is basically where it comes up from one flight of stairs into...
Yes, right. You need to go from landings onto...
And coming up the stairs like this? Yes, yeah.
So now I have a question, of course, have you made a decision on what way
to go at the hotel? Not yet.
We've had a lot of discussions, we've had crisis talks or EGMs, or
whatever you want to call them. You have to make the decision!
I know. It's essential.
I get them talking. Come on.
Francis and I are back in Tralee, and we gave the boys two weeks to
make a call, which is more than enough, because time is money and
it's passing us by.
Now tell us, have you come to a decision?
What we've kind of decided is, it's not quite any of the options.
It's more a hybrid of option one, where we're moving our reception
from where it is currently to our unit at the front, but that unit
then is also going to act as a reception counter for where you'll
pick up your key to get into your room.
Was the reception change unanimous?
I don't think so.
It was, it was, there was a lot of discussion on it.
The plan is correct, I think, what you've decided to do, so everyone
should be on board with it.
We're going to have a mobile check-in, so you'll get a message to
your phone, and you'll do a lot of the check-in process before you even
arrive, prior to you arriving, so when you get there, it's just to
pick up a key.
It's hi, how are you doing, you get that meet and greet, and then you
get your key and away you go.
I think you need to be careful to get the word out that your room is
not a standard room.
It's not a budget room.
And the model you're going with, which is a correct model, is
perceived to be a budget model in the marketplace.
And I think you need to put things in place that when people arrive,
they realize, oh, it's not...
And you also have a quality room upstairs that dictates that you have
to give a certain level of hospitality to the guest.
We have the breakfast offering, a pick and go option.
You get your coffee, your tea, your croissant, your pain aux chocolat,
your bowl of cereal, whatever you want, in our cafe in the morning.
If that's not to your fancy and you'd like a hot breakfast, we're
going to be pointing them in the direction of a lot of the local
cafes that there.
So that means the breakfast room downstairs is not a breakfast room at
the moment. It's been parked for the moment.
Tell me now, have you come up with who's going to be the manager, who's
going to run the place?
Now, don't all answer at once!
We haven't got that far in our discussions.
There was a lot that we had to go through after we met you, and I
suppose the priority was the rejigging of the floor plans and all
these things that we had to do.
Have you an opening date now, because we need to start setting things in cement.
To be sure that we know where we're going.
Yeah, we're looking at November.
We're looking at the 1st of November as the date we've selected.
30 days had November.
So we're going to have our rooms, which are superb upstairs.
Okay, we're going to have a nice check-in facility, and we're going
to have the bar.
So a lot of work to be done, but sure, that's why we're all here.
Yeah.
You know, given their experience, I think a blend of contactless booking
and quality rooms is the way to go for them.
But when it comes to hospitality, they still have an awful lot to learn.
So we're taking Paul and Anthony to the Lansdowne in Kenmare, a hotel
that is about the same size in a similar location as their own.
Well, boys, good to see you, you're welcome to Kenmare, you brought the
weather with you. We did.
We'll hold on to you till November.
So now I suppose the first thing to talk to you about is the canopy and
the entrance, because it defines the entrance to the hotel.
And like yourselves, we have a door around the corner as well, which we
don't highlight, because we want people to come in this way here.
So you might do something like this, or you might just do pots.
Yes, yeah. Come on now, we'll see the rest.
So this is interesting now, all right, because this is our bar, and
the philosophy is different, okay?
Because we want a lounge, and ye want a bar, so there's nothing
wrong with that at all.
But it's just it's a different mix for a town hotel.
So it's a different approach.
It's whiskey and gin and tonic kind of a bar.
No, cosmos. Is it?
Yeah, you have to get with it. (Laughter)
You know, there's an awful lot of elements to running a hotel, but it
is important that you understand that, and that you have some sort of
knowledge of each of them, because you cannot expect people to work for
you when you don't know what the job is yourselves.
So I think it's important when you're here today, if you got in and
got your hands dirty, would be no harm.
From spreadsheets to bed sheets.
It's housekeeping duties for accountant, Paul.
So we just give a quick dust in here.
And earning his barista wings in the cafe, aeronautical engineer, Anthony.
Would you like to make a coffee? I would, yeah.
I've been to many coffee shops and being on this at the counter is different.
I've been on the inside of a bar counter, but this is a little bit
more relaxed, maybe.
But it's, there's a time pressure on everything.
Well done. Is that a test?
The owner is watching us to see, fair play to you.
Ultimately, when a new staff learner comes in, it's a rinse and repeat.
It's the same thing and I think that's key, because one bad cup of
coffee, and you've probably lost that customer for good.
And what we do is we give a complimentary cookie.
Does John know that they're complimentary?
He does indeed, yes, he does know, because they're made here in the
kitchen by the chefs.
So after it's stripped, we go straight into dressing the bed again.
It's quite hectic.
There's a lot to get done once you enter the room, but I suppose it's
the big thing is, it's having the procedure, starting at one side of
the room, getting around to the other side of the room, you know,
making sure that there's no surface missed.
The bed is made, and all the pillows are on.
And then when you go into the bathroom, you know, it's like every
surface has to be cleaned.
Towels have to come out, you've to put new towels in.
So there's quite a lot to get through.
How are you, Paul, you're working away.
Hi, Francis, how are you? So how are you getting on?
Ah, I'm doing good now, I nearly just finished this room now.
Yeah, and did you find it hard?
It was fairly difficult, I was kept going.
Have you -- see the way the bed is presented, it's very nicely done.
Very nice, because the linen, when you walk in, that's the first thing
everybody sees.
Did you check all the drawers? Checked all the drawers, yeah.
They didn't leave anything after them.
The bottom drawer is always the one that you need to check, all right?
Because there could be and then along, you know, along this edge here
that there isn't dust, because dust goes everywhere, very good,
no dust, at least, right.
And that the lamps are settled.
I'm learning a lot like, there's a lot to get through.
It's a very stressful job.
Like, I mean, I'm only doing one room here.
I also now would need to go to the next one and then get to the next
room, and then the next room after that, you know.
So you're definitely not, you're definitely not taking a break when
you're inside here anyway.
Hello there.
Coffee and a cappuccino.
I'm looking at the whole picture here, and they're trying to see
what's going on behind the scenes.
And I suppose ultimately, what's happening with everything.
Once we get the right people around us and the right people under us, I
suppose ultimately, you know, I think we can really pull off
something good.
Fair play to you. How are you doing?
Couldn't be better.
Fantastic.
Sit down there now and we'll have a chat.
It's tough work. Tough work, are ye exhausted?
The main thing to watch, from an owner's perspective, is your wage
cost, because that is crucial.
If you bring in wages in a cafe, something in the region of 33, 35%
okay, you'll be doing all right.
But if that percentage goes up to 45 or 50%, which it will in certain
days, but at the end of the week it should come in at around early 30s.
And if you are in that ballpark, then the rest is fine.
Once you control your labour cost, the rest follows.
And you know, they're giving out the little biscuits for free?
That's right, yeah.
That's not for free. Is it not, no?
No, that's a piece of marketing, all right, and it's included in the
price of the coffee.
It's an added little extra that brings people back because they feel
they're getting something else.
So you'd be charging for that, would you?
We'll have to, Paul won't let me do it for free I'll tell you!
(Laughter)
Hello, good evening.
A manager needs to know little bit about everything and not a lot about
anything, and you will have to jump in.
I mean, there'll be a day when Mary won't turn up and someone has to do
rooms or pull linen or whatever it is.
So there will be a day when that will happen.
So you know, the more you know, the better it will be for you.
It takes a lot of effort to make hospitality look effortless, and
that's the lesson for today.
We feel that we are prepared in a lot of senses and that we have a
good basis to push on, and then you come here and you just go, right,
there's actually a bit more to this and all the rest of it, but I still
feel that we've good heads on our shoulders, really, and that we
should be in good shape, hopefully, really, yeah.
The two boys are doing great.
I'm quietly confident that they will be able to step up to the job.
I think they approached it with a really open mind, and they were here
to learn, and they got -- I think they got a lot out of today.
Provided they remember that they have rooms upstairs and don't spend all
their time on the ground floor, they'll do fine.
A lot to learn, but you're well able to learn.
It's not an issue with ye at all, so listen, anyway,
good luck to you.
We've a little surprise for you, so stand there.
Noreen!
Thanks again for all your hard work today and your tips for today.
I was gonna say, will I bill you my hours?
Get yourself an ice cream on the way home.
Thanks lads, bye-bye.
It's early July, and the good news is that the O'Carrolls have taken our advice.
They've abandoned the notion of opening for Rose of Tralee, instead
they'll aim for November.
The bad news is that nothing seems to be happening around here.
I suppose a lot of the problems is labour, really.
Everyone's just extremely busy.
There's a lot of work out there at the moment, and we're just trying to
grab a hold of them and get them in.
If we can hit November, it would be great, but every week every new
problem that we come across, it just goes aww,
you know, but look, we'll see if we keep our heads down, and we'll keep going.
Mum Norma is also under pressure making the hard call on soft
furnishings.
I think we have decided we want plain curtains and a bit of colour
or pattern for the chairs.
So we need a plain fabric.
That's nice.
Oh, that's nice now, and it's blush pink.
There are other tones going through it.
Now it's a matter of finding something to complement it.
Oh, wow!
What have I got here?
Oh, that looks like a great match.
So that could be one storey, and now to find another one.
Two months later, with money passing the door daily, we learned
the opening is pushed back to December.
So Francis and I called to see what's going wrong.
A windswept day, but nice. Yeah.
The face looks very good. It does, yeah, I must say I like the painting.
Yeah, it's nice and fresh. Nice and fresh.
It's inside I'm worried about. I know.
Well, we'll know that in a minute.
Morning, Anthony. Morning.
How are things? Great and yourself?
A bit of work done.
A small bit of work done. A bit to be done.
We're not nearly there yet.
Well, we are, we are, be optimistic, Francis.
Have you been to a hotel?
It doesn't look like this, I guess, no?
Okay, tell us now, what's the story in here?
Our reception has officially moved in here.
So we're looking at putting a reception counter there, so that
when you come in the front door, you're getting eyes on with the
receptionist. Very good.
You'll be able to see that.
And then the front area here, then is going to be all seating area.
Great.
Oh, look, I recognize that, I saw that in the workshop.
So this is what we saw in the workshop, yeah, so it's made its way
in, but there's a lot more pieces to the puzzle, I suppose.
And what sort of top is going on this?
So there's a granite top gonna go on, and it's going to be similar to
what we've done in the fireplace, so to kind of tidy the two together.
Oh that's lovely, that's what I saw in the workshop, isn't it?
It is, yeah.
It looks lovely and feels lovely to hold.
So now this is a template room, 109 is it?
Yeah, 109 is not on door yet, but it will be.
We'll start in the bathroom.
Very nice, black and white I love.
Yes, yeah.
Now, the bedroom. Fine room.
A nice feel to it.
Now you know something, a little tip for you now.
You have to train curtains when you put them up.
Train them?! Train them.
Yeah, because within three weeks, the curtain will learn where it has to sit.
So you've got to bring all the pleats together.
You see the way? Yes, yeah.
And I bet the man who put them up was probably pleating them all along like that.
He was at that, but I just thought he was just particular.
No, he's not trying to see that the finish has to be like that.
And your accommodation girls, when they come to do the room, will have
to do them like that, because then, when you do them like that for the
first three or four weeks, they're always like that.
Otherwise, to get all mixed up.
There's a little accommodation tip for you.
If only the rest of the hotel was that easy to fix!
The place needs to be ready in a month and a half.
I'm just not seeing it.
Now, we've had a good look around.
Okay, upstairs is in good shape, but downstairs, I'd be very, very worried.
There's a ferocious amount of work to be done here before opening in
six week's time, and I think we're up against it on the ground floor.
We've had scheduled dates for when people are starting, but what
happens is, when one contractor delays or pushes out a week, it has
a domino effect on every other contractor after them, like where we
are at the moment, if we have one more delay, the domino effect is
going to push us out over the...
It has to be the 1st of December.
If you don't make the 1st of December, there's no point opening.
Because you've January, February and March, there is going to be no business.
So really, if you don't make it for Christmas, we've lost five or six months.
There'll be a load of people coming to Tralee for Christmas,
for Christmas parties.
That's revenue you need this year.
And where are you on receptionist, administration?
Like that person needs to walk this house 20 times that they know room
109 has a king size bed, and room 211 has twins.
They need to just know that in their head, so you don't learn that
the morning you open.
Yeah, we still have carpenters that get lost in the building.
No, it's true.
You have to have your rates in order.
How much is a cup of coffee in the morning?
Are you doing three nights for the price of two?
Are you doing a discount for two nights of stay.
All of those things have to be put in place.
And simple things like the glasses in the bar, what type of glass were
you going to use? Where are the glasses?
Can we get them delivered in time?
There's just so much to think about.
We have a lot of work to do.
I'd say the Brennan's probably think that we're biting off a little bit
more than we can chew, but they've said that since day one.
So I mean, you know, I didn't believe them the last time, and I
won't believe them now.
Mum, Norma, is very proud of her boys, but because they're feeling
the strain, so is she.
There is a lot of stress, but they have shown me that they have
confidence in what they're doing.
Yes, there are days they're exhausted and they have been working
non-stop, Saturdays, Sundays, you name it, they've had to make an
awful lot of sacrifices to pull the cat out of the bag and get up before Christmas.
Oh, this brings back fond memories of the three boys, one of their,
I'd say, Christmas presents, were three hard hats.
Little did I think that they would be today wearing three hard hats
building this fantastic hotel.
My mother had a great influence on their early life, and still does.
She calls the shots, and she arrived one day and she asked Thomas what
was he doing?
And he had a wheelbarrow of bricks, and he said, I don't know what I'm
doing, Anthony has the plan.
I'm just the builder.
They were together the whole time.
I think it's the fact that there's only two years between them,
the three of them just grew up together.
It's mid November.
If the James Hotel doesn't open before Christmas, the O'Carrolls
will lose vital revenue.
And by the look of things that seems likely, unless we keep the pressure on them.
I see a brush, that looks good anyway!
There's not a lot done here, John. No.
No, the brush hasn't been used anyway.
Oh, I would have thought it'd be completely finished.
This is disappointing all round.
This hotel needs to be open, and it's ridiculous that it's not
further on than it is.
The O'Carroll boys need a good wake up call!
To say I'm disappointed, would be not enough of a word, all right.
When we started out on our very first day here, you had
aspirations that you'd open in August for the Rose of Tralee, and here we
are now fighting to try and open in December.
What has happened since we were last here?
Look, to start off, we've had a number of setbacks.
There's been a number of contractors that have let the dates
slip, excuses, materials.
Look, the list goes on.
Everyone's, at some point, been exposed to it.
So when I'm coming here today, I'm expecting vibrancy, energy,
enthusiasm, and I come in and I see the place the way it is, and I get disappointed.
But what worries me more is that if you don't have that energy at this
stage, so close to opening with a product as good as you have, I fear
for when you actually do open, because this business eats you up
if you don't give it energy 24 hours a day, and you will lose
business morning, noon and night, if there isn't that energy behind it.
And I go back to my original point when we first met, it's one leader
needs to drive.
And what I'm afraid of here is that with all the goodness of the three
of ye, and it's immense, certain things fall between stools, and the
opening is one of them.
You have one chance to make your name and your reputation, and if you
don't achieve that when you open here, it's not good enough
for all the work you've put into it.
Christmas is one I would knock the walls down to get open, because
you've no other cashflow coming in for another three months.
It's a deadline, lads, that just has to be done.
And you pull every string you can possibly do to get the place open.
Otherwise it just rolls.
And every day it rolls, it's money out and nothing coming in.
It's December, and on the face of it the O'Carroll's brand new
26 bedroomed hotel in the centre of Tralee is looking good.
Behind the scenes, however, there's been delay after delay.
December is a crucial month for business, and even though the lads
have failed to complete the entire hotel, there's hope at least for
one part of it.
The O'Carrolls have decided to focus all their efforts on the bar.
Leaving the rest of the hotel to be completed in the new year, which is a
relief, because launch day is today!
It's 20 to two, and we're looking to be open for six o'clock.
We're just exhausted, but no, it's nearly there, it looks really, really good.
Everything's coming together, everything that's done now is a finish.
And it's really, really nice to see.
My uncle John, who's been on the site for the last five years is
going to be behind the bar.
Cousin Maura, she's in behind the bar.
The wives and girlfriends and partners, they've all been doing their bit.
Everyone's just been helping.
And they just come in and they're like, give me a job, which is great.
At this point, the bar has a smart frontage, a new name, and would you
believe it, its own front door!
Staffing wise, the lads have finally decided to appoint Anthony as the
General Manager and Paul as financial controller.
As we suggested, they hired Operations Manager, Emer Duffy.
She's going to handle the day to day logistics.
From the moment I met them, I think Paul and Anthony have had fantastic
ideas about the hotel.
There was a while there, maybe a week or two ago, where I looked
around and went, oh, will we make it?
But I can see from their ideas and their drive, that I think what
they're going to do with the James Hotel in Tralee is going to be very special.
Having said that, there's still an awful lot of work to do, and it's
all hands on deck, including mine.
Now, how's everything down here?
Caught rapid!
Caught rapid is right.
It's about as good as it looks.
Are these all go up?
These are white wine glasses to go up, yes.
Sure I'll bring them all up in a box, will I?
Tell us now, with four hours to go, what do you think?
Three hours and 45 minutes to go, I think we'll pull it off.
Do you think? Hopefully, stranger things have happened!
That's my work done now.
Okay, problem number one, they don't go in.
A good barman will get them out John!
You wouldn't know anything about that.
And a tall barman!
You definitely wouldn't know anything about that!
No, I'm up on the box.
Okay, so now what's next? We need snacks.
Right.
We need a lot more than snacks!
Everything is done... CRASH OF GLASS
It was John, it was John!
It was John.
Opening's back a half an hour. I can't believe you got that on camera.
I'd prefer to be further on than this.
I love a soft opening.
And I always love to get a place tested with everyone in place.
That's not happening here, and my fear is that in three and a half
hours, that door is going to open and we're going to be hammered and
we won't be able to cope.
Outside, Tralee's looking very festive.
But if Christmas is coming to the James Hotel, Santa will need a bit of guidance.
Doing something I never done before, getting the signage on two hours
before opening, looking forward to it now.
I've worked in bars since I was 11 years of age, but never like this.
We're about three minutes from the doors opening and we're ready to
welcome the people of Tralee into Bridge Lane at the James.
And here they come.
Okay, launching the hotel in stages was never part of the plan, but at
least they're open for business, and that calls for a toast.
Very cute isn't it. It is.
It's nice seeing somewhere opening up in town.
We're excited to see it.
Well, isn't that just great?
That's it now. That's the end of the hat.
Fair play to you, congratulations.
You know, all joking aside, some achievement to come across that now.
The place looks fabulous.
Just one more thing to do, do you know what that is?
Clean up? No, pint.
It's been a long week.
It's been 3am, 4am, 3am, 4am, but look, it's done.
I can't wait to have a good night's sleep tomorrow.
I think they've done wonderfully here.
The bar is beautiful the minute you walk in.
I don't think there's another bar like it in Tralee.
I think it's really, really gorgeous.
I think they have a very good sense about what they're doing.
The finishes, the quality of it all internally, is superb.
If they get the service right, they're away.
It could be a while before we see any of that service.
It's New Year.
The bar is still open, but the rest of the hotel is a building site,
and mum Norma has a very long snag list.
Okay, I need to get the electrician in here.
I see, I see more light switches here, "beside bed".
Okay, window, that's fine.
Oh right, a new screen.
Okay, we lost that one, it broke.
After that we'll put in the curtains and blinds, and it won't take much
to finish this room, all looking well.
I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much!
Now, looking around, there's still a good bit of work to be done here.
Still a small bit to be done, yeah. Small bit or a good bit?!
No, look, up here at this end of the house we're not too bad.
The biggest challenge to get us open, one, here is the staircase,
and so we need to get all our nosings and everything done in order
to meet the slip ratings for the staircase.
The bedrooms themselves are good.
Bathrooms alright, there's a few things that need to be done, but we
can run without them, we don't need them.
What needs to be done? For example, like the soap
dispensers on the wall, that kind of stuff.
But where we're caught, really at the moment, is the reception.
Hi Thomas. Hiya Francis.
Oh God, there's a lot to do here! There sure is.
Anthony said, go downstairs and look at reception.
So I'm here, tell me now.
So you see the latted timber here, there's one up in the ceiling here.
So we'll be making a triangulated design detail there.
Then the reception area goes over here, we're waiting on material
there so we haven't started manufacturing that yet.
Oh right, so there's a delay on materials.
You could have the computer on a table or something.
Exactly, yeah. Well, that's all right.
We're thinking we'll make up something that fills the space,
serves the purpose, but doesn't look the part.
Yeah, right, I understand, right so, every minute counts.
I won't delay you any longer.
The Bridge Lane bar has been open a month, which is good, because right
now it's the hotel's one and only source of revenue.
Isn't this a transformation?
It's lovely when you look across there.
And those little booths, are they working well?
They work very well, they were a massive success, even though we were
considering not putting them in.
No, they're lovely. They're there to stay now.
People to sit and have a little chat.
It's really nice.
Now tell me, you opened like Christmas week, nearly.
Christmas week. Yeah, how has the bar been going?
When we opened Friday was busy, and we were very happy, and we were
quickly changing stuff in the bar that night, moving glasses around and everything.
And then Saturday was a bumper night.
There was a queue down around the corner.
And tell me about feedback now, from the customers, what sort of
feedback have you been getting?
I think one of the nicest compliments we got from a guy,
he said, it's the kind of place you could bring a woman, he said.
Oh right!
So you can take from that what you will.
But no what we took from it, was that it was a lovely place, really
nicely lit, and, you know, really nice place, yeah.
And the big question now, are you making money?
I know it's early days, but how, what do you feel yourself?
If you asked me New Year's Day, I would have said, yeah, we're making money.
And then if you ask me the 14th of January, I would've said, I don't know.
We need to try and figure out how we can, how we can manage that.
And I suppose bring up the quieter days and then make hay when
the sun shines, then, on the busier days.
So I know Christmas was good, thank God.
It's now 10 years since they first decided to build a hotel on this site.
The O'Carrolls have put an awful lot of money, sweat and tears, into this
project, but today, seven months later than it should have opened,
the doors are finally opening.
As you walk through the main entrance, there's a simple but
elegant reception area, perfectly suited to a boutique hotel.
The O'Carroll's expertise in luxury materials has made for clever design.
And deep, rich tones throughout.
Upstairs, 26 fully furnished bedrooms are ready for their first guests.
Time then for one last inspection.
Anthony, great to see you. Welcome back.
And a great day. It is, yeah.
Now you did a great job outside, at least I was able to find the front
door with no problem.
This looks lovely. Oh, and you've lovely lamps.
Lovely, yeah, the lattice really came together.
So, you know, it turned out really, really well, happy out.
Yeah. Finally got the reception desk.
We did yeah.
So it arrived to us on a Tuesday, and by Friday it was in
here, installed. Fantastic.
It looks very nice. The whole -- it's a lovely feel.
I'm dying to see the rest.
Come on, I'll show you around.
Oh, you've the same lights here as reception, very good design
continuity, and they're a lovely shade, I like them a lot.
We'll have a look at the bedrooms.
Here we have room 308.
Oh, it's great to see such a finished product.
And it looks great overall, I have to say, very, very nice.
And the lighting under the bed, it's a very nice feature alright.
Is this marble or...
That's quartz. Quartz.
So all the bedrooms quartz worktops and quartz bedside lockers.
Very easy clean.
Yeah, and a plush finish to soften it.
And I see your curtains, you're training them well.
They're in training the whole time.
We'll have a look at the bathroom.
Oh yeah, that's lovely, I love the black and white.
Yeah, it turned out really well.
Very clean finish, yeah, and the uplighting is lovely.
It gives a lovely flush along the roof.
It works really, really well, yeah.
Now a family room, is that it?
This is our family room, yeah. Very nice.
And I love that divider.
Yeah, it just creates just a separate space.
Because a lot of the family rooms we've come across have just are big,
open rooms, and it's not very private.
What's that in there? What's going on in here?
You can sit on this! Go on, have a seat, have a seat.
You have the shower sitting down.
Listen, it's no joke when you get older, people might be delighted to sit down, yeah.
Oh, this is lovely. Yeah.
This is our classic room.
We've kind of gone for the pink just to lift it and kind of
make it a bit more elegant. I love these window seats.
Yeah, go and have a seat.
Yeah, you'd be as happy as Larry reading your book here now.
Yeah, so on the top floor, because of the shape of the building and the
design and the outside, we were able to incorporate dormers here on the
top floor, so there's five bedrooms that have window seats in them.
And it gives the room a whole big feel then.
Yeah, absolutely. Very good.
It might be two feet, but it gives it an extra five.
You know, it feels much bigger.
Congratulations all round, all you need now is customers.
Come on, start hustling.
Starting out with absolutely no experience of the hospitality
business, the O'Carrolls have really achieved something remarkable here.
And that is worth celebrating.
This is a great day.
I'm so excited for everybody, particularly the family, because it's
the culmination of a lot of hard work.
So congratulations to everybody, and a big round of applause, thank you.
APPLAUSE
We're absolutely thrilled with the with the results.
I think it's passion, is what it was like, it was everyone was so
passionate about the building and about the operations of it and the
runnings of it.
That's where the emotion came from, like and we're all very, very happy
with the result here today.
This is not a package where we got in a company and said, here lads, do
whatever, this is our baby.
This whole experience has put pressure on the family, but it has
brought us closer together, and it has brought out strengths in every
one of us that I don't think we were confident enough that we had them.
So, yes, it was a good experience.
Best bit of advice we got from the Brennans was probably moving the
reception area out to the front.
We were happy enough to go the way it was, and we were going to try and
make do with what we had, but them coming in and just saying, lads, no,
come on now, you need to look at it.
I think that at least put us all on the same page on our end and go,
okay, look, how do we now go about changing it, rather than it being a
question of, would we do something or not?
Now time for me to go, sad actually, to leave you all behind.
You have created a wonderful, wonderful hotel, and I honestly
believe it'll be a great success.
All you need is people, okay, but they will come, because when I come
to Tralee, probably in years to come, it'll probably say "house full", and
I'll have to move along, hopefully! Please God.
All right, I'll leave you on that note.
So thanks everybody. All right, thank you.
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