Blog: Celebrating Our Open House & Ribbon Cutting

A few weeks ago, we finally celebrated the "grand opening" of the Tabletop Inn with our community. We hosted an open house full of games and delicious food, and we invited anyone to drop in and explore the space. We put together a postcard station and a scavenger hunt with a game design kit as a prize. Mike and I spent an exhilarating afternoon giving tours, playing games, and carrying around giant scissors. 

The McDowell Chamber of Commerce and Marion Business Association teamed up to host the ribbon-cutting portion of the event, which made it feel very official and legitimate. They arrived with so much supportive and excited energy that it set a great tone for the day.

To be honest, I was very nervous that nobody would come. It occurred to me a few days before the event that we don't actually have any family here, and our friend group is incredible but small. People are always busy, and hosting an event on a Friday afternoon was a gamble. But to my relief, when we went to cut the ribbon we had a wonderful group of friends, community leaders, theater folk, local business owners, and locals who had spent time in the house years ago. It was wonderful to have everyone gathered together!

We put a lot of thought into our snack menu, theming our foods so they would bring some brunch energy into the late afternoon. Our homemade everything-bagel hummus and rosemary crackers were passed over in favor of the sweets: fruit tart bites, double chocolate zucchini muffins, banana bread, and mini-quiches. A cheese board and vegetable tray were required, and we ended up with a free sheet cake after the bakery couldn't get their printer to get our logo on the cake (bummer - it's a dream of mine to eat my company's branding!). We also had a sunny brunch punch and a northerner's iced tea (everyone who tried it said they could tell Mike wasn't from here, ha). But the runaway star of the table was Mike's breakfast-in-one-bite deviled eggs, which took a potluck classic and elevated it with sausage, pancake bits, bacon, and syrup. Everything was homemade (except the cake, which turned our mouths brilliantly blue) and seeing people enjoy it brought us so much joy.   

It's those kind of little details that make us so excited to run the bed & breakfast. We love putting thought and care into every part of this business, and personal touches are what set us apart. It would have been easier to open a boring AirBnB where people come and go with little interaction, but we wanted to make a classic bed and breakfast full of personality and memory fuel and connection. We've poured our hearts into this business, and we can't wait to see where it goes from here.