Discover the Vegan Oasis: Black Sheep Inn & Spa

Click here for the show notes:

Welcome to the World Vegan Travel Podcast! In this episode, we chat with Miranda, the co-owner of Black Sheep Inn & Spa, a stunning vegan retreat in New York's Finger Lakes region.

Miranda and her husband, Simon, transformed a traditional bed and breakfast into a 100% vegan establishment. They share their inspiring journey from initial plans in Wales to finding their dream location in Hammondsport, NY. Despite the pandemic's challenges, they successfully opened their doors in mid-2020 and have been thriving ever since.

Learn about the unique charm of their historic inn, built in 1859, and how they've embraced the vegan lifestyle in a meat-centric area. We also discuss their future plans, including exciting food events like themed brunches and supper clubs starting in 2024.

If you're looking for a serene getaway or simply interested in vegan travel stories, this episode is for you. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe for more inspiring episodes from the World Vegan Travel Podcast!

Check out our website | Check out all the podcast show notes | Follow us on Instagram

Transcript

 Brighde: Hello, Miranda. Welcome to the World Vegan Travel Podcast.

Miranda: Thank you, Brighde. Thanks for having me. 
 

Brighde: I'm really pleased to have you on. We've been talking about having you on the podcast for a really, really long time, but I'm so pleased that we are finally getting it today because we're going to be talking about Well, it's really like the intersection of, like, a vegan hospitality business and certainly tourism in the Finger Lakes because you have a 100 percent vegan accommodation, a beautiful accommodation that people can stay at. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? 
 

Miranda: Okay, yeah we've owned the Inn since January 2020, and it wasn't historically a vegan establishment, although it was a bed and breakfast and had been trading as such for probably about 15 years. But it was really important to us to run a 100 percent vegan business as vegans ourselves, and this was one of the reasons we had a change of direction career-wise because we certainly wanted to feel that we had integrity and were being authentic to who we are. So, here we are, doing what we're doing.  
 

Brighde: Yeah, well,  your bed and breakfast is called the Black Sheep Inn. It's located in New York State, and of course, listeners will probably say that Miranda is not from New York State at all. So, there's a very interesting story about how you ended up in rural New York State. Can you tell us a little bit about that, because it's such an interesting story? 
 

Miranda: I think it's debatable whether it's interesting but it's fairly impulsive, I think. I'm co-owner with my husband, Simon, and we had been buying a bed and breakfast in Wales, actually. We decided that that was going to be the sort of business that we were looking to run. 
 

The purchase of that property fell through at the 11th hour. We were familiar with what was going on in the UK and there really weren't any turnkey businesses that we felt fitted as well. So we kind of had a little bit of a panic. We'd thought about the US previously, but we were looking at the West Coast. We've got friends in Portland and we thought it would be lovely to live close to them on that beautiful coast, but really property prices and the sort of businesses that are set up over there, it's not really bed and breakfast country so much, so we kind of put that on the back burner, pursued our dreams in the UK. 
 

Then that fell through. Simon had been on a mailing list for Realtors over here and had been periodically getting alerts about various properties that were for sale all over the States. And we kind of thought, well, I really want to see whether this is possible so that we can just put this idea to bed and get on with life rather than wonder what would have happened had we taken a leap of faith and had a look. 
 

So, we pretty much got on a plane from London to Toronto, back in November 2019, and we viewed a handful of properties, three in New York, and one was going to be in Maine, however, they had an offer accepted before we got to it. So we flew into Toronto out of Boston and viewed the properties. 
 

This was property number two, and I just got all goosebumpy really inside it because it's just beautiful Victorian architecture, which I love. High ceilings, beautiful original features, just lovely property, beautiful location, and then when we viewed, we kind of went to have a chat with each other in the village of Hammondsport, which is a mile down the road, went into a burger joint there, and it was like there was a celestial choir singing as I looked at the menu board, and there was an impossible buffer on the menu, I thought, my God. 
 

That's it. They've got vegan burgers here. It's meant to be, you know, so we put an offer in and two months later we were here and five weeks after that we were shut down because of the pandemic. 
 

Brighde: Mmm, I'm sure that was a very huge challenge for you. Well I can imagine, because my business was the same, we had to cancel and postpone several of our tours because of COVID. You had the challenge and you were shut down during COVID. How long did you end up being shut down and when did you reopen? 
 

 Lockdown wasn't as severe here, that's for sure, as in the UK. We ended up not trading for 84 days, so we reopened in mid-June 2020 and we've traded pretty steadily since then. We were lucky enough to be within a few hours' drive from lots of big cities like New York, and Boston, and there were lots of people who had been working at home, stuck in tiny apartments with their partners, going stir-crazy, ready to kill each other, and just like bolted out here. I think first lots of visitors that we had back in 2020 had never been to the Finger Lakes before. They were looking at somewhere that they could travel to because you could only travel within state or there was the tri-state arrangement at some stages during lockdown and yeah, they were pleasantly surprised about it.  
 

Brighde: We were lucky to only have been shut down for 84 days, and we were lucky to be experiencing a pandemic and a lockdown in rural upstate New York, because we were able to have a lot of space around us to get out, to walk, to you know, to feel free, I suppose. Had we been successful in buying the business in Wales? The UK shutdown was way more severe. We'd have been shut down for most of 2020, open for about six weeks and then shut for most of 2021. I think we'd have been financially ruined to be perfectly honest, had that gone ahead. So we, we feel really fortunate actually. Whilst it was an impulsive decision, it feels like we did the right thing, actually.  
 

 Okay, so you came to the United States, but It feels like the United States is quite hard to get permission to stay, to run a business. Did you and Simon, had already lived in the U. S. or maybe you had sort of a green card from long ago? How did that work? 
 

Miranda: I was born in Florida. So, to British parents, my dad worked over on the space program, and so I had dual nationality, which made it a lot easier. So I sponsored Si as my spouse, but because we hadn't been married for two years, he was a temporary permanent resident, for a while. But now he's a permanent permanent resident and has a proper green card and everything. 
 

But yeah, that made it easier. I think you need to be sponsored by an employer, have a lot of money to invest locally and employ people, or you know, you need to have rights to live here because you were born here. So that's how we got here. 
 

Brighde: That makes perfect sense. Yeah, I would just have been very surprised if it had been any other way. That's interesting. You mentioned that after New York State reopened again, you've had a steady stream of business, but I think anyone who works in hospitality, in having hotels or having a bed and breakfast, especially ones that have food, it's really, really complicated and really, really difficult. So, what have been some of the challenges that you've faced with this business, or has it all just been plain sailing? 
 

Miranda: Challenges in what way? 
 

Brighde: I guess challenges in terms of like unexpected repairs or cost of living is big, and the cost of food has increased a lot. So prices have had to go up and people balk at that. It's just an idea. 
 

Miranda: Yeah, I mean, we've been fortunate that, we haven't had to do major repair work. We haven't had to do anything. Things were pretty much ready to go. We've pretty much been set up from the word go to be able to operate. 
 

 What's been challenging, I think, getting over the anxiety of how a vegan establishment would be received in rural upstate New York, we're in the middle of hunt country, it doesn't really look like there's much vegan living going on, you know, to the naked eye, unless you delve a little deeper. That was a huge concern. 
 

Absolutely food prices have gone up, but I was astonished at how expensive food is in the U. S. compared to the U.K. anyway. That was an eye-opener. I think historically, the U. S. has been viewed as somewhere that was pretty inexpensive to live compared to the U.K. That isn't the case. at all. 
 

I think property prices are cheaper here, definitely, and I think that gas prices, you know, petrol is cheaper here, but generally, no, not at all. We've really tried to not pass on increased costs to our guests. We have, until the 1st of May this year, kept 2019 prices on all of our rooms. 
 

We've tried to absorb the hit to keep us accessible. This may sound naive, but I think people appreciate that. We also reward guest loyalty by giving people who choose to come back to us a discount. And that's worked well for us and for them as well, really. So, 
 

Brighde: I absolutely agree with you about North American prices. This is something that just blows my mind. When I go to Europe and we do our Europe trips, things are just so cheap. Here in Vancouver or in the Pacific Northwest, it can be like, You know, $15 for a glass of wine, and the same wine would be like $3 in Italy, maybe not in Rome next to the Trevi Fountain. But, it is really expensive, this makes running a business really, really hard, for sure. 
 

So when you did announce that you were transitioning to a 100 percent vegan business, how did that kind of go? The reason why I knew about you is because you did get quite a lot of press in the vegan space about how there was a, vegan hotel now in New York State, but I'm thinking about how Beck Hall, which is a British hotel, that has just gone vegan. 
 

Admittedly, it was owners who were vegan and had a very vegan-friendly hotel, and they've decided to transition to being all vegan to align with their values, and they got a lot of positive press from like the vegans, obviously. But they also got a lot of criticism from previous guests and things like that. So how did that go? How did that transition go? 
 

Miranda: That's really interesting. I follow them on social media. I think there's one in Scotland I follow and there's a pub in Wales. I find I love all of these 100 percent plant-based businesses that are springing up. It's all power to everybody. We decided that we weren't going to make a big fanfare about being a vegan business. 
 

It's just food and I think that's the message that we kind of sing loud and proud every day is, it's just food. Most of our guests aren't vegan. We've had a number of guests who stayed with the previous owners who weren't vegan. But people are prepared to try the food. People are not negative. 
 

I could count on one hand the number of negative experiences we've had from guests in the house about the food. Mainly, people are saying to us, maybe after a couple of days here, maybe on checkout, maybe after the first breakfast, Oh, wow, that's a relief. I was really worried about coming to a vegan place. 
 

I really thought I wasn't going to be able to eat any of the food, but, you know, the food's really nice. I can eat it. Who'd have known? Who'd have known? And when we say, well, yeah, it's just food, and actually, You've eaten a lot of vegan food in your life, if you think about it, you know, you've eaten vegetables, you've eaten fruit, Oreos, the list is endless about vegan food. I don't know whether we're lucky or whether that's very much about the difference culturally between Americans and British people. 
 
 I don't know whether has it surprised us. I don't know, but American people are way more polite than British people. I wonder how well we'd have done. Had we bought our bed and breakfast in Wales and made it vegan, which we were going to do? 
 

Miranda: Comparatively, I don't know. I think we've been lucky and I can't think of any negative press that we've received. Our reviews are really very gratifying and humbling actually on TripAdvisor because for the mainstay They say I'm not a vegan, but the food's great You know, don't worry about that, If you see that it's a vegan in and you're concerned about coming don't be because the food's great You wouldn't know you're eating it. 
 

We get a lot of people saying So this isn't butter, what are you using? And what sort of milk is this? Because it's really good in coffee. And that sort of thing. And I think this is great. It feels like we're kind of getting the opportunity to veganise people by stealth. 
 
 Brighde: I love it. I love it. Fantastic. So, I would love it if you wouldn't mind, Miranda, can you just sort of talk a little bit more about the building and the rooms because you've got quite a lot of grounds on the property as well. 
 

And what sort of the vibe of the place? Because of course, we're on a podcast, and we don't have any pictures. I really invite anyone listening to this podcast to go onto the website of the Black Sheep Inn as Miranda is explaining it. So you can get a sense of what it's like, but it's something very special. 
 

Miranda: Yeah, it is. It was built in 1859 and it was part of the, well, the quirky North American octagon house movement, which was founded by a guy who I think was probably a bit of an eccentric, but he really liked octagons. He felt that they were a good use of conserving energy, heat, light, et cetera. 
 

There have been a number of octagon houses within North East America, but not all of them have stood the test of time because not all of them were made out of 18-inch thick stone, which ours is. So we've got the core of an octagon house, then two wings were added in 1882 to it, so it's an octagon with two wings. 
 

So it's got quite an interesting footprint, particularly if you look at it from a drone shot. It was built by Timothy Younglove, who's actually one of the founders of a winery down the road from us, the Great Western Winery, Pleasant Valley Winery, which is the oldest Bonded winery in the country. 
  

It is also one of the few places outside of Champagne that is able to produce wine and call it Champagne. So that's pretty good. The descendants of Timothy Younglove are our next-door neighbors still. So very, very small town, in America, nobody moves that far away. So that's great. You know, we've got one neighbor who remembers sliding down the banister on the spiral staircase, when she was a child. It's lovely to have that local history here. So within the main body of the inn, we've now got six rooms. When we bought it, there were five rooms. I would describe it as Eclectic arts and crafts, a little bit of antique-y, a boutique-y feel. 
 
 Each room is very different in color and furnishings, but each room has its own ensuite restroom. Each room has got super duper comfy mattresses on the bed. Each room comes with complimentary champagne and chocolates that we put in, and yeah, each room's a cozy little sanctuary away from your everyday life. 
 

The inn itself is within just shy of three acres of grounds. We're surrounded by woodland on two sides of the property. It's very quiet here. You don't hear traffic very often, even though we are on a road. It is eerily quiet at night. You see proper dark skies. You see proper star constellations. It's great. It is really great. I'll say that the sixth room that we've added had previously been used as sleeping quarters for the previous owners and their offices. It's got a separate entrance, although it's attached to the main building. It is in one of the wings that I mentioned, and it's got a little wet bar. 
 

So you can have more of a self-catering experience, should you book that room. Although, you are able to stay on a bed and breakfast way as well. 
  

Brighde: Yes, as I look through your website, each room is quite individually appointed, like the colors of the walls are different, the furnishings, the rugs, they're all different, so potential guests can go through and choose which room resonates with them, which one they really like, and I guess the pricing is a little bit different, for each room, is that right? 
 

Miranda: Yeah, the two full-size rooms are the least expensive. The Kings are the most expensive. Absolutely. They range in price because we've got midweek pricing now, as well as weekend pricing. I'd say 165 to 265 maybe? Sorry that sounds terrible I don't know but I've just got the weekend rates in my head firmly. 
 

 And we offer obviously a discount to repeat guests of 30 percent. We also have various offers throughout the year, promoting two nights, get booked two nights, have the second night half price sort of thing. So we're always looking at ways to help save people money and to get them through our door. 
 

Brighde: Of course. Yeah, I have done a podcast before on the Finger Lakes with Geeta Devi, who has a much smaller bed and breakfast, I think it's called the Ginger Cat Inn, or something like that. I don't think they're that close to you, and of course, you're quite different. 
 

Yours is much bigger. Hers is more like a family home, it's been sort of converted and it seems like an area that is becoming more and more popular with people because it's just so easy from all of those big cities and it is just so beautiful and there's just so much to see and do. What is it that, most guests who come up to you for say the weekend, what is it that they end up doing, outside of the inn? 
 

Miranda: I would say, It's probably a 50-50 split between people who want to enjoy hiking and people who want to enjoy wineries, distilleries, and breweries because the Finger Lakes is a fantastic wine-producing region. It's coming up, absolutely in renown for it, and I think that as global warming happens, and the West Coast fires happen, that maybe it might take over from some of the wine production on the West Coast, just purely because of nature.  
 
So yeah, I'd say a split between hiking and enjoying wineries. We've also got a lot of museums locally, which are popular, and we're also 20 minutes drive from Farm Sanctuary, of course, the number one oldest farm animal sanctuary, certainly in the U. S. So yeah 
 

Brighde: Amazing. Just sounds like there's so much to see and do in the area. I can't wait to check it out. When would you say is the best time of year to come to the Finger Lakes or to stay with you? Are there any amazing, like, windows of time with the weather or some amazing festivals or, events that people would like to join in on? 
 

Miranda: Tricky. We see ourselves as a year-round destination. I'd say the stumbling block's to it successfully being a year-round destination is maybe access to certain restaurants within our local village. I'm sure you've heard the expression snowbirds, so there are people who leave New York State for sunnier climbs during the winter months and sadly, some of those people run restaurants in the village, so that's a huge dent to us. Not everywhere shuts, so it is perfectly possible to come year-round. Weather-wise, I mean, we had temperatures in the 60s on Tuesday this week, then in the 20s on Wednesday evening. Spring is not something that kind of appears in upstate New York. 
 

It's something that just suddenly you realize, oh look, oh look, there are leaves on the trees and here we are. There are a lot of summer activities around. I'd say that the state parks are fully open from around the beginning of April. There's wine festivals, there's craft festivals, there's a lot of arts going on locally. 
 

Again, you know, that's between May and maybe Indigenous Peoples Day in October, that's probably the bulk of most tourism that we see. However, because of the mild climate here, and really we don't get the eight-foot snow that Buffalo gets, we get dustings of snow. We never really shut down. 
 

 So we find people are enjoying us really, right through to the beginning of December, with a few hard knocks, I suppose, braving later into then. Swimming in the lake is definitely a summer activity, water activities, definitely summertime. A year-round destination, I'd say. If you like sitting outside, I'd go from mid-April to the end of October. That would be my recommended window to you. 
 

Brighde: I love it. I think many vegans they kind of dream of maybe having some sort of vegan restaurant or vegan inn or a vegan business so that they can, hopefully make some money, in ways that align with their values. What advice would you give to vegans who are potentially thinking about having a vegan inn? 
 

Miranda: Yeah, I think, just remember how much food is vegan without calling it vegan, and just try and normalize it. I mean, when thinking about our menu, we wanted to showcase the fact that we're British, English, by sort of drawing on, food that we traditionally eat for breakfast in England, but also wanted to give nonthreatening food items to people who may be scared by the vegan tag. 
 

So my recommendation to people looking at starting in this way is, just prove to people that food is food and actually showcase the fact that there's all this delicious food that you're serving them and it hasn't cost an animal its life, it hasn't caused any pain or suffering, it isn't contributing to global warming, you know, and it's not killing you. Bonus! 
 

Brighde: yes, absolutely. So what kind of breakfast is it that guests can enjoy? Like do they have a menu from which to choose? Do they choose the previous night or do they just get what they're given? How does that work? 
 

Miranda: I make granola. So I've got four varieties of granola at the moment. So they're sitting on your table as you come down in the morning, the coffee's brewing, the kettle's on if you want tea, you've got juice, you've got filtered water, and I would do a fruit cocktail. So there's always fresh fruit to accompany your granola. 
 

 I bake either muffin or fruit bread or I've now got croissants on the menu, which is very exciting. I've finally managed to successfully bake croissants. So you get those as well if you stay here. So some freshly baked item as well is served and then there's a menu of four hot dishes that are cooked to order. 
 

So you don't pre-order, you order on the day and I cook. There's just me, and there's just Simon. We have a leisurely breakfast, is what I say, if you've got to be somewhere in a hurry, let me know, but otherwise, it's just a very leisurely thing and people come, we've got a two-hour window, that we serve breakfast in, so you don't have to come down, you don't have to sit at a communal table, we've got enough tables for people to sit with the person that they're traveling with, you can or you don't have to talk to people if you don't want to. Most people who come to bed and breakfasts do want to talk to other people, that's why they come. But you've certainly got enough space to do your own thing, should you wish to, over breakfast as well. 
 

Brighde: As you were telling me that people get to choose from four dishes and they order in that moment I was chuckling to myself because right now i'm in the depths of organizing the first ever vegan group tour to Japan. I think it's the first of a vegan group tour to Japan and we've been working with one of the hotels which I won't mention, they're lovely, but this is just a sort of an example of what I'm dealing with at the moment in that, they have very kindly agreed to put four different plated breakfasts on for our travelers because the regular breakfast buffet is not very vegan friendly. I've tried all of those four dishes, they're actually really quite nice, but they cannot be made to order. Our guests have to choose at least 24 or 48 hours in advance. 

Miranda: Oh bless. 

Brighde: It just blows my mind that a five-star chain hotel can't do it to order, they have to have that information in advance. 
 

Miranda: That's because chefs who work in five-star establishments, maybe you have a little bit of the diva about them. I don't know. 
 
 

Brighde: I don't know. To some extent, I think it's this special request, and to another extent, I think, this is what it's like in Japan, you know, any sort of deviation from the normal thing requires a lot of work to get it to happen. 
 

Miranda: Uh huh.  
 

Brighde: I'll just say that, but, yeah, it's just so interesting. I'm just about to send a Google format to all of our travelers asking them, can you let us know which breakfast you will want on which day? Because the hotel needs to know. Can't we just be a little bit spontaneous about this, no. We cannot. 
 

Miranda: How funny. 
 

Brighde: I think you can tell I'm at the end of my tether with this whole, Japan trip. But by the time this goes to air, the trip will have finished and hopefully have gone well, but yeah, it's been hard anyway. Can I ask what your future plans are for the Black Sheep Inn? 
 

Miranda: To keep on keeping on really, doing what we're doing. We've recently started doing food events, actually. It's been a long time coming. We've had people asking us, oh, can we come for breakfast? Do you do this? Do you do evening meals? And we've always said no, because that was what we believed, that there's a bed and breakfast, there are certain limitations set on you within New York, what we didn't realize was the addition of the sixth bedroom and our reclassification as a temporary residence has now opened the floodgates, and we can serve whatever food we want to serve, to whoever we want to serve it, whenever we want to serve it, apparently, which is great. But as I've said previously, there's only me and Simon running it. 
 

I certainly do not want to be just stuck in the kitchen 24 hours a day. I'm in the kitchen way enough, when I'm not treating myself to some ironing, laundry, or bed-making, I am largely in the kitchen. That's very much the nature of this work. I'm very excited that permission is now being given and we've carefully scheduled events throughout the whole of 2024, and the event sounds rather grand and it's not meant to be, it's just really a way of showcasing the fact that we are doing brunches, a couple of times a month, we're doing English afternoon teas, and we're doing a supper club where we're going to have different foods showcased. So for example, I've got British curry night in that, I've got an Easter roast dinner, I've got an Italian theme, a Moroccan theme, a British favourites, maybe a pie and mash night. 
 

I'm just thinking, just some kind of British things, but also just popular food stuff, just to see really, what people like and what people want to have. And that's really exciting to me, because I do really like feeding people. So it's nice to have manageable chunks of time when I'm able to do that and to just explore creativity, recipes. That's one thing that has come alive while I've done this is, you know, my passion for cooking has not diminished, it just increases, and I am a food bore. Simon will say, often, one of the first things out of my mouth is, What should we have for dinner tonight? It's like, I haven't had a cup of coffee yet. It's been really gratifying. So yeah, going back to your question, really I'd like to grow events and see where that takes me and see whether, you know, there's a way of bringing more vegan-curious people in to sample different foods and just spread the vegan love and the food love a bit further. 
 

Brighde: I love it. Alright. Miranda, this is fantastic information and I really invite everybody who is listening to this podcast right now to go on to the Black Sheep Inn's website and just have a look at the rooms particularly if you live in the tri-state area, consider having a weekend away in Finger Lakes. It really does sound like such a lovely getaway. And the fact that you offer these delicious breakfasts is so fun. So nice. How can people find out about you and connect with you and find out about these events that you're doing? 
 

Miranda: Well, the events are publicized on our website, which is www. stayblacksheepin. com forward slash events for a link straight through to that. So that's a way of looking at the rooms and booking. We've also got an active social media presence. Both on Facebook and Instagram. I don't tweet, I'm sorry to say, or X whatever you do now. 
 

 Both of those are Black Sheep and Spa, easy to find. We'd love to have you on there. You can find out all the information about the offers that we're promoting, any events that are going on, and just general bits of news about what we're doing here at the Black Sheep Inn. We like to think we're a happy bunch of people who interact with each other on social media. So that's great. But yeah, we'd love to have you here. If you've not been, we'd love to meet you. 
 

Brighde: Fantastic. Miranda, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. 
 

Miranda: Thank you for having me.