LorelaiGilmore achieved a massive goal during the fourth season of Gilmore Girls.Along with Sookie St. James, Lorelai managed to purchase, renovate, and launcha brand new bed and breakfast. Although there were a couple of small hiccupsalong the way, the duo managed to get the operation off the ground in recordtime. A little suspension of disbelief is required to believe that, though.Neither Sookienor Lorelai was swimming in cash, and opening a new business isn’t cheap. So,how much would it have really cost to open the Dragonfly Inn?
How much does it cost to open a bed and breakfast?
Lorelai and Sookie’s desire to run their own business makesperfect sense. The duo worked together for years, keeping the Independence Innhumming. The one benefit of working for someone else is that they had nooverhead and didn’t have to worry about the hard numbers. The truth of thematter is, getting a business like the Dragonfly up and running would have takena lot of money.
According to Entrepreneur, someonelooking to open a new inn should allot between $20,000 and $50,000 per room atthe establishment. TheDragonfly had somewhere between 10 and 16 rooms, depending on which ofLorelai’s statements you believe. Assuming the inn had 10 rooms, Sookie and Lorelaiwould have needed to come up with between $200,000 and $500,000 just to get theproperty running. If the establishment had 16 rooms, the cost just gets higher.A 16-room inn would require an investment of between $320,000 to $800,000 toget started.
Could Lorelai and Sookie have swung that kind of investment?
Opening a new business takes a lot of cash, or, at the veryleast, a very good line of credit. Neither Sookie nor Lorelai seem to have hadthat. When the duo ran into cash flow problems during the renovation, neither hadany extra cash to inject into the project. Sookie even suggests Lorelai go toher parents to get additional funding. Eventually, Luke helped out by investing$30,000 into the project, but that type of investment likely wouldn’t havescratched the surface of what was needed to bring the Dragonfly back to itsformer glory.
Sookie, who worked a chef before the Independence Inn burneddown, likely would have made about $70,000a year. That would be enough to pay her bills, but she probably wouldn’thave a massive nest egg sitting around to invest. Lorelai, on the other hand,likely had zero extra money lying around. With her penchant for takeout andexpensive home, Lorelai, in reality, would have been workingat a deficit each month.
Maybe fans will find out more in a second revival season
Amy Sherman-Palladino never seemed particularly interestedin the finances of her characters. In fact, anything money related needs to bedisregarded when it comes to the show. That doesn’t mean that won’t change,though.A second revival season is not yet a given, but fans have hope that Sherman-Palladinowill return to Netflix, at least one more time, to further Lorelai’s story.
Maybe fans will get to learn more about the business’finances if that were to happen. Last we left Lorelai, she was recently marriedand in the perfect position to expand the Dragonfly Inn and make it her passiononce again. With an injection of money from EmilyGilmore, perhaps fans will finally get a chance to see how Lorelai balancesher checkbook.
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