[Xanth]

Le Bon Café & Hotel

The Café

Le Bon Café is a quaint little café reminiscent of those found in Europe with little tables outside on the sidewalk beneath a red-and-white striped canopy and offering all manner of pastries and light meals inside. Located in the heart of Alexshire's midtown, Le Bon Café fronts onto the plaza that hosts Elysia's busiest marketplace, serving to make it a popular and busy place with both the locals and tourists. The interior brings to mind English cottages with heavy mahogany furniture and thick brocade draperies that lend a cosiness for those dreary wet-weather days. There are booths along the far wall and six-seat tables dotted around the room for large groups, as well as smaller circular tables for two to four people. Each table is covered with lacy white cloths and unobtrusive flower arrangements as centrepieces. In the background plays low music designed to give something of interest but not prevent chatter, while the smells of baking goodies come from the kitchens next door. Two waitresses dressed in black and white uniforms flit about from table to table while the manager and her attendants serve customers from the long mahogany counter along the wall to the left.

The Hotel

Calling Le Bon a hotel is actually a bit generous as it's more a hostel or bed-and-breakfast than a full hotel. The Le Bons converted the upper two floors of their building after young members of the family discovered that commuting from their hometown to their jobs every day was actually more expensive than they could afford. Seeing the demand for cheap housing in the city and already having a pool of customers to work from, the Le Bon hotel was an immediate success. Though the hotel rooms are very basic and only offer the essential amenities, they're a cheap alternative to a long commute and more than enough for the young worker until they can afford a place of their own. Better yet, the Le Bon's friendly manager may even waive the rent in favour of a few hours of work in the café downstairs!

OOC Information

Café Rates

The Le Bon Café is a no-fee roleplay zone, which means that while your characters must pay for their meals and board, you don't spend hard-earned cash out of your bank account. This is why there's no menu - as long as you stick to the theme of the café (light meals and baked goods only, not gourmet food or McDonalds xP), you can pretty much order whatever your character fancies. And the best thing is that you only need to say you've paid!

Hotel Rent

Many patrons of the Le Bon Hotel treat it more like a long-term home than a temporary vacation spot and it's little wonder with the cheap rent. Depending on the type of room you stay in, you might be paying as much as $100 for a small room to yourself, or as little as $20 for a bunkbed in a room shared with five others. If you can't afford even that much, you might be able to petition Adèlaïde and work for her in the café in lieu of rent. All you need to do is get permission from a moderator, then roleplay making the deal with the manageress. After that, just make sure to mention that you work in the café from time to time. If you want to actually roleplay such work, that's great too.

Le Bon Staff

Le Bon's manager, Adèlaïde Le Bon, is a very social human lady in her mid-40s who blames her four sons for the premature grey of her once brown hair. She can seem nosy on occasion and has been accused of eavesdropping on more than one occasion, but her heart is usually in the right place. The majority of the rest of the staff - which consists of two waiters/waitresses, two to three counter attendants and a team of kitchen staff - are members of the Le Bon family. Some are not, however, and these typically come from the lodgings upstairs. The turnover for these is fairly high and it's not unusual for a member of staff to work for barely a week before they move on. Because of this, some of the staff can seem inexperienced and clumsy but the collective effort usually covers up any mistakes made.

Additions

If you want to make any additions to the Le Bon Café and Hotel description (such as naming one of Adèlaïde's sons or 'decorating' one of the hotel rooms), please post the additions to this thread. All additions require a moderator's seal of approval (we'll basically just edit your post to say Approved or similar, or ask you to change it as appropriate if there's a problem). Everyone should pay attention to this thread and the following member-made additions so the café and its environs seem more real.

Images © Lineage. Code by Piper. Rest from Aethereality.

[Sierina]

I made a description of the dormitories. :grin:


If you want the cheapest accomadation, then it's best if you like people or can put up with excited whispers when you're trying to catch some shuteye. On the first floor, occupying the right wall of the landing, there are two dormitories, both the same size. The doors are white plywood, an awful material for keeping sound in a room; many a patron occupying these rooms have received complaints for being too noisy, when it is really only their quiet conversations drifting out of the room. The Le Bons don't mind people staying in the dormitories on a long-term basis, as long as all patrons manage to pay up either in cold hard cash, or by working hard down in the café. Inside, the dorms are quite spacious, but it's the bunks that take up most of the room.

There are either 3 or 4 bunkbeds in a dorm - on 2 out of 4 you'll find they creak when you clamber in for the night - with simple but efficient white sheets and one pillow. For those of you who find it difficult to sleep with only one pillow under your head, you can either secretly sly off with your neighbour's pillow and creep down the hall to the airing cupboard to sneak off with one of the pillows or cushions from in there. As for your belongings, there are chests of drawers and one or two shelves to each bunkbed, and you can divide this space up equally with the patron sharing your bunkbed. The bathroom is a communal one, with a few stalls, showers, sinks, and mirrors, and there is only one of these per dormitory.

Approved. :^^:

[Lani]

One of Adèlaïde Le Bon's long term boarders is Sarah, a nice woman with perpetual wrinkle lines. She's always paid rent on time and done free waitressing and has become somewhat of an aunt to the Le Bon children.

Invented her for Lani's thread, but thought she could be used by other people.

Also, the rooms 3A-3D are single person rooms, plainly furnished, but include a glass lamp, a bookshelf, a one-person bed, a dresser to hold there clothing, and the four rooms share a private bathroom, with two showerstalls, two toilets, and...three sinks. Nobodys quite sure why it doesnt match everything else. Note: The locks on the doors can be broken through quite easily, so be ready to defend your things if need be!

EDIT: Lani's room:

The doorway to the room is light and airy, with chipped white paint and a lock that opens if you jiggle it the right way, or if you're skilled with a paperclip. Once inside the room, you notice that its painted a light blue color, though all the furniture is white with blue accents, excluding the one-person bed, which is fashioned from steel, with blue sheets. The Le Bon's have a strict rule about changing anything in the rooms permanantly, so Lani is keeping as respectful as possible.

On the wood flooring is a large circular rug, with embroidered bluebells encircling it. Very soft, very easy to clean. Theres also a bookshelf, half filled with some of the Le Bon's books for the customers to read, most of them fairytails and myths and legends. The book ends are made of large conch shells, filled with sand and then welded shut, so as to keep weight from escaping.

then on the last wall stands a dresser, plain, painted white. The real masterpiece of the room is the lamp that sits on the beds nightstand. Its made of differant shades of blue glass, and when turned on, the light that reflects onto the walls looks like the ocean. Either way, Lani is pleased to have such a nice room to herself and takes excelent care of it whenever possible.


Its assumed that the other one-person rooms are decorated similarly, perhaps with differant color schemes.