Kitchen Stocking at your Short Term Rental - Don’t Forget These
If you don’t know yet, I own and run short term rentals. I love traveling so much, we decided to get in on the other side of it by hosting people when they are traveling to our lovely cities of Minneapolis + St. Paul, MN!
I think stocking a house for people to use is super important. I have been to countless furnished rentals and I see the things that are seemingly insignificant that can derail a stay. Who wants to be cooking a meal for 10 and find out there isn’t a can opener and you have to run to the store to buy one? No body. That’s who. SO here is a list of things I think are important to set your kitchen up for success with guests!
5 most important things to NOT forget when stocking your kitchen
Enough silverware, dinnerware and glassware for the amount of people staying, plus some. Some people say do 2 full settings per person you can accommodate. Sometimes the cupboards can’t house this, so I typically do 1.5 place settings per person. There is nothing worse than going to a house for 12 people are there are 2 bowls and 8 spoons available. Don’t skimp here.
Pots & Pans. PLEASE STOP BUYING USED COOKWARE. I know some people out there think it’s a race to see how little you can spend when stocking a house. But for the love of all baby kittens, please stop cheaping out on cookware. Nothing is worse than paying $250+ a night for a house with college apartment pots and pans. I am talking the bent, wobbly handled, broken handle shit that some people think is OK to store in the cupboards. I am a grown ass adult and I find it to be very tacky when I don’t have an appropriate set of pans to use. Buy a FULL set, brand new from Costco or Sam’s Club. Please don’t buy the T-Fal set or piece meal from Target. Plastic handles suck. Guests in short term rentals are harder on your house and its contents more than normal. Have you ever rented a car and driven it like a crazy person? Well, that is similar to what people do in your houses. Plastic handles on cheap pans loosen or break far faster and then you will either leave them in the cupboard forever and irritate the guests who like to cook or you will have to replace them anyways. Costco has a great Kirkland brand set up, Ninja brand is great too. Look for the metal handled cookware that have a better chance of standing up to guest use.
Knives. First, make sure you have steak knives for everyone. If only 8 come in the cutting block but your house accommodates 10, then find an additional four pack, cause no one likes to share a knife. It’s weird. Second, please stop cheaping out on these too. I know knife blocks can get expensive fast, but shitty knives that can’t even cut through an apple or tomato cause they are so dull is mega frustrating. Get the big knife block that has a sharpener in it.
Food containers. Big sets of food containers are so cheap (like $25 or less). If someone wants to cook and store the food for their stay, provide it. Also give them some cheap baggies from Aldi or even the dollar store.
Cleaning supplies. We don’t leave out a ton, but I don’t want to have to go out and buy that as a guest. If a guest wants to clean up your kitchen and your dishes, leave them the stuff to do so. We always provide a starter pack of items that includes 2 rolls of paper towels, garbage bags a plenty (3 per garbage can per stay for 3 days), dishwasher pods, a new sponge every time (I know we should be more environmentally friendly but its easy to change out), a dish scrubber (change this out when needed, don’t leave the disgusting smashed one for too long) and then spray cleaner for everything. This way they have the opportunity to not leave it a mess for your cleaners! You would be surprised at the amount of guests that don’t like to leave your house in disarray. You will hear ALL kinds of stories about the messy people, but we are quietly not shouting from the roof tops that out of 10 stays a month, only 1 left it a little dirty..
And a sixth because I want to, leave hand towels and rags and leave enough of them. Kitchen’s have lots of stuff going on. Why only 2 dish towels? These aren’t that expensive to stock 12 of them in your supply closet and leave out 4-6 or 10..
Kitchens may or may not be the main reason I choose the places I do when we stay for more than 2 nights. It’s a real big pain in the butt to go to a place and not have a can opener for the food you just bought or to bring a pan out of the cupboard and the handle wobbles. Nothing worse than walking into a brand new, $800K house with college apartment pans.
