Sisters Buy Bed and Breakfast and Try to Become Real-Life “Gilmore Girls” (Exclusive)

• Sisters Kristen and Kathryn Groom bought a Welland, Ontario, bed and breakfast in May 2022, despite having no hospitality experience

• The sisters said in a now-viral TikTok video that they wanted to “risk” the Gilmore Girls life, comparing themselves to Lorelai and Sookie on the series

• Kristen and Kathryn tell PEOPLE how they made their bed and breakfast a success

Sisters Kristen and Kathryn Groom always knew they wanted to run a business together. When they landed on the idea of a bed and breakfast, Kristen, 35, tells PEOPLE, it was the first business that their parents actually thought was a “good idea.”

As the sisters, and owners of Welland, Ontario’s The Rose Manor, shared in a TikTok video that’s been viewed more than 5.5 million times, they decided to take the leap and buy a bed and breakfast in May 2022. In the video, they compared the choice to Gilmore Girls — in which Lorelai Gilmore (played by Lauren Graham) and Sookie St. James (played by Melissa McCarthy) own and operate the Dragonfly Inn.

“We toured the house after a giant snowstorm so didn’t know too much of what we were working with, but we decided to take the risk and live that Gilmore Girls life,” they wrote in the video, over photos of the inn. Neither had any hospitality experience, but they were driven to start their business in the town, which has a population just over 55,000.

In the video, they documented how they scoured thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace to find items to furnish the inn’s eight bedrooms and six bathrooms. The sisters chose a rose as a logo, and soon their friends and family were also searching their basements for items to give them. “Anything with a rose on it, we inherit some way or another,” Kristen says.

They took on DIY projects to whip the B&B into shape, transformed the property’s outdoor spaces and even started a line of Welland merchandise. “I think the decorating was probably one of our favorite parts of this whole process. Just turning the space into what we want it to be,” Kathryn, 27, says.

In addition to hosting travelers, after the B&B opened, they also started hosting weddings — something that Lorelai also did on Gilmore Girls. And, in a true Gilmore Girls coincidence, a nearby coffee shop is run by a man named Luke. The sisters say there are “so many little details” about the bed and breakfast that people on their TikTok account have connected to Gilmore Girls, including many that they didn’t even catch themselves.

The sisters’ dad grew up in Welland, so it’s been “really special” to build their business there, Kathryn says. “It's really nice to be in this community and have a little corner of it.” The inn, a Tudor-style home built in 1906, has views of the Welland Canal, which hosts concerts on a floating stage every summer, and they’re only 20 minutes away from Niagara Falls. “It was a magical property to find,” Kathryn says.

As for TikTok, Kristen says that at first, she thought the social media app wasn’t right for them. But in early 2024, she resolved to post more regularly, and soon their account went viral for the first time.

TikTok has brought them younger guests, including a lot of solo women travelers, but it’s brought even more micro-wedding and elopement couples; a successful post can lead to three or four wedding inquiries that day.

When they opened The Rose Manor, Kristen was working as a full-time HR director and Kathryn was finishing a master’s degree. Both now focus on the B&B full-time, and live in two of the bedrooms.

“We realized quite quickly how well we work together as a team, and it's felt very natural,” Kathryn says about working with her sister. “I wouldn’t say easy, but it does feel easy. What I don’t like to do, Kristen likes to do and vice versa.” Their dad is their handyman — and built them a small venue for weddings — and their mom loves to come over to work in the garden.

The inn was once the sisters’ dream, but now, Kathryn says, “It's really a family affair.”

Read the original article on People