James Bay Inn, James Bay

Back during Tourist in your Hometown, I spent the night at the James Bay Inn.  I had an enjoyable enough evening with good friends in the JBI Pub, located underneath the hotel, drinking many fine beers.  It's always nice to take the stairs home.

The pub itself is a maze of tables and booths and spaces, with a dart board perilously close to the two main entrances. There is a big round bar stuck in the middle, that makes it not quite fit in with the seating around it.  This is the replacement for any charm in the surroundings.  There is no massive chalkboard of  rare Oregon beers, or the pinewood polished fixings, or deep plush couches, or 10 mile organic grass fed menus.  The JBI has none of these things.

It doesn't need them.

The point of the JBI is drinking a decent beer with folks you enjoy the company with.  There was music, I couldn't tell you what it was, but probably wasn't country music, as no-one in our group walked out screaming.  The beer menu had a good selection of local brews.  Or you can get a pale American lager in one of the mainstream flavours.

The menu is bar food.  There are burgers, wraps and sandwiches.  I got an open faced new york steak sandwich.  It was cooked nice and rare, just like I wanted it.  Piled up on a wedge of french bread, the juices flowed into the dough.  It was good.   One of my friends had the liver and onions.  The liver was a big, thin slab of protein, cooked, he said, just right, possibly the best he had in town for a while.

We sat a while and had a good time catching up, talking about all the things good friends do that are of little interest to anyone outside.  I believe we plotted about three major crimes, two spirited high jinks, and the eulogy at my funeral. I think. I remember laughing and smiling, so maybe the eulogy is a faulty memory after the second pint of Phillips Kaleidoscope IPA.

That's a good night out if it's very slightly hazy and my jaw muscles hurt from smiling.



The hotel room I got was a comfortable, clean and well appointed.  Except finding a makeshift desk space to type a journal entry was not easy. A chair couldn't fit between the bed and the chest of drawers. The bathroom was as big as the room itself.  I moved the bed into the bathroom to check my measurements, and it fitted between the sink, bath and toilet.  So I slept there.  I figured it would be an interesting change to sleep in a bathroom, but actually on a real mattress. Instead of using the bath mat as a cover (Mum, this only happened once, at University).

I woke up refreshed, reassembled the bedroom, and headed down to the breakfast room.

I went for the big fat breakfast, which had two of everything.  If you have the chance to stay at the James Bay Inn, and get a $10 voucher for breakfast, I recommend passing on this part of the stay. Over-cooked eggs, charred toast and coffee that was partly ground.  Good, old fashioned Vancouver Island dirt. Bleh.

The dinner was great, breakfast was not.  The room was fine. For the rate I paid, I'll not find a better deal within a walk of downtown in Victoria.