Inn Vogue

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Large or small, urban B&Bs almost always have one thing in common: personal service. An innkeeper can get to know you and over time develop a sense of what you like and don't like. Yes, at a large hotel there is a record of your last visit and whether you lodged a complaint, but that's altogether different from arriving in a city and finding someone who remembers you and your taste in art or food or wine. Barry Knox, 63, a retired investment banker from New Canaan, Conn., says everyone knows him when he walks in the door at the 10-room Jackson Court, one of the four Joie de Vivre inns in San Francisco. He has been back to the property half a dozen times since 1998, paying about $180 a night. "It's a nice feeling when you're on a first-name basis with the staff even though you're in the heart of a big city," Knox says. Giving guests those nice feelings is what urban B&Bs are all about.