Archive: Around Town

A dinner cruise on Cayuga Lake has been an Ithaca mainstay for many years.  Since taking over Cayuga Lake Cruises & Catering in 2001 owner B.J. Bliss has added lunch, brunch, and sightseeing cruises, expanded the season, the number of cruises, and catering private parties on the lake and in a land-bound events center.

"People would stop by all the time saying, 'Are you doing a lunch cruise?'  'Are you doing an afternoon cruise?'," he says.  "I saw that opportunity.  All these people are stopping by, I thought 'why can't we capitalize on it?'"

He has been doing just that for eight years.  Each weekday a lunch cruise leaves at 11am.  On weekends it is a champagne brunch cruise.  A sightseeing cruise leaves at 2pm, and a three hour dinner cruise leaves at 6pm until September, and then at 5pm to take advantage of the waning sunlight.  Menus are varied -- dinners feature grilled sirloin, roasted salmon, mushroom stuffed chicken topped with three cheese sauce, and vegetarian spinach lasagna, among other choices.  He also offers 'happy hour' cruises three times in the season.


The Bliss Events Center, the former Old Port Harbor Restaurant, is used for private events, which can also be booked on the MV Columbia.  90% of the cooking for the meal cruises is done there by two full time chefs.  Bliss says they can be very flexible in creating menus for private parties.  There are facilities on the ship for finishing the meals, cooking a steak a little more, and preparing meals.

When he purchased the business in 2001 Bliss expanded the schedule from primarily dinner cruises for the 65 foot MV Manhattan.  Today he offers three cruises per day.  He says tens of thousands of people have taken a cruise on that ship since he began.  It holds up to 90 people for receptions, and up to 56 for sit down meals.  The Manhattan was built in 1915 to ferry immigrants from Ellis Island to Manhattan.

"You would be surprised how many people say, 'I wonder if my grandparents were on this boat?'," Bliss says.


After the 2007 season he added the MV Columbia, also 65 feet, but able to handle up to 140 people in both configurations.  This season he runs the Columbia out of Ithaca, and has entered into an agreement with the Aurora Inn to run the Manhattan in Aurora.  He is considering running cruises out of Geneva, and the Carolinas where he could run the business year 'round.  Another possibility is returning the MV Manhattan to New York Harbor for historical cruises in its original home.  But he says that he'll always keep a boat in Ithaca to continue the tradition of lake cruises that has been part of the city's landscape for so long.

Bliss came to Ithaca College to study elementary education, and is currently a Physical Education teacher at South Hill Elementary School.  While in college he worked on the MV Manhattan for several summers before purchasing the business from the previous owners.  He says he knew nothing about business, but saw opportunities in expanding the business to more cruises, and eventually more locations.  Since then he has taken a few classes on marketing.

"That first year I made some serious, serious mistakes and fell on my face a few times," he admits.  "I think that's part of business.  I learned by trial by error.  I put my foot in the fire and it got burned a few times, and I'm a better businessman for it, I feel."

Future plans for the business include remaking the events center into a wine bar.  'Corks and More' will have a lounge atmosphere featuring a kind of wine vending machine called a 'wine station'.  Customers put money on a 'key card' similar to those used in hotels for room keys.  Bliss plans to start with about 50 wines.  Using the card you can get a one ounce taste, a half, or a full glass.  That way customers can taste wines, then decide which one they want.  A limited tapas style menu will be available. 

The existing bar will feature craft beer , scotch list, martini list, mojito list.  Hours will be built around the cruises so customers can come for wine and then go to dinner on the lake.


"We want to be a very unique place for people to come," Bliss says.  "What a perfect place to start in the middle of the Finger Lakes wine country.  We will focus on Finger Lakes, but we won't be exclusive to the Finger Lakes.  We're going to have wines from all over the world."

Bliss says word of mouth is the best advertising as people come back year after year and tell their friends.  The business keeps in touch with customers through e-mail.  One winter the general manager backpacked through Europe in the off-season.  People he had met on the boat put him up as he traveled.

The business employs about 15 people, up from five when he started in 2001.  That includes a couple of captains, two chefs, and crew that does everything from tying up the boats to serving food to bartending.  Each cruise has a minimum of a captain and two crew, but there may be more staffing depending on how many people are on the cruise.

"My favorite thing is the people," Bliss says.  "The number of people that we meet from all over the world is the coolest thing.  To see those same people came back or send us an email to say, 'I've got friends from Germany that are coming for a conference at Cornell.  We told them to come on the boat.'  Then you get to see those people."

----
v5i35