Regina M.
Yelp
Better than a 4, but don't have a 4.5 option.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. Right in the heart of Knoxville where you can walk to everything! We were just there for the Tennesse Georgia football game and I wanted to park the car and be done for the weekend. VERY doable.
Some of the amenities include $15 per day 24-hour valet parking which was worth it to me so that we didn't have to worry about where we were parked on a game weekend. They have water and apples available in the lobby 24/7, and bowls of apples scattered throughout the hotel. Coffee is available in the library in the mornings.
Extremely friendly and helpful staff. They were sold out (football weekend) so no opportunity to take advantage of an upgrade offer, but we did get complimentary cocktails in the Peter Kern Library. Everyone was smiling and seemed happy!
Well appointed rooms with extremely comfy beds. Upscale bath products are provided. There was a stocked snack "bar" that even had a couple of bottles of wine and a bottle of bourbon. NICE! The refrigerator was stocked with sodas, but we still had room to put in a bottle of wine and water that we had brought with us.
Market Square is a few steps away and other great restaurants are within a block or two. Tupelo Honey will give you the VIP treatment (make you a priority on the wait list) if you let them know you are staying at the hotel. The Peter Kern Library (mentioned above) is in the hotel and has a speakeasy vibe - look for the red light in the alley behind the hotel. The Casual Pint craft beer bar is right next door (bartenders were very friendly), and there is a great little creperie called the French Market a couple of blocks away. Neyland Stadium is a little over a mile away and depending on where you want to go on the strip, you are no more than 2 miles from most anything. There is a golf cart taxi service available called "joyride" that runs around the campus and downtown area that is well worth the experience. If you are there during the season, there is a great farmer's market, I believe on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
Here are the downsides. I want to be clear that most of these I wouldn't even bother to mention if it weren't for the price point of the hotel on a football weekend, but more on that in a minute. The room was on the small side, which I know is very common with boutique hotels: I believe we had a standard queen. There were some spots of peeling paint along the baseboards of our room. The Friday/Saturday nightly rate is very pricey for Knoxville, it was almost triple the Sunday night rate. I get that it is football time in Tennessee and I knew what it would cost going in, but I decided to splurge this weekend since it was my husband's first trip to Neyland Stadium and I wanted to give him the full experience. There seemed to be some sort of street cleaning/overnight activity going on in the wee hours of Monday morning. I know it is primarily a business district, and not the fault of the hotel, but perhaps they should reach out to the city of Knoxville and see if they can adjust their street cleaning schedule or whatever the heck they were doing to avoid disturbing their guests.
Bottom line - I would absolutely stay here again and recommend this hotel to anyone! I might look for other less expensive downtown alternatives if it is a football weekend. But maybe not :-)...it is not like we do this every weekend. Or even every year for that matter. But any other trip to Knoxville this will definitely be my hotel of choice going forward!