Stephanie E.
Yelp
We had our wedding and stayed at the Water Street Inn for two nights, along with many friends and family. We visited Charlie's & Papa's multiple times, so we had contact with nearly all workers throughout the facility. I will start with the wedding, then the hotel & restaurants.
Wedding:
I can't recommend a wedding at the Water Street. Menu pricing is subject to change under their contract, which was non-negotiable. There are too many unknowns in a wedding - and not knowing how much we would pay for food left me stressed for a whole year. This was a decision made by the owner of the Water Street.
Water Street advertises that an event coordinator is included when you book a wedding. The coordinator we dealt with was Julie Rademacher, who had two jobs: event and sales manager. I don't have the best things to say about Julie, so I will just say - it was super stressful from signing the contract to the wedding day. If you're in love with the location like we were, consider hiring a wedding planner & day-of coordinator.
We had many great vendors who handled COVID, communication, pricing, and contracting differently from this venue. The main issue is customer service and unfortunately this is an issue from the top-down. There's other venues out there if you want a stress-free day.
Hotel:
We stayed in the bridal suite (#304) on the historic side and in the Tower Suite (#327) on the renovated side. We loved the rooms and the views. The historic side could use some renovation and there's creepy paintings on the walls, but it's also a little charming. Plus, the historic rooms have jacuzzis.
Cons: Overpriced for the quality. The blinds fell down on the sliding glass door to our Tower Suite on our wedding night. I called front desk for help, and I was told they could not help. No one would come check it out and there was no one to call either. This was confusing to me, and the front desk person understood my frustration - but there was nothing he could do. There must be a staffing issue(?). We put a plastic garment bag over the window so people wouldn't see into our $439 suite.
Charlie's:
Breakfast was really good. We received $5 discount per entree with the room stay. Service is a little slow, but friendly. Lunch was fine. Charlie's also did our groom's dinner, and the food was OK. I don't recommend the back room for groom's dinner because Charlie's service staff is constantly passing through your event to get to the kitchen.
Papa's:
Service is slow, menu is limited, view is spectacular. I don't think management cares to improve the service issues, so you get what you get. Come for the views.
To summarize the Water Street - great location, but they're not delivering in service. They should be featured on the show, "Restaurants on the Edge." My advice to ownership is to bring in / promote people (Alex & your millennial kids) who want people to have a great experience. Not everything needs to be sales-oriented when you already have a location that sells itself.
Update:
The blinds I referred to were from the *porch door, not the sliding door, to room 327 (the tower suite on the renovated side). They fell down, and we were told no one could help by the front desk. It was 1 AM, which is late, but we were staying in their nicest room and had higher expectations.
I attached a picture of the contract we signed - prices were subject to change, with no amount of days before the wedding mentioned. I asked for this to be changed, but the request wasn't met. If they now have a clause for 60 days, that's an improvement and that's good.
We didn't receive our final invoice until the week before the wedding, which is why I say a lot of stress from contract signing to the wedding day. A month beforehand, the invoice had the wrong appetizers & late night snacks, despite many emails about our selections. Also, we were double taxed on several invoice items. Luckily my husband caught the error or we would have paid hundreds extra. Water Street said this was a computer system error - which left me wondering, how many other events have been double taxed?
I'm a type-A personality, so I will own the bridezilla title. However, I am not heartless. I feel terrible if I made the coordinator cry. But... I also cried.
The owner's reply says it all - I was treated like I was the worst bride the coordinator had ever worked with. No one deserves that on the best & most important day of their lives.