Melissa "METALISSA" C.'s Profile

We came in on a Monday for lunch knowing this place was new, but I had already had it recommended to me by these raving Yelp reviews and a coworker, so I thought i would check it out!

Noon is probably a little early for a beer, but I figured, what the heck, you only live once, right? I got a glass of their white ale, which had a  French name, so I can't recall it, it was about a 12 oz. pour, and it was $6. At first, it was so light I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but it was incredibly flavorful without being too citrusy or too sweet. For my lunch I had the macaroni and cheese with black truffles ($10), which came in a dish that has been covered in tasty breadcrumbs (essential for any macaroni and cheese worth it's salt, and I'm not talking about its sodium content), a piping hot out of the oven. The mac was rich and creamy, with a hint of onion and the satisfying crumble of the breadcrumbs in my mouth. J'adore!

My boyfriend had the Corned Beef Sliders ($10) paired with the recommended beer, but again, French, can't recall the name ($6). It was a dark ale, but it was so full-bodied and really delicious without being heavy, and I don't typically like dark beer! The corned beef sliders were JUST phenomenal. They came with a side of fries with homemade ketchup, which really made the meal.

The interior of the restaurant is beautiful, and the boy and I sat in a booth IN THE WINDOW! So cute! It was neat to see all the pedestrian passerby on Glassell staring jealously at our meals.

So this is supposed to be like an English pub, but let me tell you, this food is so much better than any of the bland junk I ate when I was in the UK! While Haven is still offering up a limited menu, the selections we had proved that this restaurant has got the wherewithall to make it happen, even while they're rubbing elbows with perennial restaurant favorites like Gabbi's Mexican Kitchen and Felix's Continental Cafe.

The boy and I will definitely be back again. This is the kind of business we need in the Orange Plaza!

I booked a patio room with fireplace for my birthday on Sunday May 10. Arrived at the hotel right at 3 for check in. We were quickly booked into our room, 233. I asked several questions about certain offerings that the hotel had, including a BBQ dinner on your private patio and a black and white movie projected on your patio wall. Both sounded fun, but the clerk wasn't sure about prices. He told me he would find out and call me on my cell phone in 15 minutes.

We took all our bags in and noticed first that the room didn't have in it the promised record player, which was advertised on the website and was one of the major reasons we booked this room. Incidentally, my friend had also bought me 3 vinyl records for my birthday that were now rendered totally useless for the night. We went to the front desk to see if they could get us a record player, they said they would see if they could have one moved into the room and would call us, again within 15 minutes. The room was beautiful otherwise, very clean and white, and the bathroom was ALL tiled with white subway tile-- even the ceiling-- lovely! I loved the rain shower, too! So glamorous.

We left to go antiquing and were never called back. And hour later we were all suited up to go to the pool and again asked the front desk about the things they never called us back about. They told us that the BBQ was $45.95/person and the movie on the patio was $55 and included cocktails. We asked for a list of the movies, and the clerk proceeded to bring out a small stack of maybe 8 films from the used section at FYE, saying that they just started the program. We passed. We were told that they couldn't move the record players but they would move us into a room, but they didn't know which rooms had them, even though ALL patio rooms are supposed to, so the clerk had to go personally check a few rooms. Finally, we settled into 423, with a smaller bathroom, but a record player.

For dinner we ate at the King's Highway, which I'll cover in a separate review, but the food was great. The pool was also absolutely gorgeous, surrounded by couches and hammocks, and a great time was had by all. Had I known about the great COMMUNITY fire pits, I might have been less inclined to book a patio room, since the fireplace was right there, but I loved relaxing on our (semi) private patio at night. Too bad there was a loud wedding going on that drowned out the sound of our records playing, just 10 feet from our room. Oh yeah, and the people upstairs might have seen us canoodling. So much for private. Either way the property was gorgeous and I wanted to love this place, so I settled into the huge and very comfortable bed.

Then I realized I couldn't sleep because it was so hot in the room. No fiddling with the AC would cool it either. We called the front desk at about 1 am, and they said they would send someone to look at it and call us 15 minutes later. Again with the calling back. 2 HOURS LATER and no call, so we called back again and they said someone was working on it. It stayed hot all night. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 7 am to take advantage of their free bicycles for riding around town. The front desk clerk asked how our night was and when we explained the AC she said That's funny because we don't have anyone here who can work on the AC after 10 pm. I'll have someone look at it now but we can move you into another room if it's still not working. Uh, thanks, we're gonna check out in 5 hours.

We rented a tandem bike and took a little cruise around Palm Springs, came back, hopped in the pool, and checked back with the front desk. Oh, the maintenance said that your AC is working fine. Great. We fiddled with the damn thing ALL NIGHT and now it works. Super. We returned to the room and ordered room service for breakfast.

I had the porridge and hot cakes and my friend had the two eggs and a fruit cup. The food was great, it took about 40 minutes to arrive, but he didn't bring a cart with him, just a huge pile of stuff in his arms, so he didn't bring our toast or the Greek yogurt that was supposed to come with the meal, so we had to call and have them sent again.

We took a nap in our cooler room (though it never quite reached the 68 degrees that I set it to-- it sat around 75), and then checked out right around 12.

To be honest, the hotel is beautiful, the grounds are great, I love that they re-appropriated everything, from the old Denny's building to the furniture. The vibe is hip without being elitist and I loved the energy about the place. And there's a photobooth! But the staff is not very accommodating and made me feel like a nuisance for asking for basic things. And I hated that they said they'd call back when they never did. How obnoxious. I wanna give this place another chance, maybe in the future.... Hotel-5 stars, Staff-1 star!