Gary Morgan

Review of PUBLIC CHICAGO | AN IAN SCHRAG...

The Public is a nice, modern feeling hotel with ro...

The Public is a nice, modern feeling hotel with room for improvement. Clearly you could see bones of the former Ambassador East which was what this property used to be known as. The Public did keep the name of their well-known restaurant, Pump Room.

There is no vent in the bathroom so expect it to take a while for the steam to clear off the mirror after you take a shower.

When we checked in they offered to upgrade us to the larger, Deluxe King room for an additional $70 per night. The Deluxe has more sitting space. We did not take them up on the offer.

Wi-fi is barely functional. You get free basic wi-fi that has a rate of 1 mbps. You can pay $20 for the the premium wi-fi of 4 mbps. The premium is still quite slow and definitely overpriced. This is clearly a function that needs to be modernized.

We went to the Library and Coffee Bar on a Saturday night. We are in our mid-50 s and felt a bit out of place so took our drinks back to our room. It was loud and crowded with young, stylish professionals. We found out the next day that there were two parties going on in the bar which is why it was so crowded and boisterous.

All of the staff at the Public we encountered were very gracious.

We called down to the front desk on Saturday evening because our neighbor s TV was so loud we could hear it in our room. I think it was a combination of their TV being turned up as well as the walls being thin. Security did come up and asked them to turn their TV down (and they did.) We could even hear our neighbor s phone when it rang.

After our first night we were surprised that the maid service did not refill the toiletries and emptied only one waste basket

Sunday morning I went to the front desk and received a complimentary Chicago Tribune. I wanted a Diet Coke, but found that they don t have coke products or any vending machines of any kind on any floor. The front desk directed me to the Library and Coffee Bar which has a breakfast service but they didn t have any diet soda. They directed me to the Pump Room and I couldn t find anyone there so I just went back to my room. I found that the Pump Room doesn t open for brunch until 9:00 and I was there at 8:30.