Hôtel-Restaurant Big Faim — Hotel in Arrondissement de Thiès Nord

We were delighted to find this clean and stylish hotel on the main street in tree-lined Thies. We had two rooms, and both were pristine clean and well maintained. The beds are a bit hard, but the sheets and towels are high quality. Nice artwork in the rooms and in the halls. The room comes with a buffet breakfast that includes omelets, fruit, pastries, etc. Downstairs is the Big Faim restaurant (indoors and outdoors) with a big selection of decent food (I've had the pasta and now I'm eating a jambon crepe, both good). They have ice cream and a large assortment of french pastries. Behind the hotel/restaurant is a small swimming pool, but unfortunately for us, it was drained for repairs during our stay. ||||The hotel staff is efficient, although not particularly warm or friendly. There's not much English spoken here, but luckily our daughter (traveling with us) is fluent in French so we had no issues when she is with us. The woman in charge of the breakfast room is very nice, trying to help us pronounce Woolof words. Free wifi is strong both in the rooms and the restaurant, although it does go down occasionally and comes back a few hours later.||||Thies itself is delightful, especially the downtown, with its paved streets and mature trees lining the boulevards. There seems to be an obsession with washing cars, as we saw many late model cars being washed everywhere we went on the main street (Av Leopold Sedar). Merchants are also constantly sweeping and washing their storefronts, which makes it the cleanest city we've seen so far in Senegal. We were seldom approached by people trying to sell us things. Even the kids holding out their hands for money quickly left us alone with just a simple "no."||||Wander up the street for about 15 minutes and you come to the bustling market area. Even here, at the shops that line Av Charles de Gaulle, people were washing and sweeping their shops. Behind the street was an enormous market, packed with people, taxis, donkey carts and motoscooters. ||||A highlight has been a visit to the Manufacturers Senegaliaisses des Arts Decoratifs. Wow! Spectacular, tapestries, made on the sprawling and leafy grounds, are displayed in a soaring exhibit hall. All around are buildings where we were able to watch the tapestries being made by hand, with friendly staff trying to explain the workings to us. ...

Every time I go here, the experience gets worse and worse. I normally stop by to buy a lunch and use the wifi for a bit. Never have I once gotten good service from the workers. It is absolutely evident that they do not want to be there and do their job. It wouldn't be so bad if the food was good, but it's not. Once I ordered a Croque Monsieur (just a ham and cheese sandwich, essentially) and I only got two pieces of bread.

Furthermore, they are completely unsanitary. I once saw them dumping the small cups of sauce back into the bottles for reuse AFTER a customer had used it at their table.

Once I was threatened to be kicked out of the restaurant because I had an old plastic water bottle in my hand. They refused to let me past the gate with this "purchase from another business." They assigned a woman to the doorstep to watch me throw it away before I was allowed to reenter. I ordered food there anyway. Even after the meal the same woman who watched me yelled at me in both French and Wolof.

Lastly, they have several male security guards at the gate 24/7. IF they choose to look up from their phones and do their work to see who is coming and going, it is probably to cat-call the foreigners and harass them for their phone numbers. This has happened to me and several of my friends. They endlessly call out about how much they missed us since they last time we visited.

The staff is absolutely horrible and the food just as bad. I have moved my service elsewhere and will never return to...

I very much enjoyed my stay at the Big Faim Hotel. I had decided to break up the long sept-place journey from Saint-Louis to Dakar by stopping overnight in Thies, and was so very glad that I did. Not only is the city worth an overnight stop, the Big Faim Hotel was one of the most comfortable and affordable hotels I stayed at during my travels around West Africa. The staff and service are both highly professional, and the building is sparklingly clean and presentable. The thing that stood out for me the most though was the room - it was huge, very clean, quiet, extremely comfortable, and very tastefully decorated. The bed overflowed with fluffy pillows, duvet and white sheets, and proved most comfortable. The only small issue I had was that the room door was quite thin, making conversations in the corridor and nearby door slammings a little too audible - perhaps just a recommendation for some sound-proof door fittings... The attached restaurant downstairs was also a welcome bonus, serving a delicious buffet breakfast in the morning, and excellent meals at all other times. Thank you for a very...