The Charmant Hotel — Hotel in La Crosse

I have often stayed at the Charmant when traveling for work in the area. Until my most recent stay, it has been a favorite. My last trip, left such a poor experience with me however, that I doubt I will be back.

I have food allergies. Being a medical professional, I am very careful to make sure I eat at safe locations when I travel. This usually means dining at higher end establishments with a trained chef who is familiar with cross contamination. I am a pretty down to earth person, I always let wait staff know upfront about my food allergy, but am not high maintenance or demanding in any way. After a long day at work, we were so excited to have a nice, relaxing, and enjoyable dinner. We arrived at the restaurant upon opening - it was slow and the Chef had literally just arrived as we had watched him walk in while enjoying drinks at the bar beforehand. We payed our bar tab & moved over to the restaurant. We ordered the charcuterie tray (which again we have ordered numerous times) as an appetizer & placed our dinner orders. The restaurant kitchen is an open design. I had told our waitress I had a food allergy when ordering and she had a concern about a meat on the tray so she consulted with the Chef (not at our bequest, but her own). That is when things went downhill. The sous chef loudly sighed and said "oh you are going to love this one" - loud enough to grab our attention and be heard clearly across the dining room to our table seats by the window. In other words, loud enough for the entire bar and restaurant to all overhear. We then heard the Chef chime in and relay to the waitress that we had dined with them yesterday (yes! again, this is why we stay with you!) and proceed to complain about making our food. I was mortified. I was embarrassed and made to feel like I was an inconvenience. The waitress returned to our table to let us know that she had checked on our food and it was safe and made a comment that she had "heard we had dined with them the night before and probably already knew this". I nicely told her that yes, we heard the kitchen staff complaining about us from across the dining room. No apology. She just simply walked away and proceeded to stand against a wall with other wait staff chatting. Fast forward 20 minutes to food delivery. I was so fed up with our lack of service that I simply asked for our food to go. I had lost my appetite. I walked up to the room while my husband settled the room charge. He was going to bring our drinks (untouched at that point) up with him but forgot them. I noticed at the elevator and he went back to retrieve them (perhaps a 1-2 min delay?) and they had already been cleared. Our waitress told him she could order him new drinks for a charge. Obviously we declined at that point and had drinks down the street.

I wish I could tell you that the stay was otherwise uneventful. But unfortunately we had bad luck. The thermostat in our room did not work and our room was freezing. We could not raise the temperature. When we called the front desk about the issue, they sent up a blanket and a space heater with apologies that the issue was known but that a technician had not yet been out to fix it. Two nights with a space heater. Food to go at an upscale restaurant due to extremely unprofessional staff and poor customer service. And, $25 in a drink round thrown out and wasted. Will we be back? Probably not. Was it the heater? No. The drinks? Annoying, but no. It was hands down the offensive, unprofessional, and uncourteous customer service. Nothing leaves a poorer taste in your mouth than an experience like this. And it is uncalled for. A manager was on the floor and this should never have occurred. And it is unfortunate. Im sharing in hopes that it is remedied and doesn't happen again for the next person in my shoes.

Educate yourselves. Food allergies aren't a choice. Simple kindness...

First of all id liked to say that the hotel it’s self was nothing but the best from the amazing valet, the front desk, bartenders, barista, room service person and most of all the supervisor Noah made our stay so incredibly welcoming from their smiles and greetings to the extra touches they do to make you feel special and home! The room service food was too die for to say it was delicious would not do it justice. We got the cheese curds, a burger with fries, cream brûlée and pumpkin cheesecake. When say get it all I mean get it all or you’ll be missing out! We woke up expecting a great start to our day with greetings and smiles. We were instead greeted with this. The restaurant aspect of this was such a sad disappointment and brought the overall experience down from no greeting to being seated and having an unhappy waitress who brought us room temp water. She never brought us coffee refills while giving her other 2 tables right by us refills. We asked for an orange juice for our 2 year old and she gave him an overflowing glass. I asked for a straw she brought a kids cup this time but no straw. We asked for sugar for the coffee. Finally after not getting it and no staff in sight I went to the bar to get a straw and sugar. She rushed us into ordering and then disappeared again. When she was around it was leaning on the desk socializing with manager. The other server and what looked like might have been the restaurant manager brought our food and anything else we needed. She came back to our table very few times and still was not friendly. We ordered a dish that was served with eggs which was ordered scrambled. When we got the dishes they had a circular disk egg. The manager said oh did you want scrambled? Then you have to order it that way. Which we did. He proceeded to have the eggs made correctly while leaving the other half of the meal at the table to get cold. We asked for the rest of the meal to...

5 star prices with college students running the front office.

We planned for over a week AND traveled over 3 hours to visit the Charmant for what they advertised as their “last weekend to enjoy the rooftop bar” with posted openings of 4-10pm (screenshots to prove it). Before traveling the distance we called to ask what time they were SERVING until. The answer was 10pm. Since there was no hotel availability we decided to stay at the nearby Radisson.

We arrived at around 8pm and were told there was a “solid wait” and to go to the 5th floor to check-in (which we did). The hostess took our name and said there were 4 tables in front of us. We got a call at 9:15pm stating they had our table for cocktails and the kitchen closed at 8:30pm.

What?????

We put our name in beforehand... Called to confirm in the afternoon... Hostess who took our name said nothing about kitchen closing at 8:30pm. What more did we have to do as customers??

We traveled 3 hours. Waited for over an hour before being told they weren’t going to serve us. It’s now 9:53pm and I’m likely headed to a Taco Bell in La Crosse as that’s what’s open.

I can’t say I’m disappointed- that’s a huge understatement as you can imagine the amount of time (and money) I’ve invested into my Friday into this... and the fact that we got a hotel for this... only to not even experience it. I was offered a box of chocolates for the inconvenience.

To be fair- the last person we spoke to, Noah, was kind and seemed to understand our disappointment. We had even talked to him on the elevator up to get on the list about how we had traveled back from South Dakota especially for this. But I can’t believe a place this “luxurious” staffs people as clueless about their policies as we encountered.

Was planning to come back to stay but I will not waste more of my time; I’m...