Hotel Baker — Hotel in St. Charles

I got married here in August of 2024. I spent several months contemplating if I wanted to waste more of my time and energy on Hotel Baker. Ultimately, if I aid in one couple's decision to refrain from booking their wedding here it would be worth it to me.

The good:

Some of the staff were great (some weren't - such as a bartender who wouldn't give me water since "the bar isn't open yet"). For us, the real draw to the venue was the rose garden and cocktail areas behind the property. It's well manicured and was a big wow factor for a lot of our guests.

The bad:

To call the wedding planning process a "Mickey Mouse Operation" would be an insult to Mickey Mouse. Hotel Baker has a number of silly rules. An example of this is there are no outside drinks allowed on the property. If you want to have a few drinks with your wedding party in the privacy of your room, this is prohibited. Hotel Baker replies in other review that rules such as this are "standard across the hospitality industry". This is simply not true. Another silly rule is you cannot take home any leftover food or beverage items. This rule also applies to leftover wedding cake - which is a traditional practice for couples to freeze and enjoy on a later date, such as an anniversary. The same rule was enforced for custom alcoholic beverage purchases. A funny aside - the staff dropped a case of one of the custom requested beers that we paid inflated prices for. The beer broke open like you'd see in the movies, spraying everywhere. I'll let the reader guess as to who paid for it.

The contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on. It is exclusively in place to protect the venue and its interests. Make no mistake - it is not designed to protect you, the consumer. We booked both the Rainbow Room and Waterfront Room and were told that we would get a total of 25 rooms in our room block. The sales contract we signed was consistent with what we were told verbally. Many of our guests contacted us stating there were no rooms available shortly after our booking. When we inquired with Hotel Baker, the staff stated there were only 17 rooms available at the time of our wedding booking. This is despite being verbally told there were 25 rooms available, plus a signed contractual agreement stating there were 25 rooms. No apologies, no offers of compensation, no concessions of any sort.

The day of the wedding was entertaining, by this point I became accustom to the incompetence, it was almost endearing. The very first guest who checked in was given a key to an occupied room, complete with suitcases and all. The next guest who checked in had a dirty room. Let me be clear when I dirty, I don't mean a subpar cleaning. It was clear a guest had just checked-out and the room had not been reset. I got to see these two guests complain first hand, as I was setting up nearby to the front desk. Who knows if there were other room issues.

All of the details previously arranged with Tiffany were not executed according to plan. For sake of being fair, I'm not convinced this was Tiffany's fault. I observed her taking detailed notes, and she referenced her notes throughout our conversations leading up to the wedding. Examples of oversights included incorrect seating arrangements (we were at least 50 chairs short in the 30-minutes prior to the ceremony), bars not opening at the correct times, late night food items not arriving on time - again, these are just the things that I personally noticed and brought to the staffs attention.

I would strongly advise other couples consider other venues. The headache of dealing with this business was simply not worth it. My wife and I are far from difficult or unreasonable people. If we received ONE apology or act of decency during the entire process, I probably wouldn't have written this review.

I'd like to leave a farewell message to all the happy couples shopping for a wedding venue. To quote the fine management of Hotel Baker in their review responses - "may you have solely pleasant experiences from this point forward in your...

We attended a wedding here recently so our rating is based off the room/service we received as hotel guest and also our experience as guest for the event venue. Truthfully, I want to give them a harsh 2 star rating but I have worked in the hospitality industry for 7+ years so I hate to give low ratings but we were just not impressed by Hotel Baker.

As hotel guests, the staff was always super kind and professional - no complaints there. But I do think its ridiculous that check in starts at 4pm for such a small hotel. I also found the pricing to be very extreme considering they don't offer much. I understand this is a "boutique hotel" so its unique history and centralized location is the prime selling points but its complimentary breakfast was awful and our room (standard king room) was super small and crowded with no ideal place to get ready (which was super important considering we were there for a wedding and I was a bridesmaid). But the one thing that I could not stand, there was no privacy at this hotel! You could hear EVERYTHING. I am not sure if it was just our room but everything in the hallways echoed into our room. We also had a door to connect us to the room next door so we could hear all conversations, the TV, anything that our neighbors did. It was absolutely terrible and in my opinion unacceptable. And lastly, I hated that there was no parking on site - I know this is out of their control (as its an older hotel) but it was never communicated to us upon booking with them. I blame myself as well for not checking but I just feel like that was something that should have been mentioned. And they do have a loading/unloading space in front of the hotel but good luck trying to use that as it was constantly being used upon our arrival so we had to park and lug our bags a couple of blocks.

As a wedding guest, this venue is really beautiful and unique. I can see how this is such a popular destination for events. I especially loved the light up dance floor. I am an event planner though so maybe these are just things I noticed but I think they are important for anyone thinking about having an event here. If you are using the outside garden area for a ceremony, the guest have to walk through the reception room to enter into ceremony garden behind the hotel (unless the other room is not being used). I would have not liked that as a bride because most like to keep the reception space as a fun surprise to walk into after cocktail hour. And even though the room is really unique with the two stories, I feel like it really separates a chunk of your guests to anyone put upstairs. There also is no bar upstairs so they will need to go up and down the stairs to get drinks. Another important thing to know that any tables placed on the dancefloor for dinner service have to be torn down for dancing. The staff did an awesome job to be quick but I personally hate tearing down things in the middle of an event (I understand its necessary for this venue). I was a bridesmaid so I lost a place to sit and store my purse safely during the remainder of the event which stunk.

The one thing that really disappointed me was the food. I have to be honest, the best food that was served to my that night was the bread. I was so sad but the entrée was awful (dual plate of chicken and salmon with mashed potatoes and carrots). Everyone I sat next too also commented on how bad the meal was but we were all sooo hungry we ate it - event the lashed potatoes were bad! I have worked all around the country doing events and this was by far the worst event food I have been served (and I worked on a Marine Corps base for 3+ years doing events lol).

One last thing, normally the bar tells the DJ to make a last call announcement. They never did that and so all the sudden, the bar closed down with no warning. That was kind of shady of them to do in my opinion.

I know this is a very negative review but like I mentioned, my boyfriend and I were just not impressed...

Hotel Baker was a nightmare to deal with in an otherwise pleasant wedding experience.

Our issues started the year prior with communication around the COVID pandemic. In early May 2020, we began asking Danielle Razee what the protocol would be around postponement or cancellations. While we never expected clear answers in such an ambiguous time, we were only met with vague legalese and increasingly delayed communications. In our view, Danielle consistently avoided answering specific questions about costs and timeline, and she took days or even weeks at a time to respond. Despite all of this, they also insisted on charging us with our 3rd quarterly deposit. Every other vendor we had at this time was able to speak to use like human beings. There are a lot of moving parts in a wedding, and Hotel Baker’s refusal to communicate with us caused a lot of undue stress and costs.

In mid June 2020, Danielle offered that we could place a “soft hold” on a 2021 date in case we needed to postpone. We were happy with this and in late June we notified Danielle of our soft hold date. In August 2020, as the pandemic progressed and our 2020 date was officially under restriction, it was made official that the date would be postponed to Sept. 25th 2021. We were sent a contract amendment with a new date, updated deposit schedule, and with the clause that “no other terms or conditions of the contract are negated or changed as a result of this amendment.”

In the initial contract, we were reserved the “penthouse suite,” which was a big drawing point for us in our decision to go with Hotel Baker. In May 2021, we reached out to confirm the rooms we had in our hotel block and were told we did not have the penthouse suite. Danielle said that they gave it to another couple when they reserved in July 2020. We were astounded that this was never communicated to us prior to that point, despite us placing a soft hold on the date almost a year prior (and a full month before the other couple) and expecting all contract terms would move forward as the amendment stated.

What ensued after we brought up this fact was astonishing and incredibly disappointing to us. We had a call with Danielle and Rowena Salas – Hotel Baker’s co-owner. In our view, we felt like Rowena was rude, patronizing, and unapologetic on this call. To us, it did not seem like she was making an attempt to listen to our concerns or to placate the situation. We eventually decided it would be best to get lawyers involved, as it came down to a contractual dispute. We negotiated a middle ground through lawyers and proceeded with our 9/25/21 wedding.

I would not recommend Hotel Baker to anyone. I am now aware that while some wedding vendors and venues can sell well upfront, they understand that once you are in the contract, most couples will not rock the boat when they are being mistreated. Neither my wife nor I have ever needed to get a lawyer involved in anything. It was incredibly deflating and disappointing that part of the planning for our big day was communicating back and forth with our first lawyer. As someone that also works in client services, on a professional level I have been unbelievably appalled by Hotel Baker’s poor communication and abysmal customer service. Again, I would not recommend Hotel Baker to anyone.

For what its worth, the food was fantastic. We got compliments an all entrees from many of our guests, and some said it was the best banquet food they ever had. The kitchen staff is wonderful. I can’t say the same about...