Ah! So that's why we didn't hear more about Vikram Chatwal's brand new Stay.Hotel before its official unveiling earlier this week: the property morphed into the Stay from its former identity, The Quality Inn Times Square, relatively seamlessly.
And now we're kinda wondering if maybe the place is basically a Quality Inn with a baller lobby.
Here's what happened: we hopped over to TripAdvisor this morning hoping that perhaps someone had already submitted the hotel's first TripAdvisor review. But when we found a handful of Stay.Hotel reviews from September, we were disappointed in ourselves for not stalking Tricky Viky with our usual gusto: it turns out the place was quietly operating as the Stay.Hotel for a while, but only recently had its official "unveiling."
We called the hotel to see what the deal was. The fairly knowledgeable woman who answered the phone explained to us that the hotel really just switched lobbies -- as in, the new swanky lobby our tipster showed us was the new Stay.Hotel lobby, and the old Quality Inn lobby space was being turned into the restaurant.
As for the rooms? We're told that nothing was renovated -- the decor just changed. You know, like, "curtains and stuff." Which is maybe why guests have been totally shocked at the teensy size of them. Even for New York.
Loden Vancouver is Kor Hotels' first Canadian venture and
is set to make its grand debut on October 18th. A year late. Yeah, there's been some drama-dramz here. The hotel was originally supposed to open in Fall 2007, and it looked to be nearing completion but missed its opening date.
Then it was supposed to open in March 2008 and had rates listed on its website and everything -- but then no.
But now: rejoice! It's almost ready to go! And Voya Restaurant -- headed up by highly-acclaimed chef Marc-Andre
Choquette -- will be opening up as well.
Gordan Ramsay got into a bit of a %&*#ing spat (how unusual for him) with London's Connaught Hotel last year, which resulted in him closing his fairly successful restaurant on the property. And apparently it ain't over til it's over.
Yesterday's Page Six reported that his new restaurant concept York & Albany -- which will open on Monday and also feature 10 luxury hotel rooms (because running a restaurant kitchen and running a hotel can't be that different if you're a celebrity, right?) -- has a hot shout-out to the Connaught on its menu: he "tells the Times of London he'll serve a dish there called the 'Two Fingers to the Connaught.'"
We hope it's a flambéd dessert or something, because revenge is sweet and it's probably even sweeter if it's lit on fire. Or whatever.
We spoke to Brian Harris, the General Manager of the Aloft Charleston who said:
"We had well over 500 guests throughout the night, who all loved the hotel. A lot of people said it reminds them of being in New York City or Miami and is a nice change from the more traditional hotels that Charleston is known for."
Here's something different for the Gansevoort South: good news! New York City's trendy boutique chain Big Drop opened their first store outside of NYC, inside the Gansevoort's lower level.
Since the hotel opened earlier this spring, it has seen a lion's share of hiccups and setbacks, but won't you feel better staying there knowing that you can buy a Tracy Reese caftan at any hour?
The boutique's personal shopping service "Everything But Your Toothbrush," allows socialites short on time to call with their size and agenda. Big Drop will then play stylist by hand selecting pieces to send to your room for approval. For once, this will also include dudes as Big Drop Miami debuts a men's section.
Of course this addition will appeal most to the scene-hopping New Yorkers who are perpetually swiping their credit cards, but then isn't that the demographic everyone aims for during rough times such as these?
This morning, we brought you news of today's opening of Vikram Chatwal's Times Square property Stay.Hotel (the period is apparently part of the name).
Within hours, a sneaky Midtown tipster was kind enough to send along a couple snapshots and give us the lowdown on the scene:
In true Vikram fashion, they are still doing plenty of work on opening day.
Looked mostly like a staff walk-through day, though guests appeared to be
there.
The lobby is split into two areas -- bright and vibrant check in
and some sort of timber ceiling bar area [Ed: we're guessing that's the Aspen Social Lounge], very trippy. Lobby/bar is
actually respectably spacious for a Times Square hotel. And it is kind of
nice to see some trippy hotel interior designs in these gloomy financial
days for NYC.
We have been so busy obsessing over all the drama with Lamb's Club Hotel that you pretty much flew under our radar with this other NYC property you were developing. Apparently, while we were busy doing that, you kept yourself occupied with converting the Quality Inn in Times Square (which was already part of the Hampshire Hotels Portfolio, we hear) into the swanky new Stay.Hotel -- which opens today.
Yes, for reals. We're psyched. Well, about everything except what appears to be a gimmicky name (there is a period after the word "Stay" on all of their marketing materials; we're just going to ignore that for now).
There's tons of hotel news flying around this week and we don't have time to give each and every story the love and attention it may deserve, so you will have to settle for some news briefs.
· Marriotts Are Getting Wii!: ZOMG! Marriott has teamed up with Nintendo to release a special version of the Wii gaming system, which will now be featured (along with a selection of 20 games) at the Renaissance New York Times Square and 5 other Marriott and Renaissance properties. Can we please see a photo of Bill playing? [CNET]
· Hotel Attempts to Convert Guestroom to Walk-In Fridge: A Holiday Inn in Pennsylvania's walk-in fridge was on the fritz, so the only logical thing to do was to turn a guestroom's AC down and store everything in there. Right? Wrong. We would LOL, but the thought of this just makes us...VAO (vom all over) [HotelsMag]
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by Jenna
Here's something different for the 
