If you read this blog – or follow me on Twitter - you know my friends and I go to The Ace Hotel on the regs.  I love that Lobby Bar – the set up, the scene, the friendly bartenders.   So naturally when my friend, recording artist, Darling Cait, was planning her Birthday Party we knew for sure we wanted to have it at The Ace. She was toying between renting out one of the Lofts or throwing a huge bash downstairs in Liberty Hall for her Birthday- we thought a Loft Party was the perfect idea. Champagne, cupcakes, and friends – what more do you need. Well thats what we thought at least….

The Backstory:

My friends contacted The Ace and followed instructions to email staff members Whitney and Kate. Yes, that’s right people, I am naming names.  We called to speak to someone multiple times after the fact. After weeks had gone by with no response, in order to get shit done, they finally went in during the daylight hours to speak with the staff the Tuesday prior to the event. Whitney showed them the Loft: a 700 SF corner room with hard wood floors and a built in banquette featuring views of both Broadway and 29th Street. The Loft room has a separate living area featuring vintage furniture, turntables, fully stocked refrigerators, and a large bathroom with French doors including a claw foot tub and separate shower .  The rooms are beautiful and go for well over $1,000/night.  Sounds great, right?! So we booked it.  Cait requested the Breslin’s burgers and fries in a party appropriate version along with cupcakes and champagne for 20-30 guests. Yum!   Too bad the hotel’s catering does not provide any hot food in the Lofts.  You can, however, go through room service for individual portions or do charcuterie tables.   Whitney emailed a proposal for 30 guests — 15 bottles of Prosecco/$44 each and staffed Charcuterie tables/$30 per person. Ummm $30 per person? Isn’t the Breslin’s famous lamb burger with feta and cumin mayo with thrice cooked fries only $17? Long story short, Cait’s nixed that idea and emailed Whitney with the requested set-up and proposal revisions.  Whitney never replied back, even after numerous emails, and that was the last we heard from the Ace until the night of the party.

The Story:

At this point it was obvious, the staff didn’t give an eff about us, right? WRONG.  When it was actually showtime, the hotel staff was creeping around like a jealous ex-lover up our ass every 10 minutes.   Security and management outside the door, clicker and all, monitoring the whole situation. It took me back to Middle School, when your parents let you have a party in the basement, but sat at the top of the stairs and watched your every move. We had a curfew enforced by the hotel – by 12:00AM we all had to be out of that room. *Last time I checked, hotel reservations we for the night* We also had a 30 person max capacity limit – even though the Loft could easily accommodate 30-50 people – it was HUGE!! *It also looks like they had more than 30 people for their in house Superbowl party, hmmm* We hadn’t even reached 25 people, when they started refusing people at the hotel entrance, not taking in to consideration the flow of people coming and going.  In turn, this caused yours truly to spend the majority of my night riding the elevator to and from the 9th floor – getting people in and talking to management, the door guy, etc.   They were letting people up, then they weren’t, total inconsistencies throughout the night, playing one big game of he said, she said.   None of the staff communicated with each other and left us to pick up the pieces. Anyways, whatever. At 12:30 we all went downstairs to Liberty Hall, it was lame. I would’ve much rather chilled up in that Loft all night.  Despite everything that had happened, Cait still purchased a bottle at Liberty Hall (but ended up with unexplained charges and was denied an itemized receipt.) Apparently, our money does not mean much to The Ace Hotel.

The Side Story:

Don’t get me wrong, I understand rules and regulations, capacity limits and noise violations, but we are not a group of college kids here.  This was an exclusive affair with a high profile guest list.  As an emerging artist, Cait has some incredible friends and supporters; her guestlist consisted of  Catherine Malandrino and her beautiful team who provide Cait’s wardrobe, handbag/shoe designer Be Inthavong of Be&D, designer Craig Robinson, comedians Seth Herzog and Jeff Ross, RCA Records VP Trevor Jerideau, Bob Berman of Rethink Pop Music with his band- The Aviation Orange, Iced Media’s Robbie Sokolowsky, event guru and filmmaker Victor Medina-San Andrés of Getty Images, and many more. We maintained a tasteful affair that was well within limits.

The Moral of the Story:

Except for those who were denied entrance, and her close friends were incessantly dealing with hotel issues (me being one of them,) everyone loved the party and had a great time. However, people did take note of the constant hotel drama that was going down.  There is no excuse for the lack of communication, not only with your staff but with your client, who clearly made every attempt to be on the same page with you. Would we have had better customer service if we spent an extra G on their limited catering options? Was the money they spent on the room and at Liberty Hall not good enough?  (Which was charged to my friends credit card twice, and we paid a security deposit, which was also charged twice – they say that’s “just how their system works – it would be fixed in a FEW DAYS”)

The Ace Hotel is all-in-all a happening cool place, but in terms of event management- it’s a house of cards (no pun intended.)  I feel bad for Cait, The Ace Hotel was one of her (and my) favorite hangouts.  Her birthday was ruined as well as her taste for the Ace Hotel.

Ace: If your reading this, please make this right. We want to come back, but after everything that’s happened and your little attempt to rectify the situation, we are at a loss.