Chattanooga Choo Choo

We ate at the restaurant Elsie’s Daughter for brunch. Great ambience and service. Matthew was our server and seemed to be everywhere! That guy was hustling! Food was great. The cheese grits were awesome. We will definitely be back!

We heard from friends and relatives how nice it was staying in the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel. It turns out that they were staying in the two story Beaux Arts Terminal Building, which has since been gutted and is mostly a hollow shell, replaced by a single story building and several outbuildings, scattered around a large parking lot, and which has several passenger railroad cars, converted into rooms. One can stop reading here if expecting the old Choo Choo Hotel, or read on for the disappointing details. Fast forward to 2025. My wife and I like to ride both Amtrak and historical trains around the world. Recalling the rave reviews, I reserved a stay in a railroad car at what is now called The Hotel Chalet, touting its connection to the Choo Choo. We went to view the fall foliage at nearby Cloudland Canyon, ride The Incline funicular railroad (worthwhile) and see the Chickamauga Battlefield Park (unfortunately closed at the time). Overall, the hotel was an expensive disappointment. Two days before our stay, the hotel texted me, mentioning a $20 plus tax parking fee and a 20% discount for dining at the on site restaurant and charging it to our room. After making a reservation on their website, I got an email stating an $18 parking fee. I texted the discrepancy back and got a response tha they would adjust my bill to the lower rate. At check-in, I had to go through that again. At check out, the clerk asked if she could be email me a receipt instead of printing one. In my business travels, I learned the hard way about fixing problems on the spot instead of days after a trip and getting a printed zero dollar balance at checkout. So, I asked for a printed receipt. The desk clerk printed a bill. However, the printer was in an office across the lobby. She walked there and came back, saying that the bill wasn’t legible, so she printed it again, walked across the lobby again, came back and handed it to me. Sure enough, I had to show the text messages confirming that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing and that somehow there was a third hand in the mix, requiring three people to correct a four dollar mistake. One more trip across the lobby for her and fifteen minutes after starting the checkout process, I had an accurate bill in hand. That was just the start and end of the amateur way that management runs the hotel. Back to the original check in experience, I mentioned the 20% discount from the email and was told they don’t do that now and would not honor it. OK, I typically find better restaurants not associated with hotels anyway, but mentioned the text, and was told that they need to update that communication mix up. The desk clerk explained that our rail car room was through the back of the hotel, so I walked to my vehicle, handed a card key to my wife and had her walk through the hotel to the rail car, while I parked. I then came in, walked through the hotel and found her with a few others wandering around. They could not find the room numbers. While there are some numbers painted on the rail cars, they are not the room numbers. Instead, the room numbers are painted on small round signs about twelve feet above the walkway - ha4d to find and not mentioned by the desk clerk. Finally, noticing the room numbers, we walked back through the hotel to find our rail car inside a fence, right next to the lobby. Finding two other parties also having been misdirected, we shared the secret room numbering scheme and they walked through the hotel to their rail car room, outside the back of the hotel. It’s like hide and seek, but with luggage included. Given that few things were as promised so far, having finally found our room, we walked up the metal stairs and inside the rail car. It turns out that the rooms are not a full rail car, but instead a half car, with a wall in the middle and another room in the other half of the car. Perhaps it is the 300 square feet advertised on the website, though the website photos are not indicative of the inside of our room. They show large windows, perhaps four feet tall by two feet wide, while ours were about one foot by one foot . The bathroom sink/vanity was much smaller than the photos and instead of the heavy duty cast iron table and chairs out each room on the walkway, there was a rickety, cheap steel table and chairs. There were a few positives about the hotel, including a 3:00 PM check in, and noon check out, while many hotelsare at 4 and 11. The temperature control in the room was modernized and the mosaic floor in the bathroom was heated. If the advertised room photos were accurate, the room itself would have been an unusual nice, experience, with the vaulted high ceiling, sofa and side table and chairs. The PR regarding a conversion of the former hotel building into a hopping retail complex appears highly exaggerated. While we stayed on a Monday and Tuesday, not big party nights, The final nsult was a text I got the day after we left. Here it is: “Thanks for choosing The Hotel Chalet. If you had a great, 5 star experience, we’d be grateful to you sharing it on Google & TripAdvisor. If you feel you had any less than a 5 star stay, please email fdmgt@thehotelchalet.com.” Since little else was as promised, I doubt that management would do anything to make up for their multiple failures, and there is no way to make it right after a stay. That has to be done before and during a stay. Management, instead of trying to improve the experience, encourages guests to only write five star reviews, hiding the the honest situation. No wonder the experience was so much less than the reviews described it. What a sad, sad story for what was once a great place.

A friend and I planned a trip and we knew we didn’t want to stay anywhere else. From booking with Shane (spelling) to the time leading up to check-in, everything ran smoothly. Kay was a joy and so very hospitable and courteous. Any questions we had Shane and Kay both were able to answer and accommodate any requests. We enjoyed our stay and highly recommend you give them a visit.

What a lovely experience at the Hotel Chalet and learning about the history of the hotel!! So much history and work put in to every detail. Dian is lovely to deal with and Mekhia goes out of her way to make sure you have what you need. If you are thinking about staying here, the answer is YES!

Elsa’s daughter is the perfect brunch spot, the breakfast potatoes are amazing. Make sure you ask for Jody, she is wonderful.