The Write Inn

I am so embarrassed that I suggested this place for my parents to stay when they visited. It’s a complete nightmare. I met them at the hotel to help them get settled in. No one was at the front desk. There were three other guests at the front desk. One was complaining about dirty sheets (they just checked in), the other was upset because she had been waiting three hours for ice and was trying to tell the front desk guy to forget it (he was still nowhere to be found), and the last man was trying to find a room that was more accessible for him and his elderly wife.
The front desk guy FINALLY came. The elevator doors were broken so my parents took the stairs. The room was disgusting. There was a film of dust on everything, the sheets were dirty, the bathroom wasn’t cleaned.
My parents didnt even stay there. They stayed at the Carlton (great place) instead. Wouldn’t recommend.

This place is a dump. Historic neighborhood with a historic and poorly kept hotel.
If old and being unkept equal quaintness to you then be my guest… no be their guest, otherwise don’t stay here.
The front desk staff were very sweet, friendly and kind.
Arturo and Albert were very accommodating.
What was disappointing was the poor upkeep. of the place. From peeling paint, dated and not very clean rooms, to curtains that were barely hanging correctly to the sewer smell that greeted is every time. we returned to our room, to the room with no closet, the place was very low budget to me. The attached restaurant looked very nice and the surrounding neighborhood is a dream. This hotel was not. Did I forget to add the very large centipedes, yes I said centipedes we saw in our room. Also saw some ants and another fast moving insect as well though the centupiedes took the cake. Just don’t do it until they do a serious remodel/​restoration.

THEIVES AND LIARS
After a maid took something expensive from my room, albiet accidentally, and after it allegedly got lost in the mail, they refuse to reimburse me. After several emails and about a dozen unanswered calls, my attorney is stepping in.
This hotel consists poor business practices and dishonest management. I will be filing a report to the BBB as well
WORST HOTEL EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE

Was a bit concerned after booking here as I read quite a few bad reviews. But after our one night stay I can’t agree with many of the complaints and can only figure those folks just were either very picky or had bad karma.
The Inn is older, but contrary to some reviews, the elevator worked, The TV worked fine, the room was clean, the bed comfortable and the staff was nice and helpful. The adjoining restaurant was awesome…
Great location, and a great area, with many good places to eat.
Only small issues with the room was the exhaust fan in the bathroom didn’t work, and the switch was broken on one of the bedside lamps.
It’s not a five star hotel so I’m not giving it five stars… and I’m taking a star off for those two tiny issues… but I would recommend the Write Inn to anyone visiting the area or wanting a place outside of downtown Chicago.
I did look at some of the reviews of the other hotel in town there, the Carlton… and it too seemed to have a few unhappy visitors. So, don’t let a few bad reviews scare you off…

Not exactly hotel more like motel.

Not great. Not recommended.
Pros:
— Location is great, close to downtown Oak Park and green line.
— Restaurant in lobby appears to be good.
— Free parking; however …
Cons:
— Parking is 2.5 blocks away.
— Small rooms.
— Super dated décor (and not in a charming way).
— Noticed multiple issues like peeling wallpaper, cracked countertop, etc.
This hotel has potential but is not realizing it. Very overpriced for overall experience. I’d say it’s more of a motel than an inn.

For just under 200 dollars, my elderly father was treated to a very run down room. Clock was not set on the time. Light did not come on when we turned the switch by the door. Old and dreary décor. Only good part was a compact kitchenette that was included. Check in desk was not overly helpful. Had to wait to go down to hall to elevator, as the servers from restaurant use the same main hallway to carry food. The hallways were unappealing, with peeled or missing paint and very neglected appearances throughout.
I thought this was a boutique hotel. I had no idea that I was paying for my father to stay at a very run down place. Very disappointed.
For the price point, management should rehab the place. I do not recommend this hotel, sadly.

We chose to stay here from July 10 – 12, as it wasn’t too far from downtown Chicago, the price was good, $ 169 (plus pet fee) for 3 adults and 2 queen beds, and it’s pet friendly. I knew ahead of time that the free parking was a few blocks away. It’s not a bad walk at all but people who are older or aren’t used to actual cities might think so. I saw one reviewer mention that it didn’t look safe for a female to walk around at night but I’d have to disagree. I met a local who told me that the police force is paid well and do a good job of keeping the area safe. I did see quite a few patrol cars driving around late at night on a weekend when I took a walk exploring the neighborhood and city with my dog. It gets really quiet in the area surrounding the hotel at night. We booked through
. I made sure to call first to make sure that they were pet friendly. They were, and I was told that it was $ 25 per day. It said $ 10 on the above mentioned website, but it did have a disclaimer that prices may not be accurate. There wasn’t anywhere on the website to pay for the pet fee so I asked if we just pay for it upon checking in. I was told yes. When we arrived, I liked the look of the city and hotel. Very cute area. We checked in and I liked the room: Two queen beds, a love seat, a chair in the corner, dining table, a wardrobe, a large counter area with a mini fridge, microwave, flat screen TV, and coffee maker. Everything looked clean, including the bathroom. Lots of space. A friend of mine did have a basic single room. It sounded the same as described in other reviews. Very small and tight so that’s something to keep in mind. I can’t comment on the TV much as we only had the news on but I would guess not to expect a lot of channels. The a/​c made the room very cold but the housekeeper fixed that for us. We stayed on the third floor and the view wasn’t great (parking area and rear entrance/​stairs for some apartments) but that didn’t matter to me. For me, rooms are just to sleep in. I don’t plan on spending much time in them but they should be clean and nice enough. The only ice/​vending/​laundry room is located on the second floor. I was surprised to see laundry machines but it’s a good thing if you need it. I noticed that there wasn’t a place to hang a towel near the shower but there was a large wall indent kind of near the shower that may serve that purpose. Not sure what else it’d be for, maybe a large bouquet of flowers.
After we checked in, I headed back down with my dog to park the car. (There are 4 spots up front, 2 are handicapped, and we were told not to park there but I’ll revisit that later.) As I passed the front desk, the lady at the desk asked me about my dog. I said that I assumed we paid since my parents did the checking in and I told them to make sure to pay the dog fee. The woman claimed that my parents didn’t say anything, which would’ve been odd of them but I thought, «No biggie,» but then she kept saying that the dog wasn’t listed on the reservation, even after I explained that I booked through
and there wasn’t any place to pay for the pet fee on the site. I also told her that I called and made sure that I could just pay at check in. She sounded unbelieving as she asked if I called the hotel that day and I repeated that yes, I did. Instead of just dropping it and writing a note on the account to pay the fee on check out, she went back and forth with me about it and I was the one who asked if I could pay right then and there or if she could write a note to pay on check out. It was $ 10 and not the $ 25 per night that I was told when I called, so the
website was accurate. I then asked about the weak wi-​fi signal. She acted as if she had never heard anyone else complain about it. Hard to believe based on other reviews and the fact that my family on the 3^rd floor had problems with it as did my friend on the 2^nd. The free wi-​fi was completely useless to us. That was one of the filters I used to search for hotels too. I then asked her about dog friendly restaurants or any open restaurants/​suggestions and she had no idea. Terrible employee and a very strange woman! She was a bit older, with dark hair and, I think, glasses.
I moved the car since my father was told to upon checking in and I was after I asked. I wasn’t going to ask but my father gets paranoid. Mind you that we have a handicap lanyard and were parked in a handicapped spot. I noticed the midnight front desk employee was parked on the sidewalk and when I walked back to the hotel, he had moved his car to the spot I vacated. Way to put your guests first. So there weren’t any real rules for the 4 parking spots in front of the hotel, as I witnessed cars being parked there for the whole of the day, only to check out the next morning without any penalty. I’m at the text limit so I’ll try to sum it up: I liked the hotel even though it may sound like I didn’t, but the wi-​fi and bad customer service could be a deal breaker.

We stayed there last weekend and loved it… it was charming and the front desk staff were nice. Will be returning!

My daughter & I recently stayed at the Write Inn while in Oak Park. I was a bit concerned by the mixed reviews listed but have to say we were pleasantly surprised. The staff were extremely friendly (especially Iris at the desk), the Bistro’s breakfast was wonderful, & the rooms were sufficiently spacious & well kept. There was renovation occurring while we were there but only a minor inconvenience & shows that ownership is investing. A real plus is the location. Very walkable for all of Oak Park’s offerings. Never used the car. A special side benefit is the half dozen Frank Lloyd Wright homes, office, & temple all within walking distance. The desk will provide a map to them. I will definitely re-​book when I go up to visit my daughter in her new studio dig. My advice… book it.

This place is the pits. It could be an excellent boutique hotel if the management and staff gave a damn about the guests, but they don’t. They’re one of two hotels in all of Oak Park so they figure they can charge $ 200 a night and treat their guests like cattle. Yes, I said cattle, not chattel, but I suppose either will work.
I stayed there earlier this week (mid-​June 2014). At 6:00pm the outside temperature was 58 degrees. Inside my room I discovered that no heat was coming from the vents. I called the front desk and was told that it was summer, so they had no intention of turning on the heat. (That’s right, your climate comfort is controlled by some imbecile who decides whether you get heat or air conditioning, but god forbid you need both in the same day, week, month, or season. Ain’t gonna happen.)
I spent my waking hours that night sitting on the bed fully clothed with a jacket on, and one hand over my nose to keep it warm. Occasionally I would get up and jump around to generate some heat.
I wasn’t the only one. I was within earshot of the front desk twice in the same evening and heard the clerk tell two other guests that it might as well be 32 below, it was summer and they weren’t turning on the heat, so get over it.
I’ll skip the other details of poor housekeeping, dead elevators, intrusive remodeling work, Wifi slower than a snail in a headwind, and failed satellite TV.
When I called to complain a second time about the lack of heat and they again refused to turn it on, I told them I’d see them on Unilocal and Tripadvisor and every other site I could find.
Here I am.
The restaurant is nice, probably because it has no connection to the hotel other than occupying a corner of its ground floor. Eat there, but don’t stay in the hotel, unless you want to spend $ 200/​night on a stall in a cattle barn.

I have never encountered a hotel so old, over priced for what you get and tiny. Literally a «standard» room is nothing but a full sized bed with both end of the bed touching walls. There is no parking besides 3 blocks away. The street parking and nearby side streets are all restricted to permits and time limits. The front desk staff looks at you like you have some sort of impediment when you voice concern about walking alone 3 blocks at night from the parking location (as a young female it does not look safe to wander around alone at night). I find it totally unacceptable not to advertise the lack of close parking when you book the room. Even hotels downtown have parking garages or valet. For what you pay to stay at this shack you should get something.
The rooms look old and dirty and have an awful smell. I was afraid to even touch anything much less sit down or spend the night there. When I went to the front desk the girl refused to give me a refund and I just cut my losses and left because I was utterly disgusted and couldn’t even bring myself to sit down in my awful room. I would rather sleep in my car than spend the night here.

WARNING! This is not a good review…
Made reservations trough travelocity for the weekend. Upon arriving to the Hotel I almost drove past it due to the hedges covering up an non-​existent sign. The «drive-​way» only holds 4 cars (unless people decide to block you in then about 7 cars)
The free parking is two blocks away (which they don’t mention until you check in). When asking for an upgrade after seeing my RM and the disrepair that it was in, they had nothing. While trying to utilize the dressers they provided, a used dirty hand cloth (I’m sure you all know what I mean) along with garbage was found in the drawers of the unit. I then started to check around the room to find more garbage on top of the cabinets in the kitchenette, and found that the windows don’t latch shut and have no screens or stops. So if you have kids you know how unsafe this is. I put up my «Do not disturb» sign on my door upon leaving the room to inform the front desk of the issues and told them I would return and then they can fix the issues. Upon my return to the room the drawers where cleaned and the kitchenette still dirty. This unsettled me, knowing a person entered my room without my permission. The list of T.V. channels show you get 17 channels, only 4 come in. Before coming to the hotel I went to their web page to see what it was about and noting said that they where under construction. Found that out upon entering the building. Not impressed with this hotel. So far the internet works great, and still waiting for them to validating my parking pass.
Aside from all this I am happy that I get to spend time with my wife.

Acceptable. Awful value.
First the bad things. I booked here because that weekend I couldn’t find any hotel room in downtown. The prices were almost downtown prices. The room was small. the bed was hard. The carpets were awful. They forgot to give a us a wake up call. The girl at the front desk at the time of out checkout couldn’t be bothered to answer questions and had a surly attitude.
Next the good things. The location is great. Oak Park seems like a great town. Parking worked out fine even though it was at a public parking about 3 blocks away. If the price was a half of what I paid, I would consider staying here. I had read the reviews here after booking and was going to move to a motel near O’Hare if the room was really awful. We decided that it was not _​that_​awful — it was not but it was expensive; this may have to do more with that weekend.
The hotel has the oldest lift (elevator) in Oak Park. The restaurant seems nice even though I didn’t eat there.
I did find an Indian restaurant nearby — it was good :-)

Terrible. The hotel itself was wasn’t the worst: they let us check in late, and the room seemed okay. Plumbing connected the sink heat and the shower, causing some awkward showering situations.
What made it miserable was they way they handled the bed bugs: I noticed the bites two days after our first night, but thought maybe it was a bug that came in through the window. A day after our departure (a four day stay), was when the bites started showing up on me and my boyfriend (we had parted ways after our stay in Chicago, meaning that our last shared point was the Write Inn). I called the Write Inn to explain that is was obvious that bed bugs were in their hotel, and they responded with the following: «well, that last few folks who stayed in that room haven’t complained»… Well, no shit… It takes a couple of days for the bites to show up! «well, how did you get here? You might have got them on the plane» Does it matter?! Even if we got them before we showed up at the hotel, their hotel, they probably have bed bugs now! «We’ll investigate and we’ll call you back»… No call.
It’s clear to me that this hotel doesn’t care if their hotel has bed bugs. Any decent hotel wouldn’t try to blame their customers, and they’ve obviously decided to ignore warning signs.
It’s now a week and a half since I departed from the Write Inn, and the welts are just starting to fade. Don’t make the same mistake.

Oh dear… the Write Inn. This place is so horrible it makes me laugh. I stayed here about 5 years ago with my husband and it was the worst hotel experience of my life! Do not let anyone who tells you that it’s nostalgic or charming fool you. They call this place The «Write Inn», like it has something to do with Hemingway… they are just trying to find a way to tie this creepy Motel-​ish place into Oak Park’s history as hard as they possibly can. The room was awful, the whole place felt dirty and there was virtually no one there. I noticed around midnight that there was only one pillow on our bed. Since there was two of us, I called the front desk to let them know that we would be needing another pillow.
Want to know what the response was? «Come down and get one by the front desk». So I left my hotel room, took the elevator (which paused several times as though it might break) to the front desk and waited in the lobby for the front desk clerk to get me my pillow. Not to mention I was pregnant at the time. Horrible experience, I would never ever go back and I warn everyone I can about this place!

It’s a motel 6 quality place with a Mariott kinda price. The place was built as an SRO hotel decades ago. SRO means FLOPHOUSE. The rooms, while not unclean are the same size as they were when the place was built to house transients.
Quaint means run down in this instance.
Charming means so freaking tiny you can’t move.
We had to stay here as there wasn’t anywhere else available in town for the saturday night of a holiday weekend. The Queen bed was not a queen bed, it was a full.
Plumbing needs work, you shouldn’t have to hold the toilet handle down for a full minute to get it to flush toilet paper. Showerhead is older then Jesus.
and while it wasn’t a problem for me, the parking is 2.5 blocks away– it is validated.
Not a zero star experience, but 1 will do. The hotel says in it’s propaganda that it is to evoke the feeling of struggling writers.
Struggling writers tend to be broke, and don’t practice the best personal hygiene, and that is the sort of feel you get here. Stanky old me locked away in small little rooms and very very angry as their lives suck.
stay elsewhere unless you simply must stay here. Wi-​Fi is free now.

It has some historical charm, which means the rooms have a moldy funk that seems to follow you. When I moved back to Oak Park from San Francisco, I lived here for about a month. The staff were nice enough, although after a week, should have at least recognized me.
There are few competing hotels in the area, but that is changing, and I hope the Write Inn can read the writing on the wall. I regret recommending the place to out-​of-​town guests who later went to a downtown hotel.

The other reviewer are on point here. This place is just awful. Shame on the owners for not utilizing the potential here.
The rooms are freezing cold, they charge you to use WiFi in your room, and the manager is downright rude! I could go on and on but bottom line, It really could not get any worse here. I will recommend any other hotel in the area over this craphole! It actually felt like I was sleeping in a transient hotel.
And yes, the carpets are gross. Don’t even think about walking around barefoot unless you like the idea of ringworm. Nasty!!!

This hotel is conveniently located in Oak Park.
The 2 cool things are the Bistro — nice french restaurant.
Good breakfast nice chill bar at night.
The second cool thing is the old timey spring door powered elevator.
If you are a fan of old timey elevators then stay here!
If you are a fan of fancy new rooms then do not stay here!!!
The rooms are on the other side of awesome.
Do not get the pullman railroad style rooms unless you can’t afford anything else but if you’re that broke then stay at the Y or sleep in your car!
The pullman room is supposedly modeled after a train car room which maybe cute on a train but in a hotel not so cool. Room is a bed with tv at the end, no nightstand and heat that does its own thing.
The standard room is more like a normal room but nothing fancy now, no flat screen or ipod alarm clocks here but it is quaint and plenty of shopping, food, etc a few blocks away.