Graduate Athens

295 E Dougherty St, Athens, GA 30601, USA

Address:	295 E Dougherty St, Athens, GA 30601, USA
Phone:	+1 706-549-7020
Site:	graduateathens.com
Rating:	4.2

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 6

Tammy Jordan

Loved that this hotel was adjacent to a FANTASTIC concert venue and GREAT Spa… BOTH, I’d give 5 stars. If you’re interested, I’ll give all aspects of The Graduate/Foundry compound a review so read on. The Foundry: New food menu gets 4.5 stars for taste and is very reasonably priced and came with very nice servers… ALL the staff we encountered at The Foundry seemed to love their job and saw after the needs of their customers w/a desire to please! Love it… The Spa: Couple’s Massage... GREAT. Professional and VERY nice staff. The Graduate: While booking our anniversary weekend, I got a few mixed messages… Not knowing what to expect crowd wise, ended up buying our Foundry tickets on line to have them waiting at Will Call… NOT NECESSARY… concert admission comes with the room… $18 lost, but whatever. Just wish this would have been made clear via website or by the followup customer care phone call (which I LOVED!) that I received… I also bought the late checkout option for $25… This would have been great HAD WE HAD A GOOD BREAKFAST OPTION. We ended up driving around Athens looking for breakfast… Everything was PACKED. THIS REALLY hurt our overall satisfaction… ROOMS: Housekeeping staff were GREAT. Courteous smiles and eager to please every time… Rooms are cute, clean, comfortable, extremely quiet and the bed was splendid. The bathroom was very nice, well kept, and upgraded. BUT, our room was damp... woke up with that "camping out" feeling several times during the night. However, being born and raised in The South, I can deal with the humidity and lesson learned on selecting “options"… we’ll just chunk the loss of $45 into the learning curve…I guess. BUT for us, a kicker/deal breaker was the lack of REAL breakfast… THIS is where I’m afraid my review has to go a little “South”… (no pun intended). Yes, Iron Works had a few options, but not nearly adequate… and they ran out of biscuits??? When waking up after a late night at the concert venue, a GOOD SOUTHERN breakfast of COMFORT FOOD is MUCH NEEDED. Address the lack of breakfast options and a few “communicational” tweaks and this could be a perfect stay! I can get past the humidity, we ARE in the South… BUT for the money? BREAKFAST IS MUCH NEEDED.

Bo Bingo

This "motel" is really one of the worst accommodations in which I am aware. They try to portray themselves as a great place to stay, but this is all a facade. The climate control in the rooms is pre-historic to dinosaurs. The service employees on site are terrible. Every time we stay there, it is quite obvious that they are making their hay off the UGA home games and they know they will "get their money" on this weekend regardless of their hospitality. This negative attitude is clearly evident. Every time we have been here, we see different employees on site seeming to indicate that they suffer in terms of retention of decent staff. This is also likely a result of their misguided mentality. I would never recommend staying at this "motel", but if you do, you would probably be well served by lowering your expectations considerably. I definitely would not eat on this site and The Foundry Bar & Grill is not the place to go in terms of service or pricing and this is quite evident by the minimal number of folks who frequent this "joint" on a regular basis. If you want to know everything happening on site at this "motel" from a business perspective and in terms of the inner workings, all you need is a set of Walmart FRS walkie talkies to listen in on staff conversation, which in some cases, should not be broadcasted over open airwaves as it is. All of this is problematic in terms of management or lack thereof rather. Be wise and stay elsewhere.

Carol Jones

Great Athens location! Fun and charming rooms that have very comfortable beds. The front desk staff was vey friendly and helpful. They truly go out of their way to do a great job. My only problem was with the communal body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I always bring my own, but when I saw it supplied in the shower, I didnt bother getting it out. Mistake! Mid shower I realized the body wash and conditioner were completely out. I had to jump out and get mine. They really need to make sure this is appropriately stocked. We had dinner at the on site restaurant, the Foundry. We were there on St. Patricks day, so maybe this explains why it took us over two hours to have dinner. The food we did get was very tasty, I just wish we had more options available. I had researched their regular menu and was really looking forward to a particular appetizer and entree. When we sat down we were given the St. Patricks day menu and it was not too appealing nor did it have enough options and that was all they were preparing for the evening. As I said, the food was tasty, just not what I really wanted. I would certainly have dinner there again, just not on St. Patricks day.

Andrew Symmes

Overall the experience at the hotel was great, but not necessarily due to the customer service or the quality of the stay. We went for the Classic City Brew Fest, so i have to include that in my review since the graduate was hosting the event. The only thing I was really peeved by during our stay was that we were essentially stranded at a location that the graduate shuttle took us to, with not so much as an apology from the staff. Although I appreciate the fact they offered a free shuttle, we were told to call then when we need to be picked up, so we did. After talking to reception twice, attempting to get them to pick us up, we witnessed the shuttle drive right by our location with another group of people in the van, and then we were essentially told that we were lying about the fact that we were waiting outside for them, as they said they came to our location and we werent there. I was fine with a miscommunication, and a simple apology would have sufficed, but I didnt appreciate being accused of lying. Other than that one snafu, we had a great time.

Christopher Shields

What makes The Graduate so different than the other hotels in downtown Athens is that it brings some the feeling of the culture of college and Accenture ISM to the rooms. They are not particularly large nor are they particularly well furnished, but the style matches Athens very well. Theres an fifties look to all of the furniture, and the occupants are well taken care of. The service is nice, the materials provided are of high quality, and The Foundry restaurant is always good. Well the hotel is within walking distance of downtown Athens best offerings, it is not far from being so. If parking is particularly bad downtown, its certainly possible to walk to the bars and restaurants, however if its a hot evening, it may not be preferable. The cost of rooms is reasonable. While the state of Georgia and Athens-Clarke County have both passed taxes, The Graduate takes these into account at the time of booking unlike some more notable hotel chains.

A Private User

The Foundry is the right fit if you dont like chain hotels, and even allows pets. However, a simple request of splitting the bill between two credit cards (two parties needed to purchase rooms) was completely screwed up. The front desk said they would accommodate our request, and even ran the two cards, but upon returning home, I found that all of the rooms were charged to just one card... mine. I am not happy that I had to make multiple phone calls to correct their mistake, how unapologetic their staff was, and given how pricey their rooms are on weekends, this took a lot of budget flexing on my part to prevent a domino effect on the rest of my expenses. I briefly considered the Foundrys location to be a candidate for my own wedding in the future, but now I wouldnt want my guests to experience the same discourtesy. This is one customer that will avoid a repeat stay.