The aftermath of the story about three friends who took over the front desk of a Nashville, TN hotel last year, after the staff essentially vanished, was very good news!
As you may have read, Georgia residents Kenzie Brooks, Aaron Howard and Noorain Dobani were in Nashville for a concert. They had been partying all night to celebrate Howard’s birthday, and when they finally went to check in at their hotel, a LaQuinta Inn & Suites, there was no one at the front desk.
“We got to the hotel at 5 a.m. and no one was there, except for one housekeeper, who didn’t really speak English,” Brooks said in a phone call with WSMV4, a local NBC affiliate. “No one had been there since 4:30 a.m. A woman gets off the elevator, screaming at us and screaming behind the counter that $600 had been taken off her card.”
The trio called the police, who were able to calm down the woman with $600 missing from her card. The cop also searched the building and nope, no one on staff was there, save for the aforementioned housekeeper who didn’t seem to have any idea of what was going on.
Meanwhile, the Georgia trio were tired. They asked the police officer if they could try to check themselves in.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “Do whatever you have to do.”
So they did.
(Note: some the following videos contain adult language that may be NSFW).
@ahow15 Replying to @Kayla Renee been a long damn day but heres story time part 1. Sorry, our came out and were famished. #hotel #newjob #singlemom #workinghard #rideordie #singlemom
“So, instantly we’re like manager mode. We run businesses back home. Manager mode kicks in. All right, let’s see what we can do,” said Brooks.
After they checked themselves in, they started fielding the phones that were ringing off the hook, because several other hotel guests were also saying their credit cards had unauthorized charges on them.
“More and more customers are missing money,” said Howard. We’re like, ‘We’re customers. We can’t look into the system for you.’ They did not want to hear that. They wanted to speak with our supervisor, so I told them my supervisor was Kenzie. They didn’t like that. It was a sh*t show.”
Meanwhile, while searching behind the desk, they discovered the general manager’s phone number, so they called her. She had no idea why no one was working. However, the manager was also across the country, in California, on a business trip, so she wasn’t much help.
By a little after 6am, hotel guests were coming downstairs and asking about breakfast. Dobani stayed at the desk to continue handing the phones and hotel guests. However, both Howard and Brooks are ServSave certified in food handling; so after they found the keys to the kitchen, they set up simple options for the breakfast buffet.
“We got what we could: yogurt, biscuits, waffles. We were not so successful with (the waffles),” Howard said.
“We saw people were upset and we just wanted to try and fix it in any way that we can,” said Brooks “And I think we did a pretty damn good job.”
@ahow15 Replying to @Leah Elise part 2!! Thanks for all of the support for us helping out. We genuinely just wanted to jump in where we could. #hotel #newjob #singlemom #workinghard #rideordie @Wildkenz @—
Meanwhile, the trio said that a little before 8am, the person working the 8am shift came in on time. A general manager from a nearby Holiday Inn was also sent over to help. The trio explained what happened to both of them.
“At this point, we’re exhausted. We’ve been running this place for three hours. We just want to sleep,” Kenzie said. “He was so thankful and grateful that we did what we did.”
The trio was glad they were finally going to be able to sleep. But sleep didn’t come that simply.
They got to their room on the 6th floor and, “A naked old lady is in the room,” Howard said. “I said, ‘this is our room’ and she said, ‘no this is my room. I’ve been here for two weeks.’ We ran back downstairs and that’s when we (told the employee), ‘honestly, this has been absolutely crazy. Is there any way we can stay at your hotel?’”
@ahow15 Replying to @Mayra Bonilla-Gonzalez Part 4… the momeny we realized we had enough and needed to put in our two weeks.. #hotel #newjob #singlemom #workinghard #rideordie #family
The Holiday Inn manager was happy to oblige, and comped their room, to boot. Three suites and free breakfast, to be exact.
The trio insists they have nothing against LaQuinta.
“We want to make it clear, @la quinta did not cause any of this. This was the result of one person not being at the desk,” Aaron ultimately wrote in a comment. “We waited for over an hour and then took over with the permission of the appropriate channels.”
When the story first came out, Wyndham Hotels had no comments. But a few days later, they made the following statement about the incident:
“This is an unfortunate and unexpected situation, which in no way reflects our brand values or the great experiences our franchisees strive to deliver for guests each and every day. Following conversations with the hotel’s management team—this location is an independently owned and operated franchise—it’s our understating this incident occurred due to a staff member prematurely leaving an overnight shift in the early hours of the morning and not notifying management. Once discovered, arrangements were immediately made to bring additional staff on-site. Hotel management has advised us the staff member in question is no longer with the hotel and at this time, are working to address and make right any concerns from impacted guests, including the three individuals at the center of the story.”
Overall, the three friends said it was an entertaining experience and something they won’t forget any time soon.
“We find ourselves in funny situations all the time,” Howard said. “But we did not expect this.”
@ahow15 You gotta do what you gotta do. #hotel #laquinta #newjob #singlemom #workinghard #rideordie
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