A place called ZaZa??? Houston boutique hotel does well for the traveler and the partier
It was spring, which in Texas means at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was on my way from San Marcos to Houston, driving a gas-guzzling Jeep and talking on my cell phone. The Jeep was the only thing left at the rental car company, so I’m proud to say it wasn’t my choice. But it all did feel very Texas, in that way a Californian imagines Texas. I drove the 10, passing through small towns with names like Flatonia, slowly realizing that the sense of being in a foreign moonscape was in large part due to the lack of mountains, or really anything, more than 15 feet tall.
“The flattest expanse of land you’ll ever drive through,” one of the women I was visiting in Houston had told me. “Be careful.” I was exhausted from hotel sleep, which is sort of like no sleep, and hadn’t yet booked a place to stay in Houston. The yerba mate from San Marcos’s Tantra Coffeehouse (the only tribal coffeehouse in Texas? the best little tribal coffeehouse in Texas?) was still powering me through.
The woman I was visiting, probably the hippest librarian I know, had recommended Hotel Zaza, right down in the heart of Houston. Zaza caps a European roundabout at the end of the Elysee-like Main Street, which splits Rice University from Hermann Park. Together, Main Street, Rice, and the park make for some of the best walks in Houston proper.
Hotel Zaza is a boutique addition to Houston, opened in 2007 and renovated in both style and culture. It boasts some 300 rooms, many with balconies to fresh air, spa-like showers tiled in stone, all within the range of $189 to a couple hundred. The themed luxury suites get up above $1000, though Yelpers certainly seem to think it’s worth it. Guests can take advantage of the second floor spa (which kindly let me take a shower after I had checked out but before I left for the airport), the fitness center, and a pool outfitted with lounge chairs, surrounded by private suites, private poolside lounges, and decorated in a harlequin-doll-meets-New-Orleans-mardigras color scheme.
Zaza was the closest hotel to where I needed to be, and only about $40 more than the room in the chain hotel I’d gotten in San Marcos the previous night. The extra dollars for Zaza were a cost that would make up for the distance I’d otherwise need to travel and the parking I’d otherwise need to pay for if I stayed in the closest chain hotel, some five miles away. So I figured it was a reasonable expense. But still, I argued, could I really have a place called Zaza show up on my expense report?
I called up the Hotel Zaza on my drive along interstate 10, somewhere after the yerba mate and before Flatonia. I asked for the manager and explained my plight. I said, “Can you knock the rate lower than $189? I just can’t have that much show up under the name Zaza on my expense report.” Since the $189 was already a special offer rate, I told him I’d make it up to him by taking the client to dinner at their restaurant and writing about it on a blog no one might ever read.
“You’re fun,” he said in his Southern twang. “What can you pay?” I said 150, he picked a number a bit higher, we agreed, then we talked about the best yoga places in Houston. This sweet conversation and consideration was carried on by the full staff at Zaza. I was greeted with smiles and a coupon for free breakfast in their restaurant. They hooked me up with a balcony in my hotel room, and later on passed me a complimentary drink coupon, which I spent on the best Old Fashioned I’d ever had.
Egged on by the woman I was visiting, who gets up at 5am every morning for Cross-Fit, I pulled my own self out of bed at 5:30am to go to yoga. She had taken me out the previous night to experience the ice house, apparently a Texan tradition. The one we went to served us beer in bottles, had two wines (red or white), a horse shoe pit, some picnic tables, and a fluorescent glow above the bar. We had dinner, a couple gin and tonics, and then I stumbled back to the hotel to redeem my drink coupon.
Needless to say, I was tired the next morning, but not from the usual bad hotel sleep or the travel blues. The balcony in my room gave me fresh air, the spa-like shower a refreshing pick me up, and the sun salutations at Joy Yoga Center were standard and good. It was the Ice House, the way Texans throw down, and that damned Old Fashioned at midnight that put a fog in my head and a curse on my breath the next morning. In short, it was a pleasant fatigue, somewhat abated by the superb breakfast at Zaza’s restaurant, which didn’t feel like your average restaurant breakfast at all.
Most business travelers pick a hotel chain, get in on the rewards program, and never vary. They’ll put up with bugs in the bed and fake air, just for the ease of booking and the two TVs in the junior suites. I’m sold on the boutique hotel stay, especially the up and coming ones looking to make an impressive mark. Zaza was definitely worth the risk, and even worth the raised eyebrows when I submitted the expense report.