Drury Inns (1973-), a Family-Owned and Operated Budget-Mid-Level Chain from Creve Coeur, Missouri - Currently in Over 20 States

[lovehockey]

If you watched the coverage from the St. Louis floods most of it was at the intersection with the Drury Inn I've stayed at many times before.

This chain is mid-level but offers breakfast, with things like potatoes, biscuits and gravy, sausage, a waffle iron, cereal, muffins, toast, and yogurt.  There is an evening selection that will qualify as dinner if you wish (daily salad and nachos, and rotating things like chili, baked potatoes, pasta with meatballs, chicken tenders, etc.). They also have a drink ticket, which allows you beer, wine, and rail drinks.  Three drinks per night per ticket (for example, 3 beers, or 3 bourbon and cokes).

And from about 2-10 p.m. they have popcorn and soda (the soda, aka. pop, is available in the morning, for which I am grateful, because I don't drink coffee).

If you need a pool and a (small) workout room, you're OK.

If you need a place to stay for a good value, you'd do well with them.

[sheldman]

Plus, all Drury Inns (website) are dog-friendly.

[DonRocks]

Plus, all Drury Inns (website) are dog-friendly.

But I wonder if not all Drury Inns are equal - as an example, I almost stayed at one at the 2 O'Clock location at the I-465 "beltway" that circles Indianapolis (officially called the Drury Inn & Suites Indianapolis Northeast). I'd never heard of this chain before, but this particular hotel had received *fantastic* reviews, all over hotels.com and maybe even Yelp - a little *too* fantastic - but I was desperate, as there was a large convention in town, and only a few hotels remained; still, something scared me away, and the rates seemed quite high based on the pictures I saw (in the mid-$100s).

I'd forgotten all about this until the next time (a year later) I went to Indianapolis, and I happened to drive by this particular Drury Inn - it was a fairly depressing-looking place, in the middle of a parking lot, and seemed not much more than a typical, downscale, "parking lot" hotel in the middle of a busy retail shopping area, near the interstate: those reviews I read now seemed faked. This is not to damn the entire chain; just to mention one experience that I had. We ended up in a very modest hotel within walking distance of the Convention Center, and paid about $70 less per night, but this little semi-dump (I think it was the Comfort Suites City Centre) appeared to be a peer to the Drury, which was a thirty-minute car ride away from the center of town.

lovehockey, I'm glad you posted, because I'd been riled about Drury (sing to the tune of "I'm Just Wild About Harry") since then, and this will re-open my mind. Still, this one Northeast Indianapolis location ... those "reviews" are still being cranked out, a good five years later - they make it sound like a Four Seasons in Maui:

I must say, the three-drink add-on is huge - that's twenty bucks. And there are *so many* five-star reviews that now I'm second-guessing myself - maybe once you're inside, the place is spotless, the staff bends over backwards, and the rooms are incredible. I had to make a quick decision, and was extremely skeptical, but who knows? Maybe they *do* bend over backwards for their guests, and then encourage them to post on Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc.

More importantly than my one non-experience, note this little trinket: "Highest in Guest Satisfaction among Mid-Scale Hotel Chains, Nine Years in a Row" - J.D. Power

Perhaps even more impressively, J.D. Power's website has upgraded them to "Upper Midscale," and *still* has them ranked #1:

Okay, I'm convinced - this place is doing something right.

[lovehockey]

I'll clarify what I said in the first post:  I've actually stayed at several other locations in the chain and they've all been good.  (I'll add that the food on offer is the same all across; I've heard that the only quirk comes from the locations in Georgia, which serve Coke products instead of Pepsi everywhere else.  And they all have the alcoholic beverage special.)

The one in St. Louis that made the news is the Valley Park location (St. Louis Southwest), at the intersection of State 141 and I-44; the water was up to just below the nearby underpass.  Having seen the Meramec River in partial-drought conditions, it was something to see the pictures of it way over its banks.