Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel
1355 N Front St, Philadelphia, PA 19122-0017
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About
#34 of 108 Specialty lodging in Philadelphia
Location
5.0
Cleanliness
5.0
Service
4.1
Value
3.4
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HOTEL STYLE
Trendy
Property amenities
Paid public parking nearby
Free High Speed Internet (WiFi)
Bar / lounge
Children Activities (Kid / Family Friendly)
Non-smoking hotel
Clothes dryer
Washing machine
Room features
Air conditioning
Safe
Seating area
Clothes rack
Coffee / tea maker
Kitchenette
Flatscreen TV
Bath / shower
Dishwasher
Refrigerator
Kitchenware
Complimentary toiletries
Hair dryer
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Location
86Good for walkers
Grade: 86 out of 100
62Restaurantswithin 0.3 miles
14Attractionswithin 0.3 miles
1355 N Front St, Philadelphia, PA 19122-0017
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GirardSEPTA5 min
BerksSEPTA10 min
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Luxury hotel prices, for terrible service. Beautiful interior design, but duvet cover was dirty and had a couple of holes in it (see picture); sheets smelled like they hadn't been cleaned. First evening, the advertised high-speed wifi is neither strong enough to stream a movie from my phone, nor for any of the installed streaming services on the TV to work properly. First morning, found the coffee grinder broken, and dirty - had not been wiped out since last use. Asked for both to be remedied, neither were. As we were leaving, people in restaurant downstairs were lovely, and passed on our message to the manager Stephen Yaeger, who emailed to apologize and asked me to call him to discuss if there was anything he could do to "make this right". Since we'd already spent so much of our vacation time on the phone trying to get in touch with someone about the various issues (you have the shortened version here), I did not want to spend any more time talking about it. I thanked him and cut to the chase - the only thing that would make it right for me would be if he refunded half the $385 a night I paid to stay at the place. And I was being generous. I heard nothing back from him.…
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Date of stay: March 2020
Sleep Quality
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
We opted to stay at WM Mulherin's the night before and after our wedding in September. The process from start to finish was disappointing and frustrating. It was incredibly difficult to get in touch with anyone at the hotel about simple questions. Starting a month before our reservation, we attempted to email and call repeatedly about a simple check in question we had. To this day, we've never received a response to the 6 emails we sent. We left multiple voicemails, and ended up having to call the restaurant to see if they could possibly put us in touch with someone at the hotel. Ultimately, if we had been told our request wasn't possible when we first asked, that would've been completely fine and reasonable. But we were left with plans up in the air until the DAY OF our check in. The space itself is beautiful and I can see why it's such a favorite spot among boutique hotels in Philadelphia. However, I found it to be lacking in some of the basic tenets of hotel hospitality. Beyond the complete lack of attention and care from hotel staff (which, it seems, there is none), the space generally felt like it had not been designed for guests to have a comfortable stay. There were only two bath towels, two hand towels, and two wash cloths. There were no towels in the kitchen so when we spilled some water, we had to use one of the wash cloths (down 1). The shower stall isn't sealed properly, so when you take a shower, water leaks all over the floor and there's no bath mat to catch it (down 2 towels now). The kitchen had a tiny trash can that couldn't accommodate the small amount of trash we accumulated over two nights (some coffee cups, a takeout container, etc) and we had to leave our trash stacked on the floor as we checked out. The wifi was spotty and often the network for our room wasn't even an option to connect to. We were only given a single physical key to the room, which meant we had to play a logistics game of who was going to need the key when if we were separated. The space is appointed with coffee beans, a grinder, and brewer, but the instructions they leave are for equipment that isn't present in the room and the grinder didn't work. Overall, it's an incredibly beautiful space, but I'm not sure it was worth the very hefty price we paid for it. Would not recommend to future guests.…
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Date of stay: September 2019
Value
Rooms
Service
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
2 Helpful votes
Helpful
This hotel sits on top of a great...really great ... restaurant and I stayed here for convenience. My room price all in was $400 so I expected a lot. The room itself is fine but it is right next to the elevated train and that train goes by every 15 minutes except from midnight to 5 am. The building does not shake but it is so damn loud that it is impossible to sleep or for that matter enjoy your stay. As to other aspects, you walk up some very steep stairs ... three flights... to get to the first level of the rooms. You carry your own luggage as there is no service. If you have any walking disabilities you are out of luck. The central air does not work so they have small portable units in each room. The units do cool well but they are noisy. They do not reach the bathrooms so the bathroom is very hot. I highly recommend avoiding this hotel unless you are deaf and enjoy carrying weights up and down stairs. I think there is a reason they debit your charge card in advance of your stay...so there is no chance that you can change your mind. There is also no management to speak to, only a couple of 21 year olds that nod knowingly when you explain that you are not happy. …
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Date of stay: August 2019Trip type: Traveled with friends
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
2 Helpful votes
Helpful
Yes, the rooms of this hotel are beautiful. The room I was in (room 1) was spacious, very cool design, and comfy. But there were far too many negatives to make a stay here worth it, especially at such high prices. As the other reviews have said, there's no parking provided. There is a lot across the street, but it's an outdoor lot with no attendant. Evening hours start at 4 (when you can first check-in to the hotel), so when I tried to pay at the machine I had to choose to pay to park until 5 am or pay twice as much for 48 hours. I ended up having to book through park whiz, but the lot requires you to actually print out the pass to display which only worked because I was meeting a friend with a printer. The check-in is at the restaurant below the hotel, which felt a little awkward to walk into a nice and busy place with all my bags and try to flag someone down to get my key. I had booked with a third party that was supposed to include a drink at the restaurant as an amenity. This wasn't acknowledged when I checked in, but when I asked they were friendly about it. The door to the hotel is directly next door; it's a bit of a pain to lug your stuff up the stairs but I was only one flight up so not too bad. I had been worried about the train because of the other reviews, but room 1 was removed enough from it that it wasn't too bothersome. You could hear noise from outside and the room above, but again not so bad that it couldn't be covered up with white noise while sleeping. The coffee provided in the room looked like it would be good, but the directions for making it were extremely complicated and there was no cream or sugar. The products provided in the bathroom were a shampoo and two body lotions, but no conditioner or body wash which was a little strange. But honestly the room was cool and nice enough that I would have gotten over all of those inconveniences. Unfortunately at 4 am that morning I was woken up by some kind of work being done right below my room, and an extremely loud machine going off for long periods at a time. I could see cones set up on the street below, but it sounded like whatever was happening was attached to the building, and because of the thin windows and walls it sounded like banging all around and felt like the room was vibrating. This lasted for several hours. There is no one at the hotel after 12 am, and I had not been provided the emergency contact number for help after hours either before my stay or when I checked in, so I had no idea what to do or who to reach out to (under emergency contact on the hotel website it says call 911). I finally gave up on sleeping and just emailed the third party booking site to let them know what was going on and ask for their help in getting some kind of refund. I had luckily asked for checkout at 12 instead of 11 so I could sleep in a little once the noise finally stopped, but at exactly 10:59 someone started banging on the door and yelling guest services. I actually thought for a second that it was someone coming to help with the noise issue, but when I opened the door in my pajamas the woman standing there just stared at me. I explained that I had gotten a late checkout, and she pretty rudely replied that no one had told her that as if somehow it was my fault that management had not conveyed this to her. When I spoke to the third party site that day, I was told that the hotel management had tried to say the noise was just the train. I then called the regular hotel number and spoke to the manager directly, explaining what had happened and that it was definitely not the train. The response I got was not at all an apology but just a lot of excuses- that they cannot control city noise, that it couldn't have been construction at that hour and they had no knowledge of work being done, it was the third party's fault for not giving me the emergency number, of course he would have answered the phone at 5 am and driven over to the hotel to investigate etc. etc. I get that a hotel can't control city noise. But besides the fact that this was not just "regular city noise" and definitely sounded like it was connected to the building, a hotel is responsible for making sure guests have a relaxing and enjoyable stay, that they're provided with critical information like after-hours contact info when no one is stationed at the hotel, and that there is not such a huge disconnect between guests and the actual hotel management. The manager told me he would continue to be in contact with the third party site, and to give him 24 hours to deal with it. After 36 hours and having heard nothing, I reached back out to the third party only to receive an email saying the hotel was taking no responsibility and refused to give any kind of refund or discount. The manager never reached back out to me. The true mark of a good hotel is how well they handle any issues that arise, and how much they actually care about guests having a good stay. It's clear this place does not care about that once they have your payment. Now if as a guest all you actually care about is the design and space of your room, and not as much about good customer service, amenities, ease, or noise, then you'll still probably enjoy this place. Otherwise there are plenty of other options, like the Lokal right down the street.…
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Date of stay: April 2019Trip type: Traveled solo
Value
Service
Sleep Quality
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
First off I should give full disclosure here. I live down the street from Mulherins and visit the restaurant frequently. It’s one of my favorites in the city. As a result, I had high expectations for my stay at the hotel on my wedding night. What I found instead of a nice relaxing stay was a very beautiful room (#1) with some major deficiencies that needed to be addressed for comfort, functionality and customer service. When booking the room I emailed with the manager to make sure the stay was as smooth as possible. The goal was to check-in the room by 12:00 so the photog could start pre wedding pictures of my wife getting ready. Understandably, they couldn’t guarantee a checkin that early so I had to get the room for the night before as well. No biggie, they sucked an extra night out of me. However, they never gave us notification, as promised, for when the room was ready to check in or instructions as to where to pickup the keys. Luckily we figured out the keys were available for pickup at the host stand in the restaurant. Most annoying though was: - after night #1, the day of the wedding, there were at least 3 different occasions when the cleaning crew knocked on the door to access the cleaning closet (for some reason located in our room) so they could clean the other rooms. I mean who does that? Why is the closet located in our room and why would you need to keep coming in? Especially when you see a bride getting dressed for her wedding. - the shower door literally didn’t shut. It was like it was hung too low and scraping the floor. As a result water would go all over the floor. For a $400 a night room I expect to be able to take a shower without flooding the bathroom. - there was nowhere to hang clothes or a full length mirror to look at. Even the Best Western has that (I’m assuming) All of that said, the room is quite stunning and gorgeous. The vinal records player (with Snoop I might add) was ah-mazing. Further the location is fantastic. If you do decide to go, checkout the restaurant downstairs!!…
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Date of stay: January 2019Trip type: Traveled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
I struggled with how to rate this hotel experience. I wanted to rate it a 3.5, but that’s not an option, so I’m going with a 3, given the mix of pros and cons. First the pros. We stayed overnight in two units here—3 and 4. Both are beautifully designed, gorgeous spaces. We left our stay with so much design inspiration for our own homes. Also, the rooms are spacious, clean, and have every amenity you could need (fridge, stove, washer/dryer, etc). Both the bed and couches were super comfy, and the big windows and sky lights let in plenty of natural light. Plus, the hotel is in the Fishtown area, so it’s a close walk to plenty of bars, shops, and restaurants. Still, there were a number of cons to staying here. No elevator. Rooms 3 and 4 were up two very steep sets of stairs. And with no hotel staff to help with luggage, it was a bit of a hassle to get our things up to our room. I can imagine this would be an issue for older travelers or those with mobility issues. No overnight parking on site. There’s a free lot beside the hotel but it’s only available until 2 am. You must move your car to street parking or to a pay lot (nearby). A tad annoying, but I’ve stayed at other Philly hotels that require the same thing, and admittedly we did find parking relatively easily. Noise. I live in the Washington, DC area near a metro station, so I’m pretty used to train noise. But this hotel sits directly beside train tracks (literally yards away), and the train is VERY loud and runs into the early morning hours. Also, because the hotel is near bars and such, there were a lot of street noises (people yelling or talking very loudly, engines revving, etc) into the early morning hours. We all slept pretty poorly, given the range of noises all night. This hotel would definitely not be a good spot for light sleepers. I didn’t see a white noise machine in the room to combat the array of noises; that would have been a helpful addition. We really liked many aspects of this truly beautiful hotel, but would choose a quieter spot for a return visit to Philly.…
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Date of stay: October 2018Trip type: Traveled with family
Value
Service
Sleep Quality
Room Tip: Units 2 and 4 are closest to the train tracks, so units 1 and 3 might be a better bet for...
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Helpful
We loved our stay in Fishtown, made a weekend jaunt to Philly for a wedding so much more interesting. We wanted to love everything about Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel but it not live up to the standard of a hotel - if you think about it like an AirBnB alternative, it's great - great for the room but just ok for the service. Excellent central location, amazing restaurant below. Amazingly large loft-like room, event the walk up is charming as the steps get steep to the third floor. (We stayed in Room 3). Minimal design but comfortable nonetheless. That said, the comforts of even an AirBnB lacked - incredibly small bathroom with a sliding door that you had to fight to close or open; lacking in supplies like tissues and basics in the kitchen (nothing to wash dishes); and a coffee maker that is impossibly complicated and no cream in the fridge. (The restaurant below did accommodate us on the second day.) And a washer/dryer that could not have been less intuitive to use (no instructions) and took hours to dry your towels. I'd still recommend a stay here, though not more then 2 nights. It's a great idea, wish I loved it even more.…
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Date of stay: August 2018Trip type: Traveled as a couple
Rooms
Service
Sleep Quality
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
Style-wise, our room was outstanding. Nice materials, very comfortable, appliances (even a washing machine!), Bonavita coffee maker (just like ours at home), good toiletries, very roomy, etc., etc. BUT, we had room #4 which is not a great room for sleeping in if you're sensitive at all to noise and or light: - Enormous skylight, which is gorgeous but relatively bright at night (this is the city, after all) and really bright in the morning; there should be a blind that you can cover it with; - Right next to the elevated train which runs all night long, which is cool for ambiance but loud at night; there should be triple-paned windows with that much regular noise; - The air conditioner was loud, so loud that when ours wasn't running, we could still hear the one next door; - The bed pad crunched when you or your bedmate made the slightest move (I admit this was probably more noticeable because of the other sleep deprivation factors). We've stayed in hotels where noise and light can be factors and they usually provide earplugs and/or eyeshades as a courtesy. For the price of the room, these small courtesies would help. These comments may not apply to all the rooms, although I think room #2 also faces the train (though lower). There is complimentary wifi. Note that the way the hotel works is that you check in at the host desk for the restaurant. There is no staff available early morning until the restaurant opens, so just be aware in case you're expecting a typical hotel. The staff are very friendly and accommodating. We were able to book a brunch reservation when we checked in and they were able to switch it to an indoor table (it was getting hot outside). And the restaurant is very good.…
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Date of stay: June 2018Trip type: Traveled as a couple
Rooms
Cleanliness
Service
Room Tip: I would not choose #4 if light or noise bother you.
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Helpful
I actually live less than 10 minutes from this hotel and wanted to stay for a night and check it out with my wife. The room was so unique and different, as well as having everything an apartment would have (including a washed/dryer!), such a cool place to stay and enjoy my own city. I would highly recommend it to anyone! And if you stay here you MUST eat at the restaurant. The chef Chris Painter is an artist with his flavors and plating, we have been enjoying his food since his old restaurant, Il Pittore. Great experience all around!
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Date of stay: February 2018Trip type: Traveled as a couple
Rooms
Cleanliness
Service
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Helpful
This hotel was an absolute pleasure - the room I had was very cool - spacious studio space with a big comfortable bed, nice couch, kitchenette, great coffee, cool furniture, lighting, bathroom, etc. If you've got a sense of style, you'll love this space. couldn't be in a better part of town either - walk to all bars, coffee, restaurants. staff was friendly and very attentive - I had one issue with my reservation (a mistaken date) and they were prompt, and overly courteous, and resolved the issue immediately.
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Date of stay: February 2018Trip type: Traveled on business
Value
Cleanliness
Service
Room Tip: There is a train nearby so if you need absolute silence all the time, stay in the burbs
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Helpful
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PRICE RANGE
$307 - $418 (Based on Average Rates for a Standard Room)
LOCATION
United StatesPennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaFishtown
NUMBER OF ROOMS
4
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Claim Your ListingWM. MULHERIN'S SONS HOTEL - Prices & Specialty Hotel Reviews (Philadelphia, PA)
Frequently Asked Questions about Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel
Which popular attractions are close to Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Nearby attractions include Smith Kids Play Place (Playground & Mansion) (0.2 miles), Bottle Bar East (0.09 miles), and Garage Fishtown (0.2 miles).
What are some of the property amenities at Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Some of the more popular amenities offered include free wifi, a lounge, and kids activities.
Which room amenities are available at Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Top room amenities include a kitchenette, air conditioning, and a flat screen TV.
What food & drink options are available at Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Guests can enjoy a lounge during their stay.
Is parking available at Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Yes, paid public parking nearby is available to guests.
What are some restaurants close to Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Conveniently located restaurants include Suraya, Wm. Mulherin's Sons, and Frankford Hall.
Are any cleaning services offered at Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Yes, a clothes dryer and a washing machine are offered to guests.
Are there any historical sites close to Wm. Mulherin's Sons Hotel?
Many travelers enjoy visiting Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul (2.1 miles), Battleship New Jersey (2.2 miles), and Independence National Historical Park (1.8 miles).