Sheraton Tribeca, Executive Lounge

I live in New York now, so why am I reviewing a hotel there?  Well, due to a conference getting cancelled at last minute (!), I wound up not using a high value free night award that comes with my credit card, so I decided to do a little staycation before it expired.  But in NYC, nearly every full service hotel has a daily amenity/destination/resort fee.  I didn't want to actually *pay* to utilize my free night, even if some of those come with a F&B credit that sorta makes up for it.  This left with me with only two options in all of Manhattan, besides Residence Inn/Fairfield Inn/etc level hotels: The Renaissance Midtown (which I've stayed at and reviewed before) and the Sheraton Tribeca.  Given that I didn't care for the Renaissance, and the fact that the Sheraton just completed a full renovation a few months prior, it seemed like the right choice.  

I did partially pick this for the Club Lounge, a rare thing in the city.  I visited both at night for the evening offerings, and in the morning for breakfast.

Breakfast

Breakfast is served 6:30-9am M-F and 7-10am on weekends.  The 9am stop seemed a bit early, particularly for those coming in from other timezones, but still nice to see they served 7 days a week, as many places have dropped weekends.

The lineup is your standard continental offering plus a couple hot items.  The single coffee machine was in high demand.

Fruit and Yogurt.

The yogurt was little pots of an off-brand (Upstate Farms), and the fruit was melons/grapes/pineapple only, no berries.  I'm allergic to melons so I had to avoid this.  The yogurt was just sitting on the counter like this, not kept cold, which was ... a choice.  They had plain, vanilla, and one fruity flavor.

Breads.

White or wheat bread, several kinds of bagels, and English muffins for toasting.

Condiments.

Generic packets of jelly, butter, and cream cheese, plus randomly some packaged room temp Belgian waffles were up top.

Pastries.

Below were generic pastries, all croissants/danishes, no scones nor muffins.

I first tried the almond croissant.  It was exceptionally dry and stale tasting.  The filling was even dry, not like a usual moist paste. 1/5.

Pecan Swirl.

I stopped back by the lounge to get more coffee 2 hours later, and they were cleaning up post-breakfast, but still had the pastries remaining.  I couldn't help grab another, this time, the pecan swirl.  The pastry was again very dry and not fresh tasting.  The bits of pecan were fine, the sticky topping was ok, sorta sticky bun inspired, but it mostly made me want it to actually be a sticky bun.  1.5/5.

Pain au Chocolat.

I was really, really craving chocolate.  I always have chocolate in the morning with my coffee, and although I brought some with me, I didn't bring enough.  I was really craving chocolate, so once breakfast was long over, and there was still a pain au chocolat sitting there, I grabbed it, not for the pastry that I knew at that point would be dry and stale, but for the filling.

Alas, even the filling let me down.  Instead of the usual bars of chocolate, this was actually a very thin layer of chocolate paste.  Barely any inside, just two thin strips of the paste.  Not chocolate.  Boo.  1/5.

Cereal.

Cereal rounded out the cold lineup, with Cheerios, granola, and what looked like Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I had the granola, it was fine, with raisins, but not a style I really like.

Juice & Oatmeal.

I tried the oatmeal, it was very thick, and not cooked very well. 2/5.  Toppings were things like cinnamon, coconut, sliced nuts, dried fruit.  No chocolate chips.

Scrambled Eggs.

The hot food was super basic, starting with scrambled eggs.  Clearly powdered style, dry, no real flavor to them. 1/5.

Bacon.

Bacon came next, I didn't try it.

Sausage.

The final hot offering was sausage links.  Not labelled, but I assume pork.  They had a nice snap, and decent maple flavor, but were clearly very low quality ultra processed meat, as they didn't taste like actual meat. 2/5.

There were no warm vegetables, pancakes, etc.

Evening Drinks & Snacks

It is notable that the Sheraton does offer complimentary drinks, including alcohol, and snacks, every night from 5:30-7:30pm.  Most Manhattan properties 1) don't have alcohol and 2) don't serve on weekends.  That said, this isn't a particularly compelling offering.

Soft Drinks.

All day long there is a fridge stocked with bottles of water, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, ginger ale and Fanta.  The bottled water was nice at least, and they did have a tap with sparkling water.

Wine.

I was impressed they had more than just a single white and red to pick from, but instead had 2 reds, a white (chardonnay), and a rose.  Unfortunately, neither of the reds I tried was good (they are in the $5-7/bottle range).

Gato Negro Red Blend:  This tastes like children's grape juice.  Not wine.  Grape juice.

Harthill Farms Cabernet Sauvignon: This was at least wine-like, but super harsh and acidic.

I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to serve myself or not, but the staff member didn't seem to mind that I did.

Beer.

They also had two kinds of beer.  Likely a safer choice if you like beer.  They seemed ok with people walking out with the beer.

Veggies / Cheese / etc.

A pretty generic lineup of carrots/celery/tomatoes, one kind of meat, 3 kinds of cheese cubes, tortilla chips, and several dips (hummus, ranch, guac).  Strangely no salsa.

I tried the veggies, they were fine. Crisp. 3/5.

Mozzarella sticks.

The hot foods weren't labelled, but these were mozzarella sticks.  Soggy.  Barely warm.  No dipping sauce available. 2/5.

Spring Rolls / Dumplings.

Since they weren't labelled, I wasn't sure what to expect inside, but the spring rolls turned out to be veggie, the dumplings ... mystery meat.  Perhaps chicken?

The spring rolls were even soggier than the mozzarella sticks, and had mushy insides.  2/5.  The dumpling wrappers were ok, but some were really dried out.  2.5/5.  They did have sweet chili sauce to dunk these in, but no soy sauce.

Everything seemed microwaved perhaps.  Not high quality.