Review: Pioneer Pocket Hotel in Lubbock Texas

This tech-enabled hotel in an historic downtown building combines luxury with true West Texas spirit.

Cattle and cotton used to be the calling card for Lubbock, the mid-sized town that sits at the bottom of the Texas Panhandle. As the city has grown, so has its saddlebag of tricks that make it a great place to visit. There’s great barbecue along with Lone Star-style tapas, Tex-Mex, steaks and Thai restaurants. There are wineries (the region’s soil is good for grapes). There’s the National Ranching Heritage Museum, the Buddy Holly Center, Joyland Amusement Park and much more.

 

 

One of the pleasant surprises is that the city has had the good sense to turn its once dying downtown into a reinvigorated Depot District (named for the former train depot), with a theatre, restaurants, clubs and shops and artists’ studios.

One of the newest and most interesting places to stay is the nearby Pioneer Pocket Hotel, located on Broadway, on the cobbled streets of the historic downtown. The 10-room/suite hotel shares the building with condominiums.

I checked it out on a recent visit to my hometown. It was like no place I’ve ever stayed before and very cool.

 

 

Perfect for:

Families and couples exploring the city

The look:

Modern chic with a West Texas feel – pictures of cotton fields, windmills and stunning sunsets adorn the walls. The hotel is housed in the 1920s Renaissance Revival Pioneer Building. In the ‘50s it was the tallest building in the city and was once home to the historic Hotel Lubbock.

 

 

Child-friendly?

Yes. The rooms have kitchenettes – good for making coffee, heating bottles, keeping things cold in the mini-fridge. It doesn’t sell itself as being hugely baby-friendly although the size means you could easily fit a travel cot. The separate sitting areas in the suites are very comfortable, so it would be easy to tuck up the kiddies and relax with a drink or watch TV.

Check-in:

This is a 100% tech experience. The check-in is all online. When we arrived, the “lobby” was empty. There’s no front desk: Instead you get an email with a link to click beforehand, then you get a code to open your room door. For travellers who don’t mind checking in by computer or mobile app, and who don’t generally use the concierge, this feels like a modern hotel experience.

Our room:

We tried to sweep up the grand staircase to our quarters…but it only goes up one floor. Oh well, into the slightly less grand elevator to get to the room. For access, you enter the code you’ve gotten online.

We stayed in the 100% Cotton Suite, which had 2 queen beds, a small sitting area, and a large luxurious bathroom. The rooms and suites have a combination of 1 or 2 queen or king beds, some with sitting rooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love that the rooms are grounded in the farming and cowboy life of West Texas along with a sense of luxury. The room themes include country music, oil, wine and cotton. The fabrics for the sofas, cushions, headboards, etc are elegant and modern, the bathrooms are spacious and beds as soft as a pile of cotton bolls.

There are proper (metal) hangers in the closet, along with a folding luggage stand, iron and ironing board, with extra blankets in the chest of drawers.

The female friendly touches:

I always like to point out how hotels are catering to the needs of women travellers.

Here’s what Pioneer Pocket Hotel is doing right:

• proper powerful hair dryer (that’s not attached to the wall
• well-lit bathroom mirror
• electrical outlets that don’t require crawling under furniture to plug in – they’re at the base of the table lamps along with USB charging!
• space around the bathroom sink for toiletries and jewellery
• peephole in the door for security
• the complimentary toiletries including conditioner and lotion

Food:

This isn’t a B&B experience. There is a coffee shop on the ground floor of the building (called The Coffee Shop) as well as the West Table restaurant, which serves dinner most nights along with Wednesday lunch and Sunday brunch. If you’re staying here, you’ll be eating out.

 

Luckily there are lots of great possibilities. For breakfast hop to the nearby Pancake House. For lunch and dinner, you’ll want to check out Chuy’s Tex-Mex, Rudy’s Bar-B-Q, Orlando’s Italian restaurant, La Diosa Cellars, One Guy Pizza, Torchy’s Tacos…the list goes on. Obviously I need to publish it on the blog.

Amenities I loved:

• Location – This is one of the prettiest and grandest parts of the city.
• The design – The rooms themselves are so elegant, with big windows and lovely textiles. The views are of the Edward Hopper-inspired variety – low-slung mid-century buildings,
• Parking – There are 10 dedicated spaces in the building’s parking lot, an important benefit in downtown Lubbock where much of the parking is paid.

Things to do better:

When the café and restaurant is closed, there is no place to get a snack or a cold drink. We went to the vending area, but the computer on the snacks machine was on the fritz, so there was no snacks available. Because the venue is unmanned, there’s no one to report problems too – I would have liked to have a point of contact just in case.

 

Price:

The standard rooms start from $129 US

The Pioneer Pocket Hotel
1204 West Broadway
3rd Floor
Lubbock, Texas 79401
USA
pioneerpockethotel.com

 

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