Shinola Hotel in downtown Detroit hosts board meetings, company workshops, private dinners, rehearsal dinners and wedding receptions in six named rooms, with 129 guest rooms upstairs for attendees who travel in. The largest published meeting figure is 70 guests in The Foundry Room, while Bixby Hall is the main room for banquets and dancing. The hotel stands on Woodward Avenue, the main street of the city center.
Seminars and company events
The Foundry Room is the space the hotel sets aside for business use. It takes up to 70 guests and suits working sessions, presentations, training and brainstorming days. Groups that want a change of scene for lunch or an evening program can move to the private dining room at San Morello, to the glass-roofed Birdy Room or to Evening Bar, a speakeasy set behind the lobby. Corporate groups can hold a block of guest rooms alongside the meeting space, so a one- or two-day program can run under a single roof. The events team takes requests through a form on the official site and answers on the hotel's main line.
Weddings and receptions
The hotel sells weddings and publishes reception menus. Bixby Hall, the most spacious room, has a white-tile ceiling, chandeliers and a marble fireplace, and is used for seated dinners and dancing. The Birdy Room, a conservatory with vaulted glass and its own garden terrace, works for cocktails, a smaller dinner or a morning-after brunch. The Salon is a room for greeting guests and mingling, and it can be booked together with the other rooms in the Annex. Wedding room blocks are available for family and friends staying overnight.
Rooms and capacities
The official site lists six event spaces: Bixby Hall, The Birdy Room, The Foundry Room, The Salon, the private dining room at San Morello and Evening Bar. Only The Foundry Room carries a published figure, 70 guests. For the other rooms the events team confirms numbers by layout, so organisers planning a larger group should ask early which room or combination of rooms fits their count and format.
Accommodation
The hotel has 129 guest rooms and suites. Blocks can be held for corporate groups, social events and weddings, which helps when speakers, clients or wedding guests come from other cities and need to stay close to the event.
Catering
Food and drink for events come from chef Andrew Carmellini and NoHo Hospitality, the team that runs the hotel's restaurants. San Morello serves southern Italian cooking with wood-fired pizza and house-made pasta, and its private room offers family-style menus. The building also holds The Brakeman, an American beer hall with foosball, Penny Red's for fried chicken and biscuits, Ray's Hometown Bar, Mister Dips for burgers and The Living Room for cocktails. Event catering is handled in-house by the same team.
Getting there
The hotel faces Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, within walking distance of the offices of the city center. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is the main airport for flights into the city. Organisers bringing guests by car or coach should ask the hotel about parking and drop-off before the event, since the site does not detail them.
