The Journal · The Brantford Club

The Arlington Hotel vs The Brantford Club: Paris Upstream, Brantford Down

The Arlington Hotel is a boutique hotel at 106 Grand River Street North in downtown Paris, Ontario, with 23 guest rooms by its own count, a restaurant and bar, and event space. The Brantford Club is a private club, its door at 98 George Street in Brantford, kept since 1898, with dining rooms, private rooms, and no guest rooms at all.

The Arlington Hotel stands at 106 Grand River Street North, Paris, Ontario N3L 2M5. By its own site the front desk answers 226-227-1767 and reservations@arlingtonhotel.ca, group bookings go to events@arlingtonhotel.ca, and rooms are booked online from the hotel’s stay page. The Library Table & Bar, its restaurant, keeps hours by its own listing from noon Wednesday to Sunday and closes Monday and Tuesday. A share of the people who search the hotel’s name have a dinner to place, and want to know whether it belongs in Paris or down the Grand River in Brantford. This entry answers that, and says plainly when the answer is the Arlington.

One river, an hotel in Paris and a club in Brantford

The Grand River enters Paris at the forks where the Nith joins it and runs south to Brantford, so the two addresses in this comparison sit on the same water, Paris upstream and Brantford down. The Arlington Hotel is a boutique hotel on Grand River Street North in downtown Paris: 23 guest rooms named for writers, by its own stay page, The Library Table & Bar on the ground floor, a Cellar 1851 room that hosts live music on Fridays, and an events-and-meetings page for functions in the building. The same group runs River’s Edge at the Arlington, across the street at 97 Grand River Street North, which is a wedding venue.

The Brantford Club is the members’ club at number 98 George Street in Brantford, in the Court House’s shadow, in an Italianate house of about 1855 and older than the city itself. The Club opened on the last night of 1898, and its dining rooms have served the same address since. A private dinner there is a member’s evening: one room of the house, a menu settled with the kitchen beforehand, and guests brought in at the host’s side.

The dinner that belongs at the Arlington

A dinner that wants rooms upstairs belongs at the Arlington, and this house will say so first. If your party is driving in from Cambridge or Hamilton and nobody wants to drive home, the hotel has 23 rooms over the restaurant by its own count, a stay page with online booking, and Paris outside the door in the morning: the shops on Grand River Street, the forks, and the rail trail toward Cambridge. A birthday that turns into a weekend is a Paris weekend, and the Arlington is its hotel. A wedding is River’s Edge’s work, and The Brantford Club does not host weddings. A group of fifty or more is sent across the street to River’s Edge by the hotel’s own business page.

Is The Brantford Club a hotel?

No. The Brantford Club is a private members’ club with dining rooms and private rooms, and there are no guest rooms in the house. Nobody sleeps at 98 George Street; the rooms are the Waterous Family Dining Room, the 98 George Room, the Bateson Lounge, and the dining room, and the boardroom, and every one of them closes to the rest of the house when a party takes it. The kitchen is in the building, under executive chef Eric Wasylenky, and it runs from a working lunch to full evening service on a seasonal menu, with the Churchill Pork Chops carrying the name of the house’s most famous guest, who signed the Visitors’ Register on January 3, 1901, per the Club’s centennial history. A host who needs one room, one table, and no second party in it has come to the right door; the rooms themselves are walked through in the Journal’s entry on the rooms at 98 George Street.

The Arlington Hotel vs The Brantford Club, on the table

Eight rows settle most of it. The hotel’s figures are its own site’s; the Club prints no seat count for any room, because the house matches the room to the party when you write.

The private dinner with the kitchen in the building

A private dinner at The Brantford Club begins with three things: the occasion, a preferred date, and roughly how many chairs. The kitchen then plans the menu with you, course by course, and your event coordinator matches the room to the number, so a retirement for ten and an anniversary for thirty do not share a floor plan. There is no walk-through traffic and no second seating waiting for the table. The host signs for the evening and the house does the rest. The words for the evening are the host’s own; if the occasion is a retirement, the Journal’s entry on giving a retirement speech was written for that table. The arrangement itself is set out on the private dining page, and no dollar figure appears there, because every table is priced by its menu and the real numbers come back with the date.

Private dining in Paris and in Brantford

Private dining in Paris, Ontario means the Arlington for most searchers, and the hotel earns the query: a restaurant with published hours, function space in the building, and beds over it. Private dining in Brantford, at a member’s table, means The Brantford Club, and the Club’s own copy names the town upstream among the places its hosts come from: Brantford, Brant County, Paris, Cambridge, Ancaster, and Burlington. What Paris hosts come down the river for is a room in a house older than the City of Brantford, with the kitchen under the same roof and nobody else’s party in it; the Journal’s entry on the house older than the city tells how the house came to be kept. A Paris host who wants that room writes one email. A Brantford host who wants a Paris weekend books the Arlington, and the Club will not argue.

Two houses, the same questions

Sources: the Arlington Hotel’s own site, arlingtonhotel.ca, for its address, phone, rooms, restaurant hours, and events pages; River’s Edge at the Arlington’s own site for the wedding venue; the Club’s private dining and booking pages; the Club’s centennial history for the Register. The rooms and how an evening is booked are set out on the booking page. Where the Journal has set the house beside other rooms, the register lists them all.