The Hilton Americas-Houston Executive Rooftop Lounge Review

The Hilton Americas-Houston Rooftop Executive Rooftop Lounge is located on the 24th floor of the Hilton Americas hotel. It’s a beautiful lounge with floor to ceiling windows which offer panoramic views of the Houston skyline (and surrounding area). The lounge has plenty of open space to relax in and also offers snacks, a hot breakfast, hors d’oeuvres, and serves up drinks at its bar. Here’s a review of the Hilton Americas-Houston Rooftop Executive Rooftop Lounge.

You can access the lounge by booking a room on an Executive Floor but we were able to get access to the lounge because we had Hilton Honors Diamond status. (One of the big differences between Hilton Gold and Diamond status is that you get Executive Lounge access regardless of what type of room you stay in whereas Gold requires you to be upgraded to a room that offers lounge access.)

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Executive lounge hours

The Hilton Americas Rooftop Executive Lounge is open daily from 6am to 10pm. Note that these hours can fluctuate depending on what management feels like doing, so it’s possible that the lounge could stay open later until 11pm.

The lounge

The Hilton Americas Rooftop Executive Lounge is a beautiful hotel lounge — there is no doubt about it. It’s very open, relaxed, and while we were there on a Friday the lounge never got very busy so there were always plenty of open seats or tables for us to choose from (during peak business hours this could be a different story).

The bar area looked pretty nice though as I mention below we didn’t try it out.

You’ll find a few large HD flat screen TVs located throughout different parts of the lounge as well as modern furnishings and decor that offer a nice touch. Parts of the lounge even feel quite cozy.

What makes this lounge stand out is the perspective of the city of Houston. With floor to ceiling windows all around the lounge, you get sweeping views of the Houston skyline as well as the Toyota Center, Minute Maid Park, Discovery Green, and other iconic structures in the city and the surrounding area (you can even see Houston Medical Center and The Galleria). It’s a terrific place to catch the sunrise during breakfast or the sunset later on in the day while winding down.

Snacks

Near the bar area, you’ll find the snacks available to you throughout the day. They had an assortment of nuts, snack bars, cookies, and a small selection of fruit while we were there (apples). I didn’t try any of the mixed nuts, but I did try one of their cookies and as someone with a huge sweet tooth, I wasn’t too impressed.

The mini-fridges were loaded with still and sparkling water as well as a variety of sodas. You can also find coffee in the lounge as well, which I believe was brewed or at least branded with Starbucks.

Overall, while I wasn’t thrilled with the one snack I tried, there’s plenty up there in the lounge to help you hold yourself over in between meals and it was nice to see the Pellgrino available.

Breakfast

The lounge offers a continental breakfast plus some hot breakfast items. For a while this lounge offered limited breakfast options but after the Houston Marriott Marquis opened up next door, it seems the Hilton Americas stepped up its breakfast game to compete.

We were the first two guests to get breakfast when we arrived at 7am (on weekdays I’m told that breakfast opens up at 6:30am). Breakfast should last until 10am or 11am depending on when you visit so check with the hotel when you arrive for specifics.

The food is served in a smallish room that’s located outside of the lounge. It’s a bit tucked away so you’ll need to look for it to the left of the entrance of the lounge. A hotel staff member was there directing people where to go while we were there the entire time, so someone should be able to help you out if you can’t find it.

For hot food items we could choose from: oatmeal, potatoes, eggs, and sausage.

The quality of the breakfast items was okay. This was one of those times where extra salt, pepper, ketchup, etc. might was needed on the eggs. At hotels, I’ve found eggs can range from gourmet to something that doesn’t even resemble eggs in taste or texture. This was somewhere in-between. As for the the sausage, it was bit so-so. The seasoned potatoes, however, were very good.

They also had other options, such as yogurt, boiled eggs, cereals, fresh fruits, and pastries (even gluten-free pastries). Juices such as orange juice, apple juice, and cranberry juice were also available. I tried the orange juice and while it was bit pulpy, it was very fresh and I enjoyed it. Brad did his usual fusion of juices and had good things to say as well.

The fruits were very fresh and one of the highlights of the breakfast.

I tried one of the pastries and once again it was okay, but not quite the level of freshness that some other hotels offer, and I found the selection to be a bit limited given the size of this massive hotel.

After we got our food, everything was going great — we had our nice table with a corner view, I was starting to finally wake-up, and I was ready to dig in for a nice hearty breakfast until… I went to take the below photo and I saw a nasty red smudge on my glass of OJ. I’m guessing it was some type of crusty red lip stick stuck on the glass but whatever it was, it was pretty gross.

This was not the first time I’ve noticed something like this after taking a photo for a review so it really pays to take these photos!

I know things like this get missed at hotels and restaurants sometimes so this wasn’t a huge deal to me, but I’m glad I noticed it before taking a sip.

Ultimately, I judge a hotel’s breakfast based on whether or not I can get comfortably full without having to eat anything that I don’t prefer. In this case, the potatoes and fresh fruit made up for the so-so sausage and eggs and the pastry wasn’t bad, either.

So overall, I would say the breakfast is nothing special (for a hotel of this magnitude) but it gets the job done (minus the disgusting residue left on the glass they offered to me). If I had to eat here for several mornings in a row I wouldn’t necessarily be ecstatic but I would be okay with it.

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Hors d’oeuvres

They also serve hors d’oeuvres beginning at 5pm which I believe goes on until around 7pm. At this time, the bar is also open although they don’t serve complimentary drinks. I’ve decided to cut back on alcohol for the time being so I didn’t try out the bar while I was there.

The hors d’oeuvres actually surprised me a little bit, as I found them more filling and tasty than I thought I would.

During our stay they served nachos (with quality queso) along with some sort of stuffed-shrimp taquitos + sweet chili sauce, and potato skins. I was very hungry when we hit up the lounge and these hors d’oeuvres hit the spot.

They also had a roasted tomato platter along with fresh fruit slices and berries.

The hors d’oeuvres definitely help make up for the somewhat mediocre breakfast.

Final word

Overall, the Hilton Americas Executive Rooftop Lounge did not disappoint. It’s a gorgeous hotel lounge with exceptional views of the city and catching the sunrise from the lounge during breakfast is a great way to start your day. The snacks and breakfast could be improved some but they aren’t horrible and I really enjoyed the hors d’oeuvres. If this lounge offered complimentary drinks during a happy hour it would easily be one of my favorite lounges but it’s still a pretty good lounge based on its current offerings and I would gladly return.