Question of the Day | 08/30/2009 11:00 pm

Where is the best public bathroom you know? What makes it so?

This question was originally published on wOw in February 2009.

Joan Ganz Cooney | 02/19/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney Votes for Starbucks Bathrooms

I don’t know where there are any public bathrooms. Starbucks doesn’t seem to mind if you duck in and use its facilities without ordering anything. If there is no Starbucks around, I go into any place that serves coffee and order one and then use the restroom.

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Joan Juliet Buck | 02/19/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Juliet Buck: Use Hotel Bathrooms

My grandmother taught me to use hotel bathrooms. This works only if you are well dressed.

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Liz Smith | 02/19/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith's Specific Directions to the Best Public Bathroom in NYC

In Saks Fifth Avenue’s downstairs concourse, just inside the entrance door on 50th Street, is a special elevator that goes only down to the concourse under the main floor. The concourse houses beauty products, hair and nail and makeup salons. Go right past Natalie as you get out of the elevator, turn left and say merrily that you are going "back to see Vincent" (their star hairdresser) and quickly turn to the right. You will be in a divine little bathroom with two slots.

It’s very private, little used and clean and bright.

When you come out you can browse right on the main floor of Saks at Vuitton and let your mouth water at will.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.

2 Comments

Mary Wells | 02/19/2009 11:00 pm

Mary Wells's Latest Business Idea

A clean bathroom, restroom, toilette room is a rare and beautiful thing. The better the restaurant, the worse the bathroom — maybe because there is such turnover. I always want to have my shoes dry-cleaned when I leave. You would think a hair salon would have a clean one, but they are always filled with used sprays and the sinks are not clean. Chanel has some sort of manifesto about washrooms and you stand a good chance of getting a clean one if you can brave the hungry sales staff. The one in Monte Carlo is particularly clean — if you are in Monte Carlo. I would expect Hermès to have perfect washrooms with their abundant quality and prices, so I am going to start checking Hermès washrooms. Hermès! Here I come!

The best one I ever experienced was at Claridges in London. It has a smartly dressed maid off a movie set who makes sure your soap is new, you have a new fresh towel and that the whole place is a grand experience. There is ample space to fuss over your hair. And there is a second room where you can collapse if your love affair is going badly at lunch. I think there is an opportunity here. We should go into business and build small, immaculate washrooms little by little until they are all over town. The signs would be an art form in cleanliness and would say CLEAN SAFE WASHROOM American Express or Visa. Ten dollars a visit. Expensive? Well, OK. What would a clean, safe, germ-free washroom in a handy location be worth to you? Let me know.

7 Comments

Read more about: Bathrooms, Health, Humor, Lifestyle, Public Restrooms, Travel

119 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

My favorite would have to be the one at the Outlook Restaurant at Delta Downs in Vinton La. It is well maintained and tastefully decorated.

My least favorite would have to be any bathroom in NOLA during Mardi Gras. EEWWWW. I’d rather take the ferry back to Algeirs just to go!

By Doe Nichols on 08/31/2009 12:51 pm

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Doe … could New Orleans at Mardi Gras even hold a candle to Oktoberfest in Munich where you were seated in tents at large tables with fun people that didn’t speak your language but could more than keep up on the drinking beer and singing? Did I adore it — yes, as strangers became friends and friends became warm friends — and the laughter together was like nothing I have ever seen. But with the highest consumption of beer per capita that I could never have imagined, pushing your way to the bathrooms was madness. You had to go NOW but you couldn’t get in the door as the lines were forever. In both the women’s and men’s you in the hall on high slatted framing. At first, you wondered why. You learned quickly as you got close to the doors —moreso on the men’s side where "a river ran under it". You eventually needed fishermen "waders" on either side - but of course, had sandals on.

Shall we say that a treat to "the ladies room" was an event in itself? And a trip through the door was fraught with what the beginnings of massive flood must have felt like. When they talk about "a night to remember" this is one that could never never be forgotten. Ever!!!!!!!

By joan larsen on 08/31/2009 1:28 pm

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Barnes and Noble’s bathrooms. Clean, bright, airy, and usually empty. Uniformed maids and crystal chandeliers are not necessary to pee. ;-)

By Rose Red on 08/31/2009 2:04 pm

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Fox Theater in Atlanta. Old world luxury with thick heavy drapes, huge gilt edge mirrors in the (enormous) sitting room ….

By Anne Browning on 08/31/2009 2:32 pm

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Hello Anne! I’m an Atlanta native and have been to the Fabulous Fox many times. A great old theatre—it has a presence. And yes the restroom is like the rest of the building, a luxurious step back into the Roaring Twenties.

But it’s seen many, many people—I’m not a germaphobe, just careful with my health.

By Lena B on 08/31/2009 6:41 pm

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One of the best public restrooms in this country is in a restaurant called the Modern, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, because it is rather sexy, being coed and all…

By Didi Lorillard on 09/01/2009 10:29 am

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Versailles. Nicest public washroom I’ve ever been in, bar none. The tile work, lighting, everything is exquisite and it’s sparkling clean, thanks to the attendant, who also supplies perfumed soap and warm clean towels. I tipped her 5 Euros and it was well worth it.

By Messy ONE on 09/01/2009 5:04 pm

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Best bathroom in NYC was in La Grenouille restaurant when I was there several years ago. Upscale, and clean. Also the Paris Ritz’s Espadon Dining room toilette is clean and well tended. Salons have messy toilettes as do most busy restaurants and hospital waiting area rest rooms are usually filthy.

By mitzi morris on 09/01/2009 6:35 pm

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If I’m on the road, I usually duck into a hotel or motel. They usually have the cleanest.

By Cathy Justice on 09/02/2009 3:01 pm

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McDonalds. McDonalds have clean bathrooms since they are catering to families. So when I’m traveling, I stop at McDonalds for the bathroom break. I buy a cup of coffee. The rest of the menu, I can’t eat because of food allergies. But they have clean bathrooms. I think some of their priorities are in the right place. At least one.

By Suzanne Frazier on 09/02/2009 6:53 pm

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Hi all,

Enjoying this discussion because I always make it a point whereever I go to find the nearest bathroom. The Ordway Theater in St Paul has huge beautiful women’s facilities. The Ordway was funded by a woman and she insisted.

Also, I once went to a concert put on by the Gay Men’s Chorus. There was a line at the men’s room and not the women’s. I was in heaven.

By bogart dickens on 09/02/2009 9:41 pm

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Twice a year, my mother would take me to the Brown Dunkin’s department store inTulsa, Oklahoma.We went at Christmas and, again, in the summer. We would eat tin heir lunch room. I always orderedan egg salad sandwich (with the crusts cut off). In the summer I got iced tea with a sprig of mint stuck in the glass. In the winter, I ordered hot tea which arrived with a cinnamon stick placed in the cup. Before lunch, we would have ‘washed up’ in their lovely, lovely bathroom. Black and white tiled floors, marble wash basins, spotless toilets. The bathroom attendant would hand me a freshly ironed handtowel and call me ‘young lady’.

But, the nicest part, to me, were the sofas and chaise lounges which were scattered around the adjoining sitting room. I very much wanted to grow up to be one of those ladies who went to lunch at Brown Dunkin’s every day and then reclined on a chaise lounge, smoking a cigarette from a cigarette holder. My mother said only common women smoked cigarettes. Well, if that made you common, then common I would be. I think that’s about the time when Mama figured out that I was going to be a hard one to raise.

By Sally K on 09/03/2009 2:09 am

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If you sprinkle,

when you tinkle,

please be neat,

and wipe the seat.

Please do not leave your urine for the next woman. I don’t want to make any judgement if you do not want to sit on the seat…to each their own…please clean up after yourself. I do make judgement to those who leave their mess for the next person.

By Viola Miller on 09/25/2009 4:11 pm