Midtown Athletic Club

My family has been a member of Midtown for three years. It is a well run place and offers tons of tennis classes and general fitness. They are undergoing a HUGE renovation which should be completed next year. It is already a great club and the new addition is going to make it the premier club in Chicago.

In my opinion, it is the best fitness club in Chicago. It has a great feeling of a social club. Members are very friendly. It’s never crowded like other gyms I’ve visited before. The staff is quite knowledgeable and inspiring. They truly know how to engage its members. The GM, Mr, Mahoney is quite the right person for the job!
The entire club is super clean and the men’s lounge is great!
I let’s defiantly worth my time and money!

My wife and I have been playing a ton of tennis recently. We decided we want to continue playing year round, we checked out Midtown recently, and we fell in love. The staff has been exceptional, everyone from the front desk to the membership staff, to the pros. The courts are in excellent condition and are so much fun to play on. Love that they are free in the summer, in case it’s just too hot to play outside! We plan to pay in the winter and find another couple to play doubles with. We were lucky to sign up during a promotion, got free classes for my wife for the remainder of the summer, and also got discounted classes for me for the fall. So far, my wife loves her instructor and class. The locker rooms are so clean and nice, which is a big upgrade from my last gym. They are doing a lot of construction so I’m looking forward to all the additions, including the pool! Also, I got some great advice today on buying a new racket today and was able to demo a couple. Can’t wait to up my game and Midtown!

One of the few people that joined the gym for the fitness aspect vs the tennis. Currently, Midtown is going through a complete remodel which has had its challenges but I’m sure in the end will pay off. It’s definitely one of the more expensive gyms in the area but it’s extremely clean, has a wide range of equipment and great classes, in addition to multiple tennis courts. The staff go above and beyond to ensure each visit is enjoyable and minus all the construction I am grateful to be a member.

The customer care at the club has been getting worse every day. Kidtown has lost most of the good associates and the 2 new ladies are rude and disrespectful. Cyndi Baecker in charge of Kidtown was useless when we contact her to complain about a really bad experience with the new Kidtown associates. She did not even read my whole email and completely disregarded my concerns. On top of that she made unnecessary comments telling us about how kids behave as if we were not aware of this despite having 2 kids. I copied the general manager but he never replied. Clearly the club is lately not interested in customer satisfaction and it seems that the only drive they have is making profit. I used to love the club but I am really thinking about canceling our family membership. I will not recommend this place any more. Sad about the situation as the tennis courts are the best in Chicago.
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Update: manager came to talk to me and promise that he would take care of the problems.
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Update: staff in daycare has been changed. Mr. Mahoney is a great manager. Satisfied with resolution.

We have a family membership for about three years now. Midtown is expanding. Lots of construction around both buildings. The gym was nice until recently! I believe Midtown is advertising now more in order to attract more members, but is not quite ready to accomodate. There is no parking during the busy hours/​weekends. There are no lockers when there is high volume of visitors. The gym is packed with groups of people working out with an instructor, so there is really no room for just an individual to place his/​her matt down in order to work out! There are at times personal trainers with their clients in addition to the smaller groups described above. This weekend there was a tournament at the Club. There was no parking. There was an attendant that told me to park in the construction site parking across the street. I drove to the «parking», there was a sign of «caution high voltage»!! There ground was packed with thick ice. This was clearly not a good place to park or walk on. I reported this to the front desk. They told me they will inform the manager. Two hours later, I was walking on ice, almost fell, and no one attended to the matter.
The club could hire valet people for the busy times, when they can’t accomodate the high volume. They could also give a discount in their membership until the facilities are able to keep up with the high volume visitors.
We love our tennis coach Stoyan. He is the only 5 star at Midtown!

I’m really really satisfied with my experience here. I am an adult beginner in tennis and joined after taking part of their Tennis in No Time program (open to non-​members) this summer and have been really pleased with both the tennis facilities and level of instruction as well as the fitness offerings. The facilities are not overcrowded (a real problem at gyms I have gone to in the past) and I really appreciate that most group fitness classes, including yoga and barre classes, are included with the membership. I’ve found the instructors for my beginning courses to be very patient with me as a beginner and the club does a lot to make sure there are opportunities to play with others at your level through tennis mixers. It’s clear that they have a very high level of instruction for people with very advanced skills but I have felt equally welcome and supported even though I am not the most skilled player. While I don’t think it makes sense to join if you are not interested in learning tennis and it is a little bit more expensive per month than average chain gyms, I’ve found everything about this place to be great, and think it is definitely worth it.

I adore this gym.
First of all, I do not now nor have I ever played tennis so if you’re looking for a review on how amazing the tennis facility is, I won’t be able to help you.
I use the gym at Midtown and I’ve always been extremely happy with it. I’ve been a member since May and I’ve never had a bad experience.
This gym is always SO very clean. There is always a staff member there cleaning or refilling pumps in the ladies room or folding towels. They are really attentive to keeping the place at its finest.
Any time I come in there’s something going on. There’s always a yoga or fitness class taking place. There are always a few people with personal trainers and people are constantly playing tennis.
I love this gym because I’ve never once been hit on. I left another gym because I was so tired of skeezy guys and a dirty space. This place is classy and hook up free. It’s so nice to go to a gym and not have anyone bother me. Very refreshing.
Highly recommend if you’re in the market for a new gym.

Being a member of Midtown Athletic Club has been the worst experience I’ve ever encountered. My family of six became members and I was told about their great childcare program. I scheduled myself and my children for classes that went over 2.5 hours, and was then told by the childcare worker in a very unpleasant manner that she could not care of my three year old.
I discussed it with management and was told that was their policy. I could not figure out how they would allow me to register for classes, walk through the process with me, and then not honor childcare.
I requested to end my membership but they threw in my face my one year contract. I had to keep my daughter on and add my other daughter as a single member, which would be less money, and they would work in out that way.
I then realized that although they promised this, I was now being charged for a full family rate, plus my daughter’s single rate. They were making more money with less people!
I’m finally getting this resolved after a year, but I will tell you that the couple of extra dollars I paid at Lifetime Fitness where well worth it. My husband and I are thankful we never cancelled our membership there, and would not recommend anyone to Midtown Athletic Club.

This review is for the children’s group tennis lessons. Our child is very athletic and is involved with a number of sports. We started with tennis lessons at age 4 in Michigan. They were a big hit. The coach was excellent. He stood in the middle of the court and threw balls to the students to hit. He would occasionally get hit with the balls himself (foam though, so there was little, if any, pain involved). He would act silly and start spinning around or fall down when he got his to make the class laugh. In just a few weeks, all the kids could hit the ball well and they started focusing on placement. We were extremely impressed, and sad to leave the lessons behind when we moved to Chicago. So, we registered for classes at Midtown.
Instead of continuing to improve, we saw our child regress. We saw frustration set in. It started with the fact that one of the two coaches for the class kept trying to make our leftie a rightie. One of the coaches was fine teaching the leftie technique, but the other just wouldn’t listen. So there was just a complete breakdown there. One minute, our child would play in the left-​handed comfort zone, and the next, the other coach would be encouraging the Nadal/​Sharapova approach of playing with the less dominant hand.
Further exacerbating the frustration was the way in which the children work on developing the skills. Instead of coaches sending controlled balls to the students for them to hit, as we’d previously experienced, the children in these classes toss the ball to one another. Young children who can barely throw the ball over the little half-​court net of flags they use, were expected to set up their partner to return the ball. For the class of 4 – 5 year-​olds, they would often take turns, having one child focused purely on throwing the ball, while the other stood with the racket to either catch the ball using the free hand and the racket or to try and return the ball. It was a mess. It seemed like they spent more time chasing the balls around after bad throws than they spent playing. We tried to be patient. We continued with lessons for 3 sessions. We told ourselves that the classes were a little bigger, so it’s probably more difficult for the coaches to line them up and toss the balls down the line like we’d seen before. Our child enjoyed the obstacle course warm ups, red light/​green light, and the other things they did that were unrelated to tennis. But, eventually, our child just grew to hate the tennis part of class, and hadn’t shown any improvement, so we walked away.
A couple years later, we decided to try again. Our child was older, still athletic., and still interested in tennis. So we registered for the «advanced beginner» class for older children. We kept our fingers crossed that it would be better than what we’d experienced last time. The thing I noticed during the first class was that the classes seemed much smaller than they used to be. The class my child was enrolled in only had 3 children. The smaller size was nice. Our child really enjoyed that session, and, whenever I stayed to watch the class, I could see improvement. So, we signed up again.
Unfortunately, a few more children joined the class that session and the classes started looking a lot like the 4 – 5 year-​old classes again. The coach was wandering around and occasionally stopping to make a correction. But, by and large, the children were struggling to maintain a rally in the tiny ¹⁄₆ stretch of the court each pair were allotted. Our child began complaining that they hadn’t worked on anything in weeks except maintaining the rallies. I heard over and over again that it was just too boring most of the time because too many people lacked the control to keep the ball moving for long. Our child spoke often of wanting to work on serving «because I’m terrible at it» or volleying «because it’s so much fun!» Those things were all glossed over though, so ultimately, I was told not to register for classes again. And I had to agree that it wasn’t worth it. We were paying nearly $ 30 for each class because we’re not members. That was fine when I could see our child getting enough attention to keep improving. But, with larger classes, all the coaches seem to offer are quick statements before moving on. I understood and agreed with everything they said to my child, but my child never seemed to understand what they were getting at until I explained it on the way home. I can’t help thinking it would have been easier for them to take an extra minute to explain and demonstrate the issues on the court. But, oh well. We’ll just focus on swimming, baseball, soccer and basketball instead from now on.

This place is definitely not cheap: $ 120 per month AND you have to pay for court time (lessons and leagues are the best deal here) about $ 20-​$ 30 per hour depending on the time and day you play.
Many booked out courts.
I am exploring other options.
I do not think it’s worth the money. I seriously tried to improve my game with coaches and lessons and league play but it seems nobody at this club really gives a damn…
I have tried other Chicago options. The problem with those is that it’s mostly outdoors.
This club is about making money and does not care about its members.
Be careful and don’t get sucked in!!!
That’s my advice.

There are so few tennis clubs in Chicago, Midtown wins by default. It is better than East Bank or Lakeshore as far as tennis goes because there are many more courts. The courts are also very well maintained. They have some new fitness equipment that is great — the workout area is smaller than the usual gym setup, but the equipment is nice, new and the few times I’ve worked out there, it wasn’t crowded at all.
They have recently added «PlaySight» which is an awesome 6-​camera video system that calculates speed, spin, percentages and a lot of other things — amazing system — I wish every club had these, esp. for matches.
If you’re looking for competitive TENNIS — it would be better to go to the ‘burbs, if you can. The other Midtown clubs are really nice and have good tennis programs and great courts — including beautiful outdoor clay courts. There are some good pros at this Midtown, but the turnover is high. Most of the staff is nice, esp the front desk. The reason for so few stars is that the adult classes and USTA team programs are absolutely horrendous here. It is the tennis equivalent of a weekly root canal.
If playing in the USTA league is your preference, it’s best to stay away from this club. Making playoffs is absolutely hopeless — because of the way the program has been run for the past couple of years. Only a couple of teams have a chance because they’ve been together since the Dead Sea was sick, so they run themselves. All other «regular» members are SOL when it comes to playing on a team.
As far as the adult drills classes or team practices — completely hopeless. The 3.5 — 4.0 level classes are half-​filled with 2.5 — 3.0 players, but they are permitted to stay –they have been at the club for so long, they are grandfathered into the class. As a result, the higher level people in the class just waste time and money going to these. Sadly, the instructor who teaches the majority of these classes is not talented enough to run the types of drills where all levels can be combined and everyone gets something out of it. And he hates women, so it’s pointless to try to use the class for good practice — plus a waste of several hundred $$$.
To address comments from the stronza re: my playing level, I am a 3.5 computer-​rated player. I was never trying to play 4.0 tennis on the team at Midtown — I only wanted to go to a practice where people could actually hit the ball back more than 3x in one point. The 4.0 practice was the only decent team practice. Coach Ashley told me to go to it — I never asked. She told me to switch. There were several people that went to the practice and were kicked out by the idiot in charge at the time. He never saw some of us play — not one stroke. That is why several of the higher 3.5’s abandoned the team — the practices are two levels below the level of the competition.
EK: maybe by the time I’ve been playing tennis for 12 years at the exact same level, I’ll be as perfect as you think you are. I now understand why people say what they do about you — you definitely live up to your reputation. You can think «numbers never lie» all you want, but word from several people (since you love hearsay so much) is that you have been carried by a much stronger partner for YEARS. And that comes straight from some of your friends.
One question I have is why someone who is so much more superior (ONLY at tennis) would spend so much time and energy talking about someone who is supposedly so much worse, who they’ve never met and who they’ve never seen play… don’t you have better things to do? Insecure much?

For tennis, this is the only option in Chicago. The pros are fantastic, the members love the sport and play hard, and the place runs like a well oiled machine. It is expensive, but it is also very well maintained. Lakeshore is a similar price point, but even with their new makeover, the place feels cheap and run down. Not so at Midtown.

I am happy to be a member of Midtown. I’ve been there for 3+ years. The facilities are great and instruction is professional. I grew up playing tennis and until Midtown had not had any formal lessons since I was a teen playing at Court One in Okemos/​Lansing, MI. After reading a few of the reviews here, I figured I’d add a few comments…
Yup, there are a lot of higher end cars in parking lot. I am able to park my older model Civic with no problems. Yup, the monthly membership fee is pricey. However, I have found that if I want to play indoor tennis in the city of Chicago, I will have to pay for it. Therefore, I maintain a budget and try not stray from it so that I can play tennis indoors a couple times a week. Beyond the cost of playing tennis at Midtown, the instruction is top notch. I’m a part of their team tennis league, I’ve attended adult instruction lessons, taken part in USTA sanctioned tournaments, and have sweated through a bunch of their cardio-​tennis classes. Never once have I walked away thinking, «What a waste!»

So, it’s been about 5 weeks since I joined and I am more in love with this place! I have had the pleasure of participating in a social event called «Drill and Match», which was an incredible opportunity to improve my tennis game under the watchful eye of a pro, and meet new people! Since attending the social, I have found a significant improvement in my game! Also, I have taken the Turbo kickboxing class with Dana and the Cycle class with Jenny. Both fitness classes were incredible. I can’t wait to go back!
Working out at Midtwon has made going back to the gym a FUN experience again! I am truly addicted!

So, let me start by saying that Midtown Tennis Club would have gotten four stars from me if the layout of MTC wasn’t so awful. There are two separate buildings on opposite sides of the street, with no safe/​designated walkway. You have to jaywalk on a very busy part of Damen to get across. No bueno.
Now, the rest of my review was based on my Tennis in No Time classes. Which were great by the way. Our instructor demystified tennis for us. Classes were small with no more than 8 in each group, and on top of that, it was a lot of fun. For real. The only issue was having to cross the street after the lesson for the break-​out sessions.
On my third lesson however, I strained my knee. I don’t know if it’s the cynic in me, but I was totally expecting a hard time in getting my refund. Credit card credited, hard time averted.

I have tried out many gyms and this has to be at the top of my list! I just wish it wasn’t so darn far away for me!
I came here with a friend who has recently rejoined to play some tennis and workout. I have recently finished some tennis classes and was looking for a partner in crime to practice my hysterical skills with. As they say everything gets better with practice and that is exactly what we intend to do! The courts are plenty full and each one is very private. After chasing the ball around for an hour we headed over across the street to the gym to work out a little more than our arms…
Immediately I was in heaven when my friend introduced me to the most amazing invention ever!!! Eucalyptus infused ice cold towels! Words can not describe the feeling when you place one of these small towels on your face after an invigorating workout. Every one of your pores open up to take in the goodness and your face tingles as it refreshes itself. As you breath in the menthol your sinuses are awoken and your recharged!
With new machines and plenty of weights the gym is well equiped for your every workout need. I also discovered and amazing new bike with a virtual bike workout that leaves your body feeling like you were really outside!
The locker rooms are clean and leave you with a private spa feel rather than a old high school gym. I love that you can treat yourself after a little healthy workout torture.
The only flaw if you could say is a flaw is the intersection from hell… quite impossible to make that left turn but once you get to the parking lot there is plenty of free parking to go around for you and your workout buddies!
The membership is a bit pricey but comparable to many other gyms/​clubs.

I was a member here for three years. Yes, it is expensive, and this year it became outrageously so. Monthly dues for an individual are $ 110. There’s a 1-​year contract. If you want to play tennis, it’s $ 25/​hour for a court or $ 40/​hour during peak times (5p-​9p). That’s if you can even find a court since they’re all booked as season courts or within a few days of the reservation book opening. Leagues are about $ 300 per 10-​week season. I tolerated the expense for years, but what finally broke the camel’s back is the utter lack of caring and customer service exhibited in the last year.
When I joined up in 2009, I was told that the club would expand and put in a swimming pool and more fitness facilities. I heard nothing further until last year when they did expand the fitness facilities… by getting rid of the practice lanes (the only tennis facility at the club included with membership). No pool, of course. As far as I know, they never asked the membership if they would rather have a Zumba/​Yoga room instead of practice lanes.
The club promised that they would set up a ball machine on a court if you wanted to practice. When I called to do that, they told me that they only offered that from 6p onwards, and that the times were all booked up for that day.
What is most telling, though, is when I finally called to cancel. I asked to speak with the membership department; I got voicemail at 3p on a weekday. Okay, I left a voicemail requesting that my membership be canceled. I never heard back from the club until 10 days later when I got a bill for June dues. This time, I emailed them about the voicemail I had left, and that I had presumed my membership was canceled because I hadn’t heard anything back.
If I were running this business, I would be concerned that a three-​year member wanted to cancel. At the very least, I’d want to know why that member was leaving so I could reflect on how I could improve the club experience.
Instead, I was simply told that if I wanted to cancel, I had to submit the cancellation in writing by the 20^th of the final month. Nobody called me to ask why I was leaving. Nobody cared to find out how the club might improve itself. Is this the level of service you want to pay so much for?
Two stars instead of one because the facilities and many of the tennis pros who work there are indeed stellar. I just refuse to pay so much money and be treated like it’s a privilege to pay for the club. Based on the court reservations, I guess they have a captive audience so they feel like they can treat their members so poorly. Good luck to them, then, and I’ll be going a little further to a facility where my money and membership is valued.

If you are seeking a place to play tennis (on a regular basis) in the city, this club fits your needs. The instructors are all excellent — knowledgeable, patient (yes, for those of us not pros), and friendly. The (newly) updated facilities are quite nice, including the sauna in both buildings.
I took down one star, only for the cost. The monthly fee is affordable, but there are court fees, class fees, etc etc. Frankly though, for the quality of courts and amenities, I will keep coming back.

When I visited Midtown, I expected to be blown away. Everything I have heard is that it’s the premier destination. I wasn’t impressed.
The place is huge — don’t get me wrong. I’m sure they have a zillion more tennis courts than many other spots, but the feel was not friendly, not comfortable. I didn’t love the locker rooms — I thought they were rather sparse for the spot and considering the cost.
The gym is small, obviously this is only for tennis, but for those who want to do more than just tennis, I think there are other spots in the city. However, if tennis is all you want, and you are ok with random court times that you can reserve (if you’re new), then this may be a good spot for you.