Wow, they still do this?
So, I’ve had the honour of spending more than a year (yes, as in 365 days) at that hotel - for five years, I spent one week out of every three in SF, and that was one of the cheapest hotels downtown.
It’s “fancy” in the sense that it’s an old, grand hotel, so the lobby is awesomely old school and the “original” hotel has that boutique charm if you want to stay there. I never did - I stayed in the “modern” (think 1970’s maybe?) tower which boasted “outdoor”, chilly elevators and beautiful views of downtown.
I think the reason it was so inexpensive to stay there most of the time is that it’s huge and has a massive number of rooms, so vacancy rates are probably pretty high most of the time.
The Oak Room there was pretty opulent feeling, if not the menu itself. The Michael Mina restaurants there (now Bourbon Steak I believe?) was excellent, but waaaaay to expensive to frequent.
I don’t think I ever paid cash there, but that’s still pretty awesome that they’ve kept up the tradition!
