Do I have to book the Oligarch Suite if I want bills handled? It could take ages to get my completely legitimate business associate’s transparently and lawfully acquired funds in suitable condition for definitely-my-wife-and-not-an-underage-escort-even-slightly’s gloves if coins are the only option…
Wow, they’re cheap aren’t they?
Energy? It is done by hand by a single guy for decades.
And I think you’re seriously overestimating the amount of water required to clean a couple hundred dollars in coins every week.
Uh. The St. Francis isn’t the Ritz Carlton. For SF, the rooms are pretty affordable.
And they use the change in the hotel bar.
Plus it isn’t just coins. St. Francis also gives brand new crisp bills for change that they order from Wells Fargo.
1 Like
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!
1 Like
As a management consultant, I recommend:
- throwing all pennies away
- firing the penny washing guy
This will save the organization thousands of dollars a year.
I gotta wonder. Who is paying cash for hotels these days? Especially this particular one.
Exactly! given the SF standard price of $200/night or so, who’s paying cash for that?
Here’s my coin-washing story:
I’ve always made a point of stopping to pick up any coins I see on the street—even pennies, because it all adds up, right? I like to set them all aside, separate from my regular pocket change, and watch them add up. Some of the coins are pretty dirty, especially the ones that have been kicking around in the road.
At some point I had about $90 worth of found coins and decided to wash them all. But soaking them in a pan of dish soap and water didn’t get the oily street-gunk off them. For some reason I thought that using vinegar might help—I mean, I use it to clean things around the house all the time, right? So I put vinegar in the pan with all the coins and let it sit for a while…
You guessed it: I wound up with a whole bunch of very-blotchily copper-plated non-penny coins 
I don’t see as much change lying around where i currently live, but when i lived in Reno and was near the university i’d find loads of discarded pennies and other coins. I was pretty broke at the time so i was always getting all the change i saw. Think i managed to get something like $20 in pennies in a short amount of time, took me a while to get rid of them 
1 Like
There isn’t as much change lying around here anymore, now that people don’t carry cash much, and the parking meters have been replaced with machines that take plastic cards.
I suspect this is generally the case for most people. When i didn’t have car (just bought one recently) i’d sometimes have people ask me for money and i just shrug and tell them i never carry cash. Makes it convenient because i don’t have to worry over taking my wallet out in front of some stranger, but even if i wanted to help them out i couldn’t.
it has history
Oh, I know. 
in fact, on weekends there’s still a historian there who’ll talk your ear off if you let him.
But as a modern hotel, it’s just a really pretty Westin hotel with some cramped “boutique” or high 70’s/80’s era tower rooms, at a reasonable (for downtown SF!) price.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
