The Cable Car Court in San Francisco, CA: A Hotel Review

I've been through a lot of San Francisco's residential hotels, and they run the gamut from nasty crackhead flophouses to rather posh little studios. The Cable Car Court is very much toward the "posh little studio" end. You get charged for the privilege, but not nearly as much as some of the other high-end weekly hotels (and still significantly less than you'd pay for a week at Motel 6.) With private bathrooms and kitchenettes in most of the rooms, this has become one of my favorite weekly-rent hotels in the city.

You enter through a basic but comfortable lobby, with which you'll become quite familiar if you have a laptop, as it's the only place in the hotel where you can use WiFi. Apparently the building is governed by San Francisco's historical preservation society and subject to their rules and regulations, since it was the original building where cable cars were built back in the old days. So it's apparently either too pricey or impossible for them to run WiFi repeaters throughout the floors. Anyway, the connection in the lobby is free and strong, and even when the place was full to capacity it wasn't hard to get a seat and a power outlet down there. Plus you're in WiFi cafe central in San Francisco, there's four or five within three blocks over on Polk Street alone.

The one thing to watch out for here is that during the May to October tourist season, the prices go up and they are almost constantly booked up. During the off season, it's much easier to get a room and the prices are more reasonable, ranging from about $250/wk for the smallest rooms to $350 for the largest. Expect the room prices to go up around $40-50 per week during the summer season.

The rooms are some of the best around for a residential hotel in the city, however. Nothing fancy, but clean and comfortable, and the four main floors all have a private bathroom and a kitchenette with electric range, good sized mini-fridge, fume hood and microwave. There's apparently four or five rooms in the basement that share a bathroom and shower which go for a lower rate, but you'll have to call to see if they're available and what the current rate is - I don't think you can book those ones online. All rooms also have a 13" TV with a basic cable package, and maid service is once a week. There's also two laundry rooms on-site with lower rates than the local laundromats.

The place is apparently owned by the Mosser group - they have another very decent SRO over in North Beach, the North Beach Hotel, and a pretty good discount "regular" hotel downtown near Market and 4th. I've found this company to be pretty good about maintaining their properties, offering fair pricing and generally not being slumlords. There's two main guys who work the desk at this place - Freddy is the hotel's manager and works the desk during the day, Bill is the nighttime guy and also a sort of resident manager/emergency maintenance coordinator. Both real cool, accommodating, easy to get along with and helpful. Every once in a blue moon they pull someone from one of the other Mosser hotels to cover the desk, everyone I've ever met at these places working the desks has been pretty cool. So rude staff isn't a worry, as long as you aren't up to some tweaker shenanigans.

Oh, good location too. There's a Cala 24 hour supermarket literally right next door, though that's apparently going to close down in December of 2010 ... maybe they'll get a 24 hour Safeway in to replace it. There's a neighborhood grocery called Big Apple nearby that's also pretty good, it should take care of your basic needs if/when Cala dies out. Polk and Larkin both have a wide variety of food nearby, both hoity-toity and street cheap. There's two Walgreens within two blocks, the aforementioned slew of internet cafes, pretty much everything you need short of a shoe store is within easy walking distance.

Apparently the place is huge with European vacationers and kids going to the nearby art school, explaining the summer hecticness. I don't think I'd bother trying to book at their tourist season rates, but during the off-season if I need a weekly place in San Francisco this is now one of my first choices.