The Palo Alto Hotel in San Francisco, CA: A Review

The Palo Alto Hotel is a reasonably priced residential hotel, in the Nob Hill neighborhood near the foot of Russian Hill. The rooms have no extra amenities such as a refrigerator, microwave or even a television, but they are clean, well-kept and fairly large for the price being asked.

Perhaps the biggest asset the place has is live-in manager Tony, who is communicative and considerate beyond anything I've ever seen in a residential hotel before. Usually the managers and desk workers at these places want as little to do with you as possible and want to get away with providing as little service as possible. Tony does keep limited office hours but he makes sure all problems are taken care of, that you have clean linen and towels whenever you need them, and that the place stays clean and drama-free.

The location is also great. It's just off of Polk Street on Sacramento, with a lot of different types of restaurants within easy walking distance. There's also a Walgreens literally right around the corner and three grocery stores within a short walk - Cala, Whole Foods and a neighborhood grocery called Big Apple. Two cable car lines are within walking distance, but if you don't want to go touristy, the 19 and 1 bus lines are right nearby and the 38 Geary is just a few blocks away.

I would have liked a fridge and TV, but this is one of the more expensive neighborhoods to try to rent a room in in San Francisco, and any other place with such amenities would cost a good $75 extra a week at minimum. The rooms are on the larger side as far as residential hotels go, as well, so that was a nice little bonus. Not having to put up with sleazy management and druggie neighbors was also a nice bonus. Most of the residents seemed to be long-term tenants and were a pretty cool bunch. Mostly older folks, no dealers, no crackheads, no partiers, no problem-causers. Well screened and respectful of shared space.

Only issues I had were a minor cockroach attack, they seem to like living near the sink and feeding off of the garbage can, but even bringing the trash out twice a day didn't keep them from putting in a sink appearance here and there. They stayed away from the rest of the room, however, and after the pest control guys came and sprayed, I hardly noticed them anymore except first thing in the morning once in a while. The other thing was that the walls were pretty thin. My neighbors were pretty cool about keeping the noise down after hours, but don't plan on having a whole lot of privacy. If you can deal with that, though, this is by far the best option for around $200 a week that I've seen in this part of town.