San Francisco Proper Hotel, a Member of Design Hotels

I lived in SF for 12 years and am horrified that they put a hotel here. This is hands down the worst neighborhood in the city, maybe country. SF has so much beauty and this represents it so poorly. At night it feels like they just give up. So much riff raff right outside the front door at 10pm. When I call downstairs to ask a question, no one answers and I have to keep calling. Finally someone answers and they seem aggrieved. Rooms are very small but clean and serviceable. Seemed very quiet on a Friday night but maybe occupancy was low? I didn’t eat any food here but was disappointed they wouldn’t take my room service order the night before, meaning I didn’t have time in the morning to order and eat it. Won’t stay here again despite loving the brand elsewhere.

I originally wrote this review on May 4, 2024, but I only recently learned that the $36 per night mandatory "destination amenity fee" is actually taxed bringing the total to over $44. To correct this error, I deleted my original review and revised it. In my opinion, this fee is excessive and repugnant. The rest of my review still applies. Charming, tastefully decorated, comfortable, clean hotel with excellent staff. The only negative is the $44 per night mandatory "destination amenity fee" which is charged whether or not these amenities are available or delivered. When I questioned the hotel about the unavailability of the "local ride amenity" and the fact the some of the amenities (like free WiFi) overlap with Bonvoy Elite benefits, the hotel replied, "Regrettably, the destination fee is a mandatory aspect of our policy. While we operate independently under the Design Hotels umbrella, we are proud participants in the Marriott Bonvoy program, offering limited benefits to Marriott Elite members." While I would stay here again, i would first look at comparable hotels that do not add mandatory nightly amenity fees. This is just my personal preference.

Overall, the SF Proper is a hotel with incredible service and amenities in a not so ideal location. The good: - great room service - great shower - complementary bottled still water - a lovely rooftop restaurant - shuttle service to any place within 5 miles The bad: - plenty of homelessness around the hotel - slightly thin noise protection in the rooms 4.3/5 stars

The location is horrific! When we arrived

This hotel is beautiful. It is well designed and high quality. It also has wonderful staff. Really friendly nice people. The rooms are great (hardwood floors, Aesop products, etc). A bit on the smaller side but that goes with a big city hotel. The only drawback is the restaurant, which is crazy expensive. $30 for a smoothie is a bit much particularly when the smoothie is only about 8 oz. I’d definitely stay here again. Even though the area outside the hotel (on Market St) feels like a war zone.

The hotel was excellent. Boutique with lots of amenities, great staff, great location. Rooftop bar, coffee in the AM, and very clean environment.

This hotel is gorgeous - it's super well decorated, the rooms are comfortable, and the lobby has tons of cute vignettes. I have to really hand it to Kelly Wearstler and the team at Restoration Hardware, this is a beautiful property. But with that caliber of a hard product, I expect a modicum of service, and I got worse service than I do at the average Courtyard. The front desk repeatedly ignored guests waiting for service, or was just unstaffed for 10-15 minutes at a time. When I checked in there was someone in line in front of me, and the front desk staff person was on the phone for about 10 minutes, and they didn't even acknowledge that there were two of us waiting - not even a "just a moment" wave or index finger, they were practically ducked under the desk, phone in hand, to avoid us hearing the conversation, which seemed to be with an especially unhappy guest. A friend was staying with me and arrived a day later than I - upon arrival, he came in to the lobby with luggage, wandered around for a bit, and finally sat down after no staff commented on his presence or ask if he might like to check in. I stayed here in June as well, and the check in experience also felt weird, the desk is unmarked and sleek, but it actually took me a few minutes of wandering the lobby (also with no greeting from staff) to figure out that that was in fact the registration desk. Even the actual mechanical process of check-in felt foreign - they have a "fancy" iPad based PMS, which while sleek, felt weird as someone who checks into a hotel 2-3 times a month with an otherwise consistent check-in experience. They seem to have consistently chosen "sleek" over practical in a lot of ways here. Even mid-stay needs like reservations and requesting late checkout felt like pulling teeth, if there was even anyone at the desk to help us. The Valet Staff, who are contractors, have been consistently good, and the saving grace for the property is the F&B program - Charmaine's is a gorgeous bar, with really nice cocktails, and the lobby restaurant Villon has a very solid breakfast - the "Proper Breakfast is a really excellent choice. A special shout out to Jay at the bar who went out of his way to ensure my Room Service order was perfect, and who made me an excellent cocktail for delivery, and another shout out to the new manager at Villon, who had just moved from Austin, who went out of his way to connect with us at the restaurant and cheerfully help us adjust some reservations that the front desk had made for us. A note - this is not at all the hotel's fault, but the hotel is in a pretty rough area, and at night there is a tremendously large unhoused population who host a "night market" directly in front of the hotel. It's quite lively, and not the kind of place most hotel guests would want to do their holiday shopping, so a word of caution, especially to solo travelers, you may want to limit your comings and goings at night. To be sure, in my two stays, I never felt perso

The hotel itself was nice, rooms and communal areas were clean & well decorated. The TV in our room didn't work and although we reported 4 or 5 times to different people (I don't think we saw the same person twice on reception during our stay), no one came to look at it, no one updated us on what was happening & it wasn't fixed. Eventually we were offered a refund of our destination amenity fee, the goodwill gesture was appreciated but a working TV would have been nice. The destination amenity fee seems quite steep and covers things like wifi & the gym which I would expect to be included in the room rate, it also apparently included a complimentary glass of bubbles on arrival but this wasn't offered to us. The main issue with the hotel is it's location. The surrounding area has a lot of homeless and the streets were filthy and smelly and really unpleasant to walk around. As a family we enjoy being able to explore on foot & walk from the hotel but this really wasn't an option, we ended up getting Ubers most of the time.