We, myself and the team travelled to San Francisco for Tech Crunch to pitch VC investors Poopsnoop. We all stayed close to the conference Center, Moscone, close to Union Square and could see the extremely grand and palatial Westin St Francis from our bedroom window.
It's a massive, magnificent building and when we were looking for somewhere to enjoy a cocktail or two, smart and swanky we decided this was the place to find an incredible mixologist to conjour up extra dirty Martinis and enjoy a couple of hours in an amazing cocktail bar, how the other half live. Although the most basic room rate is published at $212 per night with all applicable taxes the total per night to stay at the Westin St Francis, works out at around $350 per night in the cheapest room, one queen bed.
While staying in San Francisco we discovered from a local 69% of Silicon Valley has shrunk away and possibly this has had an impact on the grander than grand hotels too. When we tried to alight the steps at the main front facing entrance on Union Square, the door was surprisingly locked with a sign directing us to a side entrance on Geary where the valet parking was.
Not a problem we walked around the side and went into the hotel by what might be described as the stage door, navigating a dark corridor before we found ourselves in a grand lobby, except there were very few staff around to guide us through the vast place. The building was imposing and impressive but the hotel felt vacuous and empty, not warm, luxourious, expensive and welcoming as we'd expected.
it was about 3.00pm and we made our way to the bar off the main expansive lobby to be met by a security guard and a black roped cord denying access. The bar didn't open until 5.30pm so no daytime martinis for us.
We were guided back to a Starbucks type establishment off the main lobby, with chilled wine and cider available from chiller cabinets and a less than pleasant barista behind the counter demanding we hurry up and make our selection.
The cakes looked nice, but it wasn't the experience we'd envisioned when imagining glamour and luxury from the outside. We settled on a pressed juice, a Pepsi and two packets of crisps, when we paid the $35 dollars with the iPhone, the prompt came up on the screen how much of a tip we'd like to leave, we took one look at each other, for doing nothing, the answer was an immediate, SKIP.
We sat down at a rickety coffee stained table and ate our crisps in silence. We didn't even crack the Pepsi and pour it into the plastic cup we'd had to move heaven and earth to get with ice begrudging given with a toss of the head.
We didn't find another cocktail bar, the type I'd experienced in the past in the Redwood Bar at The Clift Hotel or at Bix on Gold Street in days gone by.
I am sure this type of place still exists in San Francisco where the jazz is mellow and muted and the cocktails come in oversized glasses out of James Bond shakers but it wasn't at The Westin St Francis, far from it. As well as the Tech Crunch Expo there was a massive global medical conference happening so perhaps it's the hard working business travellers who are keeping places like this, cold and I inviting afloat.