Beacon Grand, A Union Square Hotel

We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a short vacation in San Francisco. Staying at the Beacon Hotel in such a central location within walking distance of great food in Chinatown, easy access to public transportation for sightseeing, and the gracious hotel staff made the experience wonderfully memorable. Doris at the reception desk and the day manager even upgraded our room and sent a bottle of wine and chocolates! I loved the fully equipped gym to start my day. My husband loved the wood floors because he hates smelly, dirty wall-to-wall carpeting. The bed, pillows, and towels were all first-rate. The lighting allowed for actual reading or dimming. The cleaning staff was always cheerful and helpful and made the gorgeous building sparkle even on a rainy day. We appreciate the Beacon Hotel's sustainable practices. There were no plastic cups or plastic bags. Instead, we had refillable water bottles by the bedside that we took on our city walks, paper cups for our coffee, and reusable glasses in the bathroom. We will definitely return.

Nice lobby, easy access to elevators to avoid taking luggage upstairs, very clean restrooms in lobby, refill for water bottles, just one block from Union Square

Water leaked from the shower to under the sink, water bottles had some dust on the lid the night we arrived. After the second day of stay, we left bed sheets on the floor but we put a little mark with a pen to check if sheets were effectively changed. When we returned from our city tour, the room was “clean” but the sheets on the bed had the same little mark, which means they WERE NOT CHANGED!

The renovated hotel is gorgeous with a fantastic location. I would also like to send a big thank you to Stuart who assisted with our reservation. When I mentioned in our Booking.com booking that we were celebrating our anniversary Stuart responded that he was booking a special room for us, and boy did he ever. A free upgrade on a high floor with an incredible view! And a few other little perks. We were touched and bowled over. Will definitely stay at the Beacon Grand from now on whenever in San Francisco.

Great location, very centric so it was easy to get to get to all the important places. Beautiful historical building right next to Union Square and close to Chinatown. Very friendly staff and comfortable and clean rooms.

The food options at the hotel were scarce and quite expensive. There was no hairdryer in the room. The shower had a weird whole on the shower door that made water splash out and flood the bathroom floor.

Very thoughtful update of the grand old building, skillfully mixing old and new. Rooms are on the smaller side (historic!), but very ergonomic and comfortable. Great service too.

Valet parking is incredibly expensive. I wish there were some other options to deal with the car: a cheaper self-park option, even if it's a couple of blocks away, or even info on public parking options in the area. The rest was great!

very nice interior decoration with coffee machine and hairdryer.

cost of the room was expensive especially with no breakfast.

I really love how modern and updated this hotel is. My room felt clean, sleek, and modern. The bed was incredibly comfortable, and the view was even more incredible. I also really love the location of this hotel. You could catch the cable car right from the door of the main entrance, you could walk down to Union Square, or walk over to Chinatown and get some really good food. 

I don’t have any complaints about this property, other than I wish parking was a bit cheaper, I was hoping there would be a microwave in the room, and I really didn’t like the layout of the shower. I didn’t have a full door, or any door rather. And then there was glass covering only the front half of the shower with a giant hole on the side of it, so water just went everywhere when you took a shower, so it didn’t really allow for any privacy.

All of the staff I interacted with were super friendly and went above and beyond in customer service. A lady working on the bar was very chatty and wrote down a few places of interest that she thought we'd like so I thought that was very kind of her. My friends case bust as she was closing it to head to the airport so the staff were great at helping with that too, a lovely engineer helped duct tape the case (which made it back to Scotland in one piece!). We thought the location was very good, we wanted to walk a lot so it was convenient for that but we also found it convenient for when we wanted to take public transport. It's right on the Powell Street cable car line. We could take a gentle walk to Lombard Street and Fisherman's Warf within 30mins. The hotel was very clean and the room seemed quite newly refurbished.

The bathroom was lovely and very clean and an adequate size, but I found that the shower head didn't concentrate the water in one direction very well - maybe because I'm shorter it wasn't as effective. So it meant that the water overshot the glass guard and the floor did take quite a soaking. I had to use more towels to absorb the water. For me the room was a satisfactory size but there wasn't a lot of space for two large suitcases to be opened on the floor at the same time.

Great central location in 'Nob Hill', just up from Union Square. Very attractive historic building which has retained many of its older features. We didnt really get to use any facilities as we had to check out at 3am first night to catch a 6am flight. Staff were very helpful and organised a taxi for us at 3am as we didn't want to run the risk of being let down a that time in the morning! Rooms were very pretty and comfortable, although we didn't spend a lot of time in them.

Nothing really. We decided to travel from the airport by Bart with 5 of us with hand and hold luggage which was just about OK. It was a bit of a schlep from the Powell Street station up Powell Street to the hotel, just about do-able!

The staff were all amazing and very helpful, which is extremely helpful as my wife is disabled, so we had a lot to coordinate. The history and look of the hotel really adds to the vibe and makes you feel like your stay is an event in itself.

The bathroom was very disabled-friendly but the grabrails were very smooth and would have benefited from knurling on them to make them safer for my wife to hold on to (especially when wet). The floor tiles were also too smooth and felt dangerous when wet. The hotel is quite pricy, but you get what you pay for I guess.