Kimpton Hotel Enso — Hotel in San Francisco

Stayed here for one night in town, under the impression it’s in a descent neighborhood and rooms appeared to be relatively updated in pictures online . Hotel does not have doorman to help with door, and it’s about 10 steps down from ground, so if you arrive through the front entrance, you’d have to carry your suitcases down. I’m sure I can enter through the garage entrance if I drove, but I didn’t during my short trip to SF this time. ||Anyway, the staff was quick to check me in, and I was in my room in no time. I was placed in a room at the end of the hallway on level 4. Room was in descent condition, clean, but you can tell it was refurbished, ceilings were low and feels a bit cramped. Definitely feels more like a holiday inn level hotel, rather than advertised as a luxury hotel. The bedside lamps were flickering, sign of poor maintenance. There was no stand to put my luggage either. There were no slippers available when I forgot them and the front desk told me they were out of it. There’s no coffee machine in the room, it’s only available in the lobby and they serve that in the morning. These are just some minute things. ||Here’s the real issue, while I was in the shower, I heard a loud thump outside and I thought my suitcase had fallen onto the ground, but that was not the case, I realized the loud noise came from the hallway when I came out of the shower. And then the loud thumping kept me awake throughout the night along with door slamming, actual “slamming”, the floor even shakes a bit because it’s a typical refurbished old building in SF that’s nearly 100 years old. Needless to say I didn’t get a good night sleep and woke up at 6am. If you’re someone that needs a dark room to sleep in, the room is not completely dark even with curtains closed and all lights out because lights come through from the ventilation in the hallway. I heard people chatting in the hallway and thought it was my neighbors checking in and out. I purposely walked down the hallway to see what was causing the door slamming and throttling sound throughout the night and realize there’s an office for the staff, they must be in and out of that office the entire night, not being sensitive to the people that stay there that the door can actually cause such a loud noise. ||When I checked out and reported the sound to the front desk, they acted as if it was nothing and didn’t do anything about it. Definitely will not stay here again if I’m in town. The Jay, autograph collection in the Embarcadero is so much better with newer and more...

Not Kimpton Level Quality. This is a nice Holiday Inn, but not worth the Kimpton price. Stayed for 5 nights.| CONS: |Homeless guy sitting in the corner sleeping at the long table in the nook of the lobby! |Flies swarming outside front doors day and night; and flies in the lobby when they prop open the front door! |Stairs going down to enter hotel; very inconvenient with luggage; |Everyone pays for parking in price of room, even if you don't have a car; |No coffee nor microwave in room; Coffee only in lobby only from 6-10am and it was already COLD at 6:45am; |False Advertising: I measured the "Queen bed". It's NOT a Queen, it's a FULL sized mattress (smaller) bed! |Why did the guy checking in the 4 of us ask if I wanted a free upgrade from 2 Queens to ONE King?!?! I assumed he said 2 Kings, but nope, he checked the 4 of us into a room with only 1 KING bed and explained their rooms are not big enough for 2 Kings. Wow! |LOUD ANNOYING keyboard player/singer in small lobby Saturday night; guy checking us in had to shout over the "music"; |No dresser; |Dirty, dusty carpet along the walls; |Ice only on 3rd & 7th floors; |Fitness Center is useless for weight lifting: hand weights up to only 25lbs and no Universal weights machine. 4 cardio machines not necessary because you automatically get your cardio walking anywhere in the city; |No breakfast & their on-site restaurant went out of business; |They ignored the loud car alarm in their garage for at least 10 minutes. Listen to audio file from lobby attached. |PROS: Excellent...

This is a subjective rating of a hotel. For most, the Enso might not be a five star accommodation. However, in San Francisco, I don’t want to be anywhere near Union Square. It is a tourist, homeless, street people enclave that shatters all my sensibilities and makes me hate everything about this current United States. That limits my choices exponentially.

The Kimpton Enso sits in Japantown, steps from the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights. While Japantown can be one dimensional and the Fillmore too cute and taken with itself, I’ll take this area over Union Square in a blink of a hand out or the clang of a trolley. Good to great restaurants abound and I feel safe everywhere I go.

While prices at the Enso are San Francisco high, they are not ridiculous. Rooms and hallways might need a refurbishment, but they are clean enough. Certainly, the rooms and bathrooms are spacious, towels are thick, and most of the time the heating and cooling work well. We were in SF during a heat wave, and one room on the 7th floor had great AC. Our second, smaller room on the 4th floor had weak AC. That’s the Enso. What makes this hotel special is the staff. They bend over backwards to help. Sabah at the front desk was wonderful to us, and I appreciated it.

The Enso will not remind you of 99% of the other Kimptons. It isn’t trendy, hip, or cool. The only thing it might have in common is the Enso also has nightly free wine and it accepts pets. Yet, we were able to relax at the Enso. That’s worth a lot in...