Daniel B.
Yelp
We had a good stay at the Axiom Hotel in San Francisco. It wasn't perfect, but it had its perks, fulfilled all of our needs for this trip, and it's in a terrific location. I recommend this hotel and would stay here again. We were very satisfied.
My wife was in town for a conference at the nearby Moscone Center and got a group rate of $345 per night plus taxes for a "Mono Queen" room. Those taxes were Transient Occupancy Tax (14.00%), Tourist Improvement District Tax (1.00%), Moscone Expansion District Tax (1.25%), and Visit California Assessment Tax (0.20%). The $345 nightly rate was slightly better than similarly-priced nearby hotels such as the Marriott Marquis, Hyatt Regency, W, and Canopy by Hilton. It was a good compromise between convenience and price.
The Axiom Hotel is a boutique hotel that opened in February 2016, replacing the Powell Hotel. It's part of Host Hotels & Resorts. The building is old, built in 1908. The hotel has an eye-appealing, classic-modern design which still looks great today. It's six stories with 152 rooms. We stayed in Room 502.
There are two low-key, understated entrances: (1) Cyril Magnin Street which is accessible by car and (2) Powell Street which is accessible by foot only. Valet is available at the Cyril Magnin entrance. A cable car turntable is right next to the Powell Street entrance.
According to the hotel manager, this hotel was ranked the #4 top hotel in San Francisco in Conde Nast Traveler's Readers' Choice Awards 2022. I looked up the same awards for 2023 and unfortunately, Axiom did not make the list (top 12).
I'll break this review into pros and cons.
Pros:
1. Prime location.
The hotel is located on the border of Union Square and SoMa (South of Market) at the corner of Powell and Market Streets. This is a central downtown San Francisco location that's within a short walking distance to a lot of stuff. It's also very accessible by car, cable car, train, and bus. It's adjacent to the Powell Street BART and SF Muni stations.
To get here, I took BART from the SFO airport to Powell Station. The ride was only $10.00 and took 30 minutes. Solid.
2. Robot room service.
This hotel has a robot that will deliver food and drink to your room from the cafe downstairs and food delivery services like Uber Eats. It worked well for us, for the most part. We used it four times during our stay. You can hear the robot coming down the hallway because of its beeps and bloops, like R2-D2. It knows how to use the elevators and get out of people's way. Sometimes, we knew the robot was coming because we heard people giggling. Everyone seemed to get a kick out of it.
One time, the robot lid wouldn't open so I couldn't get my delivery. I called the front desk and they fixed it. After delivery, the robot will ask how your experience is. If you give it five stars, it does a little happy dance.
Video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzRq_VEv32X/
3. Comfortable room and bed.
We slept well.
4. Check-in time: 3pm. Check-out time: 12pm.
I consider 12pm a relatively late check-out time. We were able to ask for an even later check-out time of 1pm.
5. Good service.
Shout-out to Gem.
6. Nice lounge with decent Wi-Fi.
The lounge is located on the mezzanine level (one level above street level). It's spacious with multiple seating areas, lots of big screen TVs, and places for you to plug in your devices. The guest Wi-Fi speed in the lounge (and our room, for that matter) was usable.
7. Aesthetically-pleasing design.
From the library that doubles as reception to our individual room, the hotel has an artistic, contemporary interior design with nods to the history of SF. I liked the sleek design of our bedroom and bathroom.
8. High-quality water and ice.
They had Follett ice and Brita water machines on every room floor. On our floor (5), the machines were close to our room and fit our large water bottles nicely. The ice was also the good "Chewblet" ice, kind of like pellet ice, with excellent, soft texture.
Cons:
1. Sticky chair.
The desk chair in our room had a sticky substance on it. I ended up putting a towel over the chair so we wouldn't have to touch the sticky stuff.
2. Dirty window.
We had a good view of the cable car line and turntable. Unfortunately, the window was very dirty from the outside.
3. Small room.
Our Mono Queen room was quite cozy and snug. It was certainly smaller than the average American hotel room. It reminded me of a Tokyo hotel room. Ultimately, my wife and I had enough space. We're just used to having more.
4. The TV stopped working.
Our TV stopped working less than 24 hours into our stay. It wasn't a big deal since we weren't focused on it, but I typically like to have it on in the background. The hotel knew it was an issue, but it never got fixed for the rest of our stay.
5. Outside noise.
This didn't bother us, but should be noted. This is a busy area. Music and people speaking on megaphones outside could be heard from inside our room.