Jaime F.
Yelp
I will preface this by saying that the stay at this hotel was, like, fine. There was nothing INNATELY wrong and I don't inherently find the need to FIND things wrong, or complain in general. This, in and of itself, is not even a "complaint" necessarily. More of an... observation.
The Citizen M we stayed at has a killer location in the heart of SF. Driverless cars abound. There's a door man, but it seems more for show. I am unsure what this man gets paid to sit there and press a button as you walk towards him, but I hope it's a lot. Good for him. You walk into an elevator that brings you to the third floor where upon arrival you'll be greeted by the most San Francisco up-beat, "I definitely am active on LinkedIn," tech bro but loves tattoos, proud extrovert who is like, "hey guys, welcome, we love that you're here, we're all self check-in but I am here to guide you through that process."
There is a terminal in the center with computers, ipads, keypads, etc. not dissimilar to how you check yourself in at an airport. But with the added bonus of Upbeat Super Congenial Tech Bro watching you and telling you what you do. "great guys, that's great, now go ahead and press 'next' for me and then you're going to see the screen for the... *someone else walks in*... hey guys, welcome, we love that you're here, we're all self check-in here but I'm gonna be here to guide you through the..." My boyfriend continues to go through the check-in process unassisted, as we are both elder millennials who are familiar with things like "computers" and "touch screen," placing the key cards on a pad to activate, yada yada, until BAM! we have officially checked ourselves in. Fine, but begs the question for me: is this ACTUALLY more efficient than just someone checking you in? We are now employees of this establishment, we could have checked in the new customers, had they asked. I am unsure if someone WATCHING you do this is better than just, like, having THEM do it? Either way, we chose a room on the 12th floor for the views.
The lobby is cool, in a sense that it has a bar by the check-in kiosks, a sort of lounge of couches with ports for your MacBook, an area that definitely photographs well but in person is nothing that compelling. The aesthetic of the entire place felt to me like something that is deliberately placed for cool photos online, and not necessarily genuinely charming or impressive. But alas, I am a hater.
The lobby by the elevators, and the walls when you travel to your room are lined with this black and white wallpaper of... "real people" I guess was the branding idea. A collage of a hundred people staring at you, smiling, WE ARE YOU, YOU ARE US. I found it unnerving. Why are they looking at us?
The room itself was super tiny, a long vertical space that made me think they converted something that should have been 50 rooms into 100, by packing people in like sardines but making it "so chill and hip" with LED lights and a mostly see-through shower/toiler area in the center that does not, in any capacity, lend itself to privacy. These rooms are 100% designed for a single Tech Bro hoping to bring a Thai food restaurant hostess back to the room. There's an all- white king sized bed pushed up against the wall of a window with blinds controlled by an ipad, and an eccentric stuffed doll looking at you as you come in. "Everything in the room is controlled by an ipad" they said, and boy was it. Here are things NOT in the room: a coffee machine, a refrigerator that works, good water pressure, a place to put your luggage and clothes, an ironing board (though there was barren, empty room nearby with a single quirky-printed ironing board), ice, a normal phone, storage of any kind (other than a safe you pull out for under the bed obviously for your cocaine).
The rooms are "sexy" maybe, but not at all practical. But maybe we're just really old and don't get it. The next morning, the boyfriend had to go downstairs for coffee and pay $3 a cup. At night after dinner, we couldn't get the TV to "cast" to my phone (even though we both work in tech fields and did everything right; from resetting connections, clearing cache, updating software, etc. still nothing and the QR code brought me somewhere with spammy ads). We ended up giving up on it, rather than calling down to Upbeat Super Congenial Tech Bro who likely would have told us to do everything we already did.
The view was really pretty though, and the window sill was big enough to sit and look out at the city. There were two plastic cups that we were able to use for shots of vodka, and we had a lot of fun naming the weird stuffed doll ("Fatima," "Fatty" for short). The experience wasn't "bad" at all, it was just... eye rolley. It's easy to picture the executive coming up with this concept "AND THERE WILL BE PEOPLE ON THE WALLS, AND EVERYTHING IS DIGITAL, AND THE SHOWERS WILL BE SEE-THOUGH." Would we go back? No. Should you go? Yes, it's funny.