SF Hotel Stories
Peter Nasatir
Hospitality Industry Veteran / Writer
I was born in Los Angeles, and found two loves as a child: traveling and movies. My parents were educators, had summers off, and would take us on cross-country camping trips. Growing up in the movie capital of the world gave me access to resources and youth film programs not found in many other places. But I also loved (and still love) traveling and meeting people from different cultures. And to that end, I left home at 17, right after high school. Over the next 13 months, my travels took me everywhere from the Red Sea to the Arctic Circle. Among my adventures overseas, I hitchhiked through Turkey, lived on a Kibbutz in Israel, and did not return until I was 19 years old
In that adventure, although I did not know it, was the nascent understanding of hospitality and its impact on a traveler. It was while traveling overseas where I was introduced to different forms of it: pensions, B&Bs, hotels, and especially youth hostels. Upon my return I pursued my love of the cinematic arts and entered the film program at San Francisco State University. I was truly working my way through college, as I had no loans or grants, so the cost of college was entirely upon my shoulders. I stumbled into the hospitality profession at the most entry level: the grave yard-shift bellman at a large hotel. I graduated with a BA in Film Production and worked in the business on mostly commercials as a location manager/scout. But in between jobs, I supplemented my income by working on-call for a number of hotels.
I vacillated between film jobs and hotel jobs until I had two epiphanies. The first was, with few exceptions, you can only really work your way to the middle in the film industry around the San Francisco Bay Area. It is difficult to work steadily in the business. The second was I found an aptitude, and later a calling, for working in hotels. In the last two decades, I have worked in many aspects of hospitality: B&Bs, small hotels, large grand hotels, and high-end private residences like the Millennium Tower. I have also worked in a variety of positions: bellman, doorman, front desk, valet, concierge, and eventually chief concierge for 15 years at an upscale boutique hotel in San Francisco's Union Square District. And it was from the concierge desk, I was an eyewitness to human nature, world events, and learned the value of trusted caretaker saying, "May I help you.”