Saturday's Passage of the Week

In my upcoming book, Service IS The Business (working title) I share a behind-the-desk perspective of what it is like to work at a real San Francisco hotel concierge desk. Enjoy this brief segment.

The hotel was in an area between old-money Nob Hill, the fashionable Union Square shopping district, and the less desirable neighborhood called the Tenderloin. The latter was San Francisco’s version of Skid Row, but in pre-pandemic times it was a popular destination for tech workers who liked the gritty urban experience.

The reservation manager, however, preferred to omit the hotel’s close proximity to the Tenderloin. He preferred that the sales manager tell prospective guests that the Franklyn was in “Lower Nob Hill,” or was “Union Square adjacent.”

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I thought it was a great part of the city. Sure, it had substance abusers, as well as women and men who worked in the oldest profession down the block, but it also had a quirky charm with little coffee shops and small businesses which had been there for decades. It was only a ten-minute walk to Union Square and fifteen minutes to Chinatown, so the hotel was indeed very centrally located.

Around the corner was a bar called the Motherlode. I knew it was popular because when I had to start a 7:00 am shift and would walk by the bar on my way to work, I would find it packed with patrons.

Later I learned that it was a world-renowned transvestite bar, so much so that the Franklyn occasionally welcomed guests who were in San Francisco primarily to visit the Motherlode, and booked their rooms there because it was so close. This transvestite icon has since changed names and moved around the corner, but it still draws people from all over the world.

Next door to the hotel was a retreat for Eastern Orthodox monks, and they had a café in their lobby (run by the monks) which made great food. Their breakfasts and sandwiches were huge, but I loved their chocolate chip cookies. The popular San Francisco writer Herb Gold wrote about the retreat and café in his book, Travels in San Francisco, and even made a reference to the Franklyn as the “hotel next door.”

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