Layne Hotel, San Francisco

Feels like home. Excellent location - right in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Randy Patel - manager/owner - and his family are very friendly. Clean rooms; with fridge, microwave, tv with a lot of channels, wireless internet, phone. You won't find a better value in the area.

It all depends on what you want from a hotel. We need two beds, a fridge and a microwave. The Layne provides that. It ain't an upscale and fancy place, but it's clean, and Randy Patel, his wife and mother are wonderful hosts, and the place has charm with it's old elevator. If you like to walk around SF, this is simply the best location from which to start. It's walking distance from almost anywhere you want to go, and public transportation is easy, too. The neighborhood is the edge of the Tenderloin, and there is a wide variety of street folks, but the area is well police patrolled, and we never saw any unpleasant instances. We had a front street room, so there is a bit of noise, but you'll find city noise wherever you stay in SF and regarless of the price. We use ear plugs and slept easily in good beds. Believe me, I shopped around at all the hotels in the area, and found the Layne to be the best value for our needs. We'd gladly stay there again.

I stayed at the Layne Hotel in San Francisco as a business traveler in late �05 to attend a conference. I avoided the big chain hotel where the conference was being held in favor of the Layne just a block away. Not only did I save nearly $100 per night, I got to enjoy a much more authentic taste of San Francisco. The Layne�s d�cor can best be described as chic in a rustic, bohemian sort of style. The elevator is a quaint old fashion model with a hand-operated door and inner gate, harkening back to an earlier era in this fine city�s history. The Layne is the kind of hotel where the owner/proprieter notices the small cut on your finger at check-in and offers you a band-aid. The Layne is the kind of hotel where the owner�s mom (who works the front desk in the morning) greets you with a smile and offers you a fresh brewed cup of coffee, rather than pointing you at the Starbuck�s kiosk across the lobby. The Layne is the kind of hotel where the owner�s sisters who cleans the room catches you in the lobby at check-out time to make sure you hadn�t forgotten that bottle of shampoo you left in the shower. In short, the Layne is a fine hotel for anyone looking to avoid save some money and escape the cookie-cutter feel of the mega-chain hotels in favor of a more authentic San Francisco experience. My one piece of advice if staying here - ask for a room on the back side of the hotel if you are a light sleeper. San Francisco is a busy town, and can get pretty noisy at night. Happy Traveling! Dean