Hotel Review : Entella Hotel in San Francisco, CA

Entella Hotel
905 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA
# 415-929-7195

Peter Case, obscure folk/punk singer, wrote a song about this place that has a small cult following. With lines like "Check into the Entella Hotel, get used to the gloom and the smell", it probably didn't do much for business.

Times have changed since the 1980s, when that song was written, and the Entella isn't really gloomy or smelly now. It's actually a family-managed place that's well-run and caters to working people and people on limited incomes looking for temporary quarters in a decent neighborhood. They really don't seem to want tourists, even though it's located in a seriously touristy neighborhood (right on the border of North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf, a few blocks up from the central cluster of tourist hotels at the Wharf).

Typical SRO deal here, but the common areas are kept pretty clean, and the room was in very good shape. $190 flat a week gets you a single bed, sink, TV with cable, dresser drawer and that's about it. Three toilets and two showers per floor, kept in decent condition (hot water and water pressure both good).

The place is very quiet, almost creepily so. The only exception is that Cobb's Comedy Club is right downstairs and the noise from that comes through the floors on the first floor when they have a show. I had a room on that floor for a couple of weeks and it really didn't bother me at all - they don't do shows every night, seemingly only three or four times a week at most, and they usually only run between 8 pm and 11 pm. A couple shows on Friday and Saturday nights ran until around midnight, but those were the only nights of the week that the noise wasn't down to an acceptable level by 10 pm.

All-in-all I thought the place was pretty good, and if circumstances arose I'd go back again. It's a little farther than I like from the center of the city and a little too close to the heaviest tourist areas, which is the only thing that puts it towards the bottom of my list. If the location works for you, however, it's a pretty decent weekly hotel at a reasonable price.