Last week, our very own President and CEO Yvonne Lembi-Detert, our Director of Revenue and Reservations Stuart Harless, and our Guest Services Manager Domitille Montoro, engaged in a "60 Minute" style interview with ATRIO™ ( a Guest Experience Management platform) at the Hotel Diva in San Francisco,California. Tick, Tick, Tick

Never know what to do in the spring? Well here's some events that could really get you up and out of the house to enjoy the wonderful spring weather.

San Francisco International Film Festival: The SFIFF is the longest running film festival inAmerica. It’s held in spring for two weeks, showcasing cinematic discovery and innovation. It features nearly 200 films and live events with more than 200 filmmakers and industry guests in attendance.

Visit SF Film Festival

Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival: The Festival is one ofCalifornia’s prominent celebrations of Asian Tradition. Over 200,000 people attend to see an amazing display showcasing the color and grace of the Japanese culture to celebrate the blooming of cherry blossoms.

Visit SF Cherry Blossom

 Spring Open Studios: San Francisco Hunters Point Shipyard Artists hold their annual Spring Open Studio. Over 150 artists welcome the public into their working studios to explore, experience, and collect art.

Visit the Open Studios

Visit J Vineyards & Winery in the Reserve Room at the San Francisco Vintners Market – the first and only wine tasting and buying event in the Bay Area. Up to 200 wineries from Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Russian River Valley and beyond will be pouring their favorite wines including new releases, special collections and hard to find vintages for you to taste.

Visit the Tasting

Ever feel like you need to just let loose or treat yourself to some fun things? Well here's a few that could get you started and let you treat yourself in San Francisco!

Earth and Sky Oasis, Union Square

Earth and Sky Oasis is not a “spa” in the traditional sense, but a small collective of independent practitioners doing therapeutic work.

Sugar Cafe, Union Square 

Sugar Cafe transitions from a stylish coffee bar with a full menu and free wifi internet by day to a luxurious lounge at night offering a full bar.

Go shopping in Union Square. There's plenty to choose from, The Westfield mall, Macy's and high end stores such as Chanel, Tiffany's, Gucci, Saks and so much more!

Ruby Skye is San Francisco's premiere nightclub and special events venue, located just off ofUnion Square.

On March 14^th we decided to have a swanky Speakeasy Affair at the Penthouse in Hotel Union Square. It was absolutely fabulous! We dressed in your typical speakeasy party attire – boas and all, and partnered with the masterminds behind the iconic Gold Dust and Lefty O’douls of San Francisco.

Those who were lucky enough to be invited were greeted by a walkway of candles leading up the Hotel Union Square Penthouse and served classic speakeasy cocktails such as The Bronx, Diamond Hitch and the Stinger. Yummy appetizers were served throughout the night and every moment was captured in our dress up area where people could get in the mood with hats, mustaches and boas.

One thing that our hotel group is known for is the canny ability to throw a good party – afterall we are PERSONALITY hotels!

For more pics visit here

Many thanks to

The Personality Hotel Staff

Jeremiah Cothren
Photographer
www.ooo-child.com

Gold Dust Lounge 

Lefty’Odouls

The Mission District

The Mission District has turned into the place to be for young people, artists, activists and people just looking to experience culture. The district has so many different businesses for everyone to enjoy: cafes, thrift stores, produce markets, used book stores, trendy restaurants and boutiques. The area is filled with things to do from enjoying a cup of coffee while people watching to taking in the area’s history and rich Latin culture. (best part is it’s right off the 16^th st/Mission BART stop)

The Best Places To Start Your Visit:

Bar Tartine: A popular bakery that combines Tartine’s Californian-Mediterranean style menu with a wine bar. Dark wood floors and tables and along bar overlooking the open kitchen.  

561 Valencia St.

Yamo: If you love finding those one-of-a-kind and delicious spots to eat, then this place is for you. It’s a small counter-only Burmese restaurant, family run and owned. The food fuses the tastes ofIndia andChina with dishes from delicious rice and noodles to curry. This is the place you want to go if your looking for good food, even if you aren’t a big fan of those dishes, just try it, you may be surprised!        

3406 18th St.

Idol Vintage: Miss the 80s? Then shop here and have all your best memories come alive again. This store has everything you could have in the 80s, from leg warmers, boxy sweaters along with racks of coats, pants, sweatshirts, jeans and dresses. Those things you never thought you’d see again are here, so get your 80s on!                                                     

3162 16th St.

Adobe Book Shop: This book store is a must! It has a backroom gallery featuring local artists; it’s often opens up at night for live music and has a great supply of unique books. It has a cozy feeling to it, while still staying hip and you can even grab a book and relax in a comfortable chair.                                                       

3166 16th St.

Blondie’s Bar and No Grill: This popular bar has purple neon décor, sidewalk seating and an extensive martini menu. It’s always crazy crowded on the weekends, but a good way to have a good time and interact with everyone from everywhere.

540 Valencia St.

Look what we found! 

Cruising around on the internet we came across some amazing photos of Hotel Union Square. Make sure to check them out and enjoy.

See MORE here

In this world of business, cards seem to be a stamp of approval, something that personally identifies you.  Come on, you know you have an over abundance of random business cards hiding in your desk drawer, your fancy business card holder or scattered all over your desk. Don’t you wish you had a cool device that could store all these cards in that you might one day need?

Strolling through the corporate halls of Personality Hotels, we couldn’t help notice that a few people are bringing cool back with ROLODEX’s!!! Yup, that bulky thing that sits on your desk and rotates.

You have to ask yourself what ever happened to the Rolodex in the first place? There hasn’t been some amazing new replacement? Everyone still has business cards, so what happened? What went wrong?

It doesn’t matter because either way, Personality Hotels is bringing the iconic office staple back to being cool.

Ok so maybe only two people are bringing old school back but that doesn’t matter because give us a couple week and guaranteed more people will have these fabulous contraptions sitting on their desks…once again. 

I dare you to come up with a better idea, because it simply doesn’t exist. 

Sitting for lunch by the window at Colibri Mexican Bistro, you can see people walking with shopping bags, running back to their office after lunch, racing to make sure they do not miss the MUNI or BART train. All in all, the Union Square area of San Francisco is never dormant, there is always movement and it is rare to see people standing around, for there is always something to do or see in our beautiful neighborhood.

 However this was not the case yesterday at Hallidie Plaza, located near the entrance to Powell St. Station, below the Cable Car Turnaround. For about five minutes, people running to take BART decided to wait, and were ok with missing their train, people held off on their lunch dates to see what was going on in this Plaza.

A Flashmob of about 40 dancers moving to “Don’t Stop Me Now,” stopped all foot traffic. With participants of the BID, and  Alonzo King LINES Ballet dance center, Hallidie Plaza was filled with spectators recording, twitting, facebooking what they were seeing. It was a great way to start the lunchtime!

If you find yourself wanting to do something fun this Saturday, the Alonzo King LINES dance studio will have a $5 special, in which you may try “bite sized samples,” of the different types of dance classes they have- which are about 80 different classes a week!

Tired of running around Union Square, full with these crazy shoppers? Why not take a leisurely stroll through quiet Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach, watch the dogs run around, frolicking in the crashing waves. And maybe catch a beautiful sunset at the west end of San Francisco?

There are beautiful restaurants & bars along the oceanfront like The Cliff House, Beach Chalet and also some tiny Java Café’s where the local surfers go to have a coffee or hot chocolate to warm up after a day in the cold waters. These restaurants and cafes help set the tone of historic San Francisco. These buildings with such rich architecture paint the perfect nostalgic picture and often send you into a time warp.

If you are more of an indoor person, Golden Gate Park has 2 awesome museums: the Academy of Sciences and the DeYoung Museum which offer galleries, an aquarium, rainforest, planetarium and various other activities for the single traveler or family.

Get out of bustling Union Square and into the quieter area of San Francisco: The Golden Gate Park!

Visiting San Francisco and making the best itinerary is not always the easiest task. With museums like the Legion of Honor, and SFMOMA, places like Coit Tower, Fisherman’s Wharf, and all the shops in and around Union Square, it’s a bit difficult to choose what touristy adventure one would want to take. Therefore some prefer walking in the shoes of a local, and if that’s you, then boy are you in for a treat!

This weekend is gearing up to have many Bay Area folks coming into the city and joining the fun. So what is it that the locals are buzzing about and Cable Cars are ringing about? The answer is sports! Football that is!

This Saturday is the big game, a divisional playoff game where the San Francisco 49ers will host the New Orleans Saints. So if you want to blend in as a local, make sure to wear your red and gold this Saturday. Although there are a few tickets being resold, the price for tickets range from $150 to over $1,000 for a single ticket! So make sure you hang out at the Daily Grill, or Union Square Sports Bar to see what happens!