Grand Hyatt San Francisco Rating: 4.0 Pearls

Union Square, San Francisco, California

View from the Grand Club Lounge

Just half a block from Union Square, San Francisco's upscale commercial center, the 660-room Grand Hyatt has all the standard features you'd expect from a large midpriced city hotel -- business center, free gym, decent restaurant -- but each amenity has surprising qualities that evelate a typical Hyatt into, well, a slightly grander one. And after a massive 2012 renovation, the hotel improved it's overall appeal even more.

Take the business center: It offers secretarial services, audiovisual equipment rental, and a notary public -- useful, no doubt, for the conferences and events held in the hotel's 30,000 square feet of meeting space. The 24-hour gym has top of the line equipment added in 2012, with enough of a variety for a solid one-hour workout. Treadmills, stationary bikes, and elliptical machines have individual TV screens, and the hotel provides warm towels and headsets for free. They also added floor-to-ceiling windows, opening up the previously-drab gym to the highrising San Francisco skyline.

The Hyatt's OneUP Restaurant and Lounge, off of the lobby, serves American bistro fare in a casual but lively atmosphere.. Open throughout the day (with a limited menu between meals), the restaurant attracts locals and visitors alike. It also features hand-crafted cocktails and its own 22-month-old whiskey, aged at a local distillery. OneUP also has its own food truck, which can be spotted in nearby San Francisco neighborhoods.

These nicer-than-usual nuances extend to the rooms, which were part of the 2012 renovation. Now each one comes with an iHome dock, Internet TV, floor-to-ceiling windows, and plush "Grand Beds" that have pillow-top mattresses, down duvets, and eight soft pillows. Streamlined, dark wood furniture give the space a contemporary edge.

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The Grand Hyatt is one block northeast of Union Square, which is famous for its couture shops. Home to enormous outposts of Niketown, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany, Macy's, Louis Vuitton, and Neiman Marcus, among others, Union Square is to San Francisco what Fifth Avenue is to New York. Locals don't hang out here much, but the square is great for people-watching nonetheless, and occasionally plays host to concerts, small festivals, and demonstrations. If shopping isn't your priority, you might prefer a hotel in a neighborhood closer to some of the biggest tourists attractions, like the Hyatt in Fisherman's Wharf.

• One and a half blocks from the Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde cable car lines, which run to Lombard Street and Ghirardelli Square or to Fisherman's Wharf, near Pier 39; a 20-minute ride
• Not close to the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and Haight-Ashbury
• Discount day-of theater seats available at the Union Square ticket kiosk
• Plenty of dining nearby, but if you want to avoid high-end hotel dining and chain restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory, explore the blocks leading up to Nob Hill, where there's an abundance of small, locally owned restaurants.
• 30-minute cab ride from San Francisco International Airport
• While Union Square is a safe area, be careful of wandering into the neighboring Tenderloin district (starting five blocks southwest of the hotel), an unsavory area with a reputation for drugs, prostitution, and other crime.