How San Francisco’s Hotel Drisco Turned Pandemic Losses into Huge Gains

By David Berman | May 15, 2023

The Hotel Drisco in San Francisco, like the entire hospitality industry, was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 48-room property, in business since 1903, was closed to guests from March to October of 2020, plunged into uncertainty about when, or if, it would ever recover. 

General Manager John Spear had to lay off almost everybody at the hotel; his operations manager and maintenance engineer were the only survivors to ensure the building stayed in good shape. The trio came to work every day, but stayed away from each other to prevent any virus spread.

Now, over three years since the start of the pandemic, the Hotel Drisco is thriving as the highest RevPAR hotel in the city, according to Spear. 

Before pivoting to hospitality, Spear worked in technology, most recently as a consultant until 2003. A young Spear became fascinated by the hospitality industry because of his father, an event planner who was always around hotels. Spear parlayed friendships in the Bay Area and his experience in tech into a general manager position at Joie de Vivre Hotels, for which he managed five different hotels from 2003 to 2011, the last of which being the Drisco. Spear fell in love with the Drisco and decided to plant roots there once management changed hands to Woodside Hospitality Group, where he now also serves as Managing Director.  

In general, hotels with a major outdoors element were able to recover from the pandemic faster than urban hotels, Spear said. Once the Drisco and other downtown San Francisco hotels started to slowly re-emerge in the fall of 2020, Spear said his hotel was able to get back up to speed quicker than others. 

“I think one of the reasons for that is that we are squirreled away at the top of a hill in one of the tiniest neighborhoods of San Francisco — Pacific Heights,” he said. “So we weren’t down in the hustle and bustle of Union Square and the financial (district), where people tend to think about people moving around cheek to jowl. So from an urban perspective, we started to recover more quickly.”

Because some of the Drisco’s main competitors couldn’t re-open as quickly, Spear said the property poached a bunch of their regular guests, accelerating the Drisco’s recovery. A main strategy for the property after reopening was to maintain the same level of amenities and services from before the pandemic. As competitors cut these same complimentary offerings, that only further differentiated the Drisco, Spear said. 

“Big hotels, and I’m sure you’re aware of this trend, are really going in the other direction,” he said. “They saw a lot of money on the table when they got rid of all these amenities and services during COVID, and a lot of those have never come back. I think that’s one of the reasons that, even at the high rates that I’m charging right now, people really find a lot of value at the Drisco because they love the amenities and services.”

Spear said the Drisco has been more fortunate than other hotels when it comes to staffing post-pandemic, as the property has many long-tenured, loyal employees.

“Generally, employees and guests have a very similar reaction to my first reaction to the Drisco where they just fall in love with the place,” he said. “(It’s) just a great place to be a guest. It’s a great place to work. It’s a wonderful environment. It’s very collegial. We have each other’s backs, and that’s something that you’re fortunate if you’ve found that.”

81% of the staff that Spear laid off at the start of the pandemic returned, he said. However, the Drisco is operating with a small staff of 37 employees, leaving little margin for error if and when an employee leaves. 

“Everybody tries to pitch in and help until we can get someone and train someone up, but training does take a long time,” he said. “So when you lose a staff member with a small staff like that, it definitely affects operations.”

Spear said his background in tech has illuminated for him the hospitality industry’s shortcomings in the area. With so many different vendors in a constantly shifting landscape, Spear said it’s hard to find consistent and durable products. 

“It’s still kind of the Wild West out there when it comes to tech and hospitality,” he said. “I’ve worked with three different property management systems. I’ve worked with five different revenue management systems, and these are huge products and they’re not great. They have lots of problems. So if somebody was looking for an opportunity out there with a lot of venture capital, building a perfect mousetrap for hospitality is a goal that has not yet been achieved.”

Spear said he always likes working on a project, and he’s got a big one currently in the works — expanding the lobby and sitting room. The hotel is losing a room to make that renovation work.

With that update in the works and a daily rate “through the roof,” Spear feels the Drisco is in a better spot than ever

“Right now, the future looks pretty bright.”