so the area is dodgy cuz of the hookers just around the corner, and it gets a little worse one block north of the hotel. but it's also very central if you want to see the old barcelona, and apart from the few unpleasant streets i mentioned, the area is awesome. 5 minutes walk from anything, you name it.
the service is absolutely lame - the receptionist for instance wants 100% of the entire stay upfront, and he won't even accept to take several cards for the payment (which normally comes in handy if you have made a 4 nights booking for 7 friends, but no not here)
breakfast is ok when you come back after a long night out and you're just starving, but otherwise it's plain tasteless hostel food
apart from that, the rate is low and the rooms are nice, clean, and pretty quiet for a hostel. shared bathroom which is modern and clean and surprisingly almost always free....
overall really good value and i know what i'm talking about, I have stayed in dozens of these cheap hostels in barcelona and this one was the best

To me this hostel is notable for its cleanliness mostly - I can basically not care about anything else in hostels but how clean they are.
My boyfriend and I were quite comfortable in this one - had a separate double room, shared a bathroom but never had to wait to use it plus there was a sink in our room.
The shared bathroom and our room were cleaned daily quite well, toilet paper and soap were constantly refilled. The linen and the towels we got were clean and changed daily.
The room was really very small, you can hardly fit 2 big suitcases in the tiny pathway between the door and the bed but we only got there to sleep so that was fine for us.
Breakfast could have been better for the price we paid but was ok-ish - cereal, bread, ham & cheese.
We found the staff friendly, but didn't have to ask too much of them anyway.
The hostel is less than 5 min walk from La Rambla, 10 min walk to the sea, close to several stations of different metro lines.
It was perfect for what we needed, so we would go there again.

If you're looking for a relatively cheap, decent & unpretentious place in the city centre, that's your place. The place is clean and very central. It also seemed quite safe to me: I didn't have any problems in that regard. Aside from that, don't expect much. Breakfast is included, but it's very lousy. The hostel has an excellent location, but keep in mind that this is still the infamous Raval district, although its most decent & safer part. The street is quite noisy, but if you close the windows you don't hear anything. For a Barcelona budget accommodation, it's remarkably clean, and you get your room cleaned & bedsheets changed every day. In winter, there's good heating (unlike many other Catalan & Spanish places), and I've also seen an air-conditioner (which presumably works). Plus, my room had satellite TV & high speed wireless internet. For my purpose, it was a great deal, and I'd definitely recommend it to all easygoing backpackers. Everyone else should probably avoid it.

we stayed in this hostal 2 nights and were really disappointed with the stay from the very beginning. As we arrived it came out that we have got a single room instead of a double one (which we booked). The manager has agreed to change the rooms but for a double price!!!! it was obviously cheating so we have left. Watch out!