if you live in the city its great! its close to the beach and other attractions. only bad thing is if you stay by the street gets really loud in the mornings with the street car going by. but i really loved the bath rooms. so what if they weren't all that great but if and your hunny are looking for some thing just for a night of romance and don't really care where then i would sugest this place just for the fun bathrooms. all the bath rooms in the shower have a seat where you know lots of fun can happen. but there is no tub. so if you wanted that this is not the place for you.

This is not a motel for the weak of heart. It is, in all senses, that sort of Raymond Chandler-esque "sleazy dive" that is only missing the gangsters and hard-boiled detectives. But it is a place to stay, reasonably priced, and no more outrageous than some that are far worse.

My stay was shortly after the current owners took over, and they did their best, but it was clear that being hoteliers was not in their blood, and that their "vision" of running this place was flawed. I had stayed previously (2001-2002) when the previous owners, who had a clue, still ran it.

Nonetheless, the night I arrived was the worst storm to hit the SF Peninsula in a long time, with Beach Avenue closed, and police clearing people off the beach for safety sake. Winds and rain, lightning and thunder, all crashing with the waves not 500 feet from my door and window.

It was the most spectacular stay in a motel I have ever had. Second floor, watching California weather at its most magnificent, from a vantage point that I would have never thought possible.

It is rundown, a bit dingy, and perhaps not a five-star luxury palace for those who wish to be pampered.

But for those who want to experience a classic 1930s motel, in the middle of the Sunset District, with a western view that is to die for, there is little better than this.

And for the full effect? Pick up a Raymond Chandler novel to read before bedtime instead of watching the tube, or book a room when you know a storm is coming.

I'm going to be in SF in the next few months, and have no qualms about booking another room there.

You would do much better to sleep out on the sidewalk in front of this place than to pay money and check into one of their rooms. Forget the money part of it for a second...the sidewalk would be cleaner...no less noisy...and actually less depressing. The rooms are dingy and moldy and dank. The beds are squalid...hair and dried fluids all through the bed and on surfaces and the carpet is foul, greasy, stinky and exudes particles into the air when disturbed by somethng as basic as walking upon it. These things however, pale when laid up against what ensued on my stay there. My girlfriend and i checked in for a week and after accomodating the dismal condition of the room...settled in unfortunately. On waking up the third morning we were both covered with what we thought were mosquito bites. Through that day...these bites kept increasing and encroaching in intensity and by the fourth morning...we were both in great duress and shock from these bites which had turned into aggravated welts. I checked the bedding more closely and found little points of fresh blood stains on the sheets and a little dead bug of a type which i hadn't seen before. The welts were running across my body in long staright rows that were deep and red and i was trying to control a feeling of panic. My girlfriend's face was covered with them. She ended up with around 200 bites and i had about 150. Upon doing some investigating...i found that this was a bed bug infestation. As someone who's made a living on the road for 35 years...this was the worst thing I've ever encountered in a sleeping establishment. We checked out on that fourth morning and i required medical treatment and steroids to overcome the danger of these bites. The physical scars are still with both of us six months later. If i had a choice between sleeping on a park bench or sleeping at Roberts By The Beach Motel in San Francisco...i'd take the bench with no second thoughts. Horrible experience indeed.

This motel is not for the 5 star set but if you want a relatively reasonably priced place to stay where you can look out of your window and see the Pacific Ocean then this is place fits the bill.