San Benito Ale House

My girlfriend and I stayed here this past weekend and we were warned by the staff when we made the reservation that, due to the saloon below, it might be loud but it was actually totally fine.  The staff were quite friendly and helpful and the continental breakfast was good and the saloon very nice.  The room we stayed in was very clean and the bathroom had a quite large antique clawfoot bathtub.  Overall, a nice inn and pleasant stay in Half Moon Bay.

Rooms are on the second floor right above the bar. Very small room with no air conditioning and windows face the street or you can hear the bar when they are open. The bed is extremely squeaky with the tiniest movements and the pillows are paper thin. The hostess was very talkative and boisterous. $80 is a little steep for such meager accommodations.

We had a groupon to stay here in the room with a private bath. We were really excited to get away and use our groupon!

Much to our disappointment it was a terrible experience. There is no air conditioning, and having been 95 degrees + in the South Bay where we live, we were  excited to get away. However, the hotel room was like 80 degrees! They didn't think to open the windows prior to guests arrival in an attempt to cool the room. Then we noticed a fan and thought "PERFECT!" Except... The fan didn't work. People have commented how comfortable the bed was... We both woke up after an almost sleepless night with sore backs from a hard mattress, paired with extremely soft pillows that turn to paper thin when laid on.

The hostess was nice. The bar was cool looking and had a nice ambience. We had drinks at the bar, and we first partook in happy hour and paid for our drinks since it was a pretty good price (many people state $8 a pint is expensive... The beer we drank was only $7, a good price for us coming from the South Bay where a pint of beer can be $10-13!!). The bartender we had the first time was extremely rude and apparently didn't want to be there. I didn't get his name but he was Hispanic and older. When we were waiting to check into the hotel, we witnessed an encounter where he was very rude to a customer, who seemed to be a regular from the hostess' way of speaking to him.

The second time we hit the bar we were served by a very nice younger gentlemen who had nothing but a smile for us! He was really pleasant, and when we provided our voucher for our free drinks (came with our groupon) he explained it was for well drinks beer and wine. The other bartender who was older rudely interrupted him to say it was just beer and wine, and was so rude to this other bartender! The younger bartender showed him the voucher and that it included well drinks, and the older man just blew him off. Disappointing.

The bathroom in the room was small (better than sharing though!). The toilet is crammed in a corner with the sink maybe two feet in front of it, and me being 5'11" and my boyfriend being 6'7", this was uncomfortable. We dealt with it, as the world is never created for tall people. However, the bathtub (no shower) was an experience. It didn't even look clean when we got there, but figured it was just from being an older tub... Until we got ready for bed and realized that our feet were disgustingly dirty from being barefoot in the room! It's like they never mopped or swept!!!

After our very sleepless night and early awakening from being hot and having to close the window from loud gardeners at 6am or so, we were hesitant to even look at the breakfast. It was ok- what you'd expect for the experience we'd had. Hard boiled eggs, cereal, tea and milk and oj. We skipped and went to the coffee shop down the street, which was delicious.

Nobody had told us how to checkout, and the lady in the sandwich shop had to te us to just drop our key in the drop box.