Hotel with pretensions, in a bad part of town
We were looking forward to our visit to Nikko as a highlight of our road trip but it was a huge disappointment. The rooms are very small, with few facilities (no fridge, wifi chargeable for every device so you have to pay TWICE if you both have a laptop). We had to get lots of ice in seal bags to keep things in our cool bag fresh. Having been all around Arizona, Utah and Nevada prior to arrival, even the smallest of places had this covered as standard.
Nice bed linen not making up for a very so-so shower and those other deficiencies. The public areas are glitzy with marble and mirrored finishes, but there is not even a nice bar (we ended up going to the Hyatt for drinks!). The hotel website does a nice job, and perhaps the high roller rooms on the upper floors are gorgeous. We were down on the 7th.
Service was very good, concierge, valet, bellman and checkin services were all A1. Room allocation was definitely done on a "who you are" basis though, the higher the floor the better the hotel thinks of you. Offputting. The whole vibe of the Nikko is of smug superiority, and sadly the facilities don't really match up to their view of themselves.
Step out the door and you realise how run down this part of SF has become. It's been 10 years since my last visit and the area around Market & Mason has become much much worse than it was. I knew we were only a couple of blocks from Tenderloin but that used to be OK, now within 2 mins of leaving the building we were besieged by the beggars and freaks, and first hand experiences of the SFPD trussing 2 guys up on the sidewalk. One of the red uniformed street helpers advised us that this was a bad area and escorted us to a local store. So it wasn't a one off. We ended up staying in our hotel room a lot, which as I say was a disappointment.
My advice is unless staying on business nearby, you'd be better off in a room up in North Beach or Chinatown.