Not kidding on the noise!
The Wharf Inn was our first stop on a two week long tour of San Francisco. The price and location was right, but not the actual building. It is an older building and although it's perfectly cheap, there are a few things that made it a place I probably won't stay at again.
Our check in was swift and polite. The cab ride was $52 from the airport. We did not realize that despite being legally required to accept credit cards, our cabbie really balked at it. Apparently cab drivers will claim the machine is broken too. So either have cash or ask beforehand if they will accept credit cards.
The room was otherwise clean and OK - the colours and photographs were quite tasteful. The bathroom had a shower only. Irons and hair dryers are available from the office.
The room was on the outer part of the hotel and I did not realize the walls were so paper thin. It was impossible to get a good night's sleep. The F line runs parallel along Beach Street, but because our room was close to the intersection where there's a junction, it sounded like a load of garbage cans was going down the street every twenty minutes until late hours. The other hotels in the area such as the Radisson and the Sheraton will have a similar problem FYI, but to a lesser degree (we ended up staying at the Radisson at the end of our trip).
Tour coaches also go up and down Mason Street, so there's noise from that. Next to the 7-11 across the street, there's a garbage dumpster bay. The garbage is picked up at 11pm every night, so get ready for CRASH BANG beep beep beep.
It always sounded as if people on the street or outside on the balcony hallway are either in the room or about to burst into the room. We had the same loud, foul-mouthed guests above us for our stay. I had trouble feeling safe in the room because of this. We did not have a great sleep due to the constant noise, even when we tried to get an afternoon nap.
Although the Inn does indeed have a great location close to pier attractions, dining and a car rental, the area also attracts homeless people. We saw people sleeping in doorways, a cup of feces on the sidewalk outside the hotel, a man begging for money way too close to the 7-11 doors for my comfort and one dude that came out of the darkness and tried to get us to give a donation to some organization at 10pm. Street people are generally benign, but I found the locals to be more aggressive than street people back home. As they say, YMMV!