The pool at Hotel Cerro gives you space to reflect on what makes San Luis Obispo so alluring.
Up on the roof at Hotel Cerro, you get the feeling so many people do when they spend more than a few hours in San Luis Obispo. After gazing at the rolling green hills, perhaps with a cocktail in hand, you start thinking to yourself, “Hey, I could definitely live here.”
The Hotel Cerro opened in 2020 and instantly became the chicest hotel in a laid-back Central Coast town where “style” typically revolves around which Cal Poly sweatshirt you’re wearing. People don’t flex their fanciness in SLO. It’s all part of the allure. Sometimes called “Little Santa Barbara,” San Luis Obispo is what that more well-to-do town to the south would be like if it wasn’t overrun by chain stores and zillionaires. Although SLO is dotted with cute shopping streets, Victorian storefronts and landmark brick buildings from a century ago, the place still feels like an undiscovered secret that lives up to its reputation as California’s “happiest town.”
I’ve stopped in SLO many times as a midway point on the drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco. You could easily dismiss it as just another place to gas up and go. But there were always good reasons to linger. SLO has some pleasant restaurants, a relaxed vibe (people wave to you as they ride by on bicycles), and quirky attractions (like Bubblegum Alley, plastered with generations of wadded chewing gum). The one time we did stay overnight was when a massive traffic jam on the 101 Freeway forced us to find accommodations, and the best we could do was a motel with walls so thin, we considered offering unsolicited advice to the couple bickering next door.
At Hotel Cerro, the restoration of a 1920s landmark gives you a look at the future of San Luis ... [+]
Then came Hotel Cerro, which opened just before COVID, and offered a hint of what the future of SLO might look like. The meticulous update of the 1920s Smith Building downtown arrived with LEED Silver specifications and a 4,000-square-foot hydrotherapy spa. Hotel Cerro has 65 industrial-sleek rooms, done up with polished concrete floors and exposed wood beams, with amenities like freestanding tubs fed from a hidden water spout in the ceiling. There’s an edible garden on a terrace off the second floor, where you can pick strawberries and spinach and eat them straight off the vine. That garden provides herbs for salads, sauces, and marinades at the excellent Brasserie SLO downstairs, where lamb and grilled fish are fired up in a wood-burning oven and wood-fired grill. There’s a vintage still in the adjoining bar and one of the best cocktail menus in the Central Coast.
It’s the pool that really sets Hotel Cerro apart. You can relax on an oversize cabana bed or hang out in a lounge chair with a craft cocktail and look out to the verdant hills. There’s plenty to do in the area, whether you hike up Bishop Peak or explore the neighborhood by bike or on foot. The venerable Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa dates back to 1771, and the wineries and vineyards, like Wolff, are destinations on their own. But I like the idea of staying put rather than racing around. The pool at Hotel Cerro has everything I need to enjoy this exceptionally happy place. Take a breath, savor your surroundings, don’t rush back to L.A.—there’s a reason they call it SLO.
