The Keating Hotel – Hotel Hell Update – Still Open in 2023?

Is The Keating Hotel still open in 2023?

Current Status: >> CLOSED <<
(keep reading to learn what happened)

Season: 1 | View All Season 1 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: August 27, 2012
The Keating Hotel Address: 432 F St San Diego, CA 92101
The Keating Hotel - Hotel Hell Update


Episode Recap

The Keating Hotel was a San Diego, California hotel featured on Season 1 of Hotel Hell.

Though the The Keating Hotel Hotel Hell episode aired in August 2012, the actual filming and visit from Gordon Ramsay took place much earlier in late 2011.

It was Season 1 Episode 4 of Hotel Hell.

The Keating Hotel is located in San Diego, CA.

It’s right next door to the Laugh Factory, a stand up comedy club.

Eddie Kaen is the owner of the hotel.

Eddie Kaen Keating Hotel owner

He is also a property contractor, which means he has the experience to work on the property himself.

The hotel features thirty-five rooms and is inspired by sports cars.

More specifically, the owner hired Italian design firm Pininfarina.

If you’re not familiar with Pininfarina, it’s the same design firm that has worked on cars like Ferrari, Maserati, and others.

This cost Eddie millions of dollars to design the hotel with this theme, which does seem like a bit of an overspend.

At first, Gordon Ramsay is impressed with the outside of the hotel, but he is turned off and thinks it looks like a nightclub.

Christos is the concierge, and he takes Gordon to his $759 dollars per night room (it ain’t cheap!) that looks like a garage.

Each floor is named after a different make of sports car.

It is also designed to fit the theme of the vehicle. 

In the middle of Gordon’s room is a hot tub/jacuzzi.

I gotta admit – I think it’s pretty badass! 

Gordon Ramsay does not agree with me, though, which led to some mocking and jokes.

The Keating Hotel Gordon Ramsay in jacuzza

However, the rest of the décor looks cheap.

The sheets on the bed are wrinkled, and the electric socket is broken.

Gordon orders room service and gets a tomato soup, BBQ chicken pizza, and sliders.

The food is served on cardboard boxes rather than on a plate.

Not really what you’d expect from a $750+ per night hotel, right?

After eating, Gordon Ramsay meets with the owner, Eddie, who tells him he bought the hotel in 2000 for over $6 million but has no experience in the hotel industry.

Eddie thinks his hotel is lavish even though he has never slept in it.

When Gordon heads to the reception desk, he meets the general manager Sandra.

Many guests call the front to complain about their food and the cleanliness of the room.

The Merk, the restaurant, is a short walk away from the main building.

Aaron, the restaurant manager, will not take accountability for the long wait times and says he doesn’t know why the hotel guests wait so long for their food.

Gordon Ramsay also enjoys one of his favorite dishes – a chocolate pizza! /s

His face says it all…

The Keating Hotel chocolate pizza

After eating, Gordon Ramsay is shown the inefficient laundry room.

He finds out the front desk is also responsible for the laundry. 

Gordon goes to the restaurant to watch a dinner service and is served by the deputy manager.

The food he orders is very dry; the dessert he orders is a bacon and chocolate pizza which is unappetizing.

Chef Brian has over 30 years of experience with the restaurant business and has been at the hotel for five years.

However, he becomes overwhelmed while talking to Gordon and faints.

As a result of that, he has to be sent to the hospital. 

The Keating Hotel chef faints

Brian is home from the hospital the next day, and Gordon sees him.

Brian tells Gordon that Eddie takes advantage of him.

They return to the hotel that day for a meeting. 

Eddie is in denial about the The Keating Hotel’s problems.

To get through to him, Gordon takes Sandra and Eddie to see some of the guest feedback.

They complain about the rooms and the hot tub not having water.

Gordon’s team works all night to reveal a brand new reception area.

He also signed the hotel up to work with a linen company so they won’t have to deal with the laundry room.

There are also new items added to the dinner menu as a result of Gordon’s changes.

The guests are pleased on relaunch night.

The kitchen is receiving many compliments from guests.

Guests are finally receiving real plates when they order room service. 


The Keating Hotel Update - What Happened Next?

So – was the Keating Hotel Hotel Hell episode a success? Let’s talk about what happened after Gordon Ramsay and his crew left the sunny beaches of San Diego.

At first, the hotel was doing very well.

The hotel appreciated Gordon Ramsay so much that they even named a suite after him.

Reviews were good but not great – it had a 3.5 star rating on TripAdvisor but an 8.2 star rating on Booking.com.

If you want a more modern look, popular YouTuber Brennen Taylor visited The Keating Hotel in 2019.

This video included him really digging into the hotel’s quality, much like Gordon Ramsay.

If you’re interested, you can watch it below (but keep reading for more details, because, spoiler alert, you won’t be able to visit The Keating Hotel yourself):

 

The local CBS news affiliate also did a segment on The Keating Hotel in 2015.

They interview some of the staff, though they take a much more positive view than Gordon Ramsay did.

You can watch that video below:

While The Keating Hotel survived for years after Gordon Ramsay’s visit, no one could have planned for the destruction that the Covid-19 pandemic would bring to the travel industry.

Let’s talk about the most important question…

Is The Keating Hotel from Hotel Hell still open?

As of 2023, The Keating Hotel is closed. In March 2020, the hotel posted on its Facebook page that it would be “temporarily closed” as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the hotel did say that it planned on reopening as soon as possible, it has not reopened or posted any other updates since March 2020.

At the time that I’m updating this in 2023, that means The Keating Hotel has been closed with zero activity for over tree years.

The Keating Hotel closed

Additionally, the hotel’s website has expired.

It’s also no longer possible to book The Keating Hotel via any booking platforms including Booking.com, Kayak, Hotels.com, and others.

The Keating Hotel does still have a listing on those platforms – but there’s zero room availability if you try to do a search.

It’s also now marked as “Permanently Closed” on Google.

Unfortunately, the Google Maps street view picture of the hotel’s entrance hasn’t updated since early 2020, so I can’t see what’s happening.

Here’s an embed of the Keating Hotel San Diego location from Google Maps street view in case Google updates it:

For those reasons, I think it’s unlikely that The Keating Hotel reopens, at least under current ownership.

If The Keating Hotel does reopen, the room rates generally start at around ~$550 per night, so it’s not cheap if you want to stay.

If anything changes with the hotel, I’ll be sure to update this page.

And if you know anything about what’s happening with that property, please let me know in the comments.

But for now, The Keating Hotel has earned a spot on my list of closed Hotel Hell hotels.

If you want to see some other nearby hotels that Gordon Ramsay visited on Hotel Hell, you can also check out my updates for Murphys Hotel in Murphys CA and Meson De Mesilla in Las Cruces NM.

👉 Read other Season 1 updates:


More Information

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-keating-hotel-san-diego-2
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g60750-d623586-Reviews-The_Keating_Hotel_By_Pininfarina-San_Diego_California.html



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Last updated: 2023-01-21 07:58

11 thoughts on “The Keating Hotel – Hotel Hell Update – Still Open in 2023?”

All comments are the sole opinion of the commenter and are not endorsed by RealityTVUpdates.

  1. Googling it gets a site saying it’s just over $200 a nite and it’s called The Keating by Peneneas or something like that.

    Reply
    • Yeah but there are no rooms available when I check. I tested a bunch of different dates and it always says “Not available”. If you’re able to book a room please let me know, but it’s still closed as far as I can tell.

      Reply
    • Yeah, today is June 11, I just checked reviews sorted by “newest.” There was a 1-star review left 3 days ago. Apparently it’s open, but they are probably understaffed and unable to have all the rooms available? I don’t know, I’m trying to think of a plausible explanation for a crappy hotel with a bad reputation having no rooms available…

      Reply
      • It’s hard to tell based on reviews because a lot of Hotel Hell watchers will leave reviews for the hotels even though they’ve never stayed there. For example, if you look at the Google Reviews, you’ll see lots of people mentioning Gordon Ramsay in the negative review.

        If you look at the Keating Hotel TripAdvisor page, though, there hasn’t been a new review since March 2020. Before March 2020, the hotel would get multiple TripAdvisor reviews every month.

        Reply
  2. doin a quick google search and checkin facebook pages and instagrams turns out the owner changed most of what gordon fixed but that’s fair because the keating wasn’t always meant to be the traditional hotel however they closed due to covid and haven’t opened since. probs could find out what actually happened completely through real estate public info and stuff but can’t be assed really given it’s almost a decade old episode and it has been over a decade since he went there lol. oh well, chef brian’s living the life though and that’s all we really care for

    Reply
  3. Gonna go out on a limb and guess ole Eddie found covid to be a blessing so he could close the place, not pay anyone, and finally get out from under it without going bankrupt.

    Reply
  4. So I have stayed here about 5 years ago in the old Macellan suite which I found to be perfect for a birthday weekend. Had a cool Ferrari designed copper jetted bathtub, very niche décor and overall a fun space. I was just perusing AirBNB (2/24/23) and someone is renting out a room through there. Think I’ll check it out…

    Reply
  5. The hotel did actually have a nightclub but the nightclub manager and employees didn’t want to be a part of the show.

    Reply
    • I don’t think so. It’s still impossible to book rooms on any platform.

      A lot of Hotel Hell fans will leave reviews for hotels without staying there, so it’s hard to know just by looking at those.

      Reply

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