The Phoenix Hotel, the Tenderloin motor lodge that for decades served as a gritty and glam home away from home for touring rock bands, will close at the end of the year.
Owner Chip Conley, who bought the former pay-by-the-hour Caravan Motel at 601 Eddy St. in 1987 at the suggestion of concert promoter Bill Graham, said that the lease for the land is up Jan. 1, and he and his business partners, Isabel Manchester and Jamie Flanagan, made the decision not to renew.
Conley said Phoenix had been losing money since the pandemic and both the Tenderloin’s chaotic street conditions and San Francisco’s weak hospitality sector made it unlikely that it would turn a profit in the near future…