Santa Monica, United States

The Pierside Santa Monica

Price per night from$259.20

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD259.20), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

SoCal serene

Setting

Peering at the pier

The laid-back surf scene of Santa Monica inspires the Pierside Hotel in looks and attitude. Interiors take inspo from the beach, in a relaxing palette of flaxen hues and blues throughout; its Surfing Fox restaurant is set to be an alfresco delight, and the heated saltwater pool is perfect for sand-averse guests. Service is friendly and the welcome – easy-going. Spy the Shephard Fairey mural adorning the hotel’s exterior – an homage to the area’s boho surf-and-skate culture –, then head out to catch some waves (stopping at the hotel’s Boardshop for any missing kit).

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Facilities

Photos The Pierside Santa Monica facilities

Need to know

Rooms

132, including six suites.

Check–Out

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 4pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £236.49 ($299), including tax at 15.195 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of $5.50 per room per night on check-out and an additional resort fee of $43.77 per room per night on check-out.

More details

Rates are room-only and exclude taxes. You can buy breakfast at the hotel restaurant, the Surfing Fox.

Also

The Pierside has a choice of ADA-compliant rooms for wheelchair users.

At the hotel

Free WiFi, 24-hour fitness centre. In rooms: HD TVs, fabric steamer, custom bathrobes by Boca Terry, bath amenities by Victor Vaissier, free tea and coffee, and free aluminium water bottles.

Our favourite rooms

The Coastal Suite will win you over with a spacious living area of sunny nooks and teasing glimpses of the Pacific from its floor-to-ceiling windows. Pierside King rooms are light-filled and generous in size, and come with a queen sofa bed and walk-in shower. In all rooms, succulents are installed to keep the air pure; beach-inspired artwork and punchy, parasol-patterned wallpaper (lining the wardrobes) hint to the sandy stretches across the avenue.

Poolside

Dip your toe in the heated saltwater pool, which is opening soon, before nabbing a cabana for a fan-cooled lie-about in the shade.

Spa

There’s no spa, but the gym is kitted out with cardio and training equipment, including Peloton bikes.

Packing tips

A rotation of sunglasses, board shorts, surfer dresses, slides and fluoro swimwear.

Also

You can borrow kit from the hotel’s Boardshop for free for a couple of hours and try your luck at skateboarding, roller-blading, cycling, fishing or surfing.

Pet‐friendly

Indeed. Dogs weighing less than 50 pounds are welcome to stay at the Pierside. A $125 non-refundable flat fee for each pooch applies. See more pet-friendly hotels in Santa Monica.

Children

Kids are more than welcome at the Pierside, with sofa beds in king rooms and suites, and double-queen options.

Sustainability efforts

The hotel uses LED bulbs, sensors, and timers. You’ll find reusable aluminium water bottles in your room and hydration stations on each floor. The Pierside works in partnership with local outreach organisations to help make a positive impact within the Santa Monica community.

Food and Drink

Photos The Pierside Santa Monica food and drink

Top Table

Aim for a table on the outdoor patio for alfresco dining.

Dress Code

Come as you are: given the restaurant’s name, board shorts at dinner are forgivable.

Hotel restaurant

The Surfing Fox plates up fresh, SoCal flavours using ‘local ingredients from land and sea’. It’s located on the ground level of the hotel with street access, too. While the outdoor patio is likely to be the most popular patch, the retro lounge-style dining room, with high ceilings, swing-like chairs, and graphic murals is enough to tempt you indoors. 

Hotel bar

Get your tipples (Californian beers, spirits and local wines) from the restaurant, or hit the town to explore Santa Monica’s (somewhat) laid-back nightlife scene.

Last orders

Breakfast is 7am to 10am daily. All-day dining is available from 11am to 10pm Monday to Thursday, and Sunday; until 11pm Friday and Saturday.

Location

Photos The Pierside Santa Monica location
Address
The Pierside Santa Monica
120 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica
90401
United States

On Colorado Avenue, the Pierside is a surfer’s delight, with Santa Monica beach right across the street.

Planes

The nearest airport is Los Angeles International (LAX), followed by Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR). Drive time from LAX to the hotel is around 25 minutes.

Trains

Downtown Santa Monica station is a five-minute cab ride from the hotel.

Automobiles

Cars are in the culture of LA life – though if you don’t plan on driving or getting a rental, an Uber will suffice. The hotel has a private car park and valet parking (from $55 plus tax a night).

Other

Downtown Santa Monica is the end of the Metro E Line for urban forays inland.

Worth getting out of bed for

Let your coastal Californian setting be the inspiration for days spent outdoors, getting in tune with SoCal’s love affair with wellness. The Pierside has bikes you can borrow, and there’s a cycle route on your doorstep: the Marvin Braude Bike Trail, aka the Strand, is a 22-mile cycle path, with coastal scenery as a constant, stretching from Torrance Beach in South Bay to Will Rogers State Beach in the Pacific Palisades area. The simplest of workouts in the Californian sunshine awaits at the Santa Monica Stairs – where you can feel the burn and raise your heart rate by ascending and descending a choice of wooden or concrete steps for the sweaty hell of it. Santa Monica has its own Muscle Beach (not to be confused with the iconic park of the same name at Venice Beach) – an outdoor gym of parallel bars, hoops, swings and ropes that offers spectator sport even if your pull-ups aren’t up to a public outing… South of the pier, Venice Beach resort has entertainment on land and sea – not only prized for its surf breaks (you can rent surfboards from the hotel’s Boardshop) but also for its boardwalk (with people-watching at its surreal finest) and outdoor basketball courts, where Lakers-inspired locals shoot hoops with aplomb. Venice is also home to Abbot Kinney Boulevard – a decadent cluster of shops and cafés that hosts a flea market on Saturdays. Fêted road trips await on the Pacific Coast Highway: while you’re in the ’hood, it’d be rude not to rent some wheels (soft-top preferable) and savour the 30-minute drive following the iconic coastline westwards to Malibu, where you can have a nosey around the artefacts littering the (sumptuously landscaped) Getty Villa and catch some rays on Surfrider Beach.  

Local restaurants

Tuck into elevated Italian at Elephante: with palm-framed, above-the-bay ocean views, this indoor-outdoor lounge-restaurant is a breeze-kissed spot for pizza, pasta, and a line-up of cocktails that spans shaken, stirred and mock. Seafood lovers jostle for a limited number of outdoor tables at Crudo e Nudo, a wine shop turned sustainable seafood restaurant, where a choice of raw-fish plates and oysters sits in contrast to cooked dishes such as steamed clams, and whole-fried lobster. Cobi's is easy to spot, thanks to its pink exterior and green-framed windows, or just follow the aroma of  Southeast Asian dishes including curry puffs, pork dumplings⁠, and butter chicken, served on a mishmash of prettily patterned Delft. 

Local cafés

Your nearest outpost of Blue Bottle Coffee, known for its sustainable brews and devotion to coffee craft, is on Main Street, in the Edgemar Center for the Arts – a light-filled, plant-dotted space for a caffeine fix. Open all day, all week, Goodboybob is an ivy-covered café with high tables and stools on an alfresco terrace where you can quench your midday thirst with everything from drip coffee to fresh juices – add a ‘matcha mama’ chia pudding to your order while you’re at it. 

Local bars

A popular, two-storey restaurant, 1212 Santa Monica really comes alive at night. Beyond its dining credentials, it has an innovative cocktail list (try an emerald Gin Basil Smash or a Ginger Fizz with cucumber vodka), and on Fridays and Saturdays it transforms into a club with sets from some of LA’s top DJs. WIth the intimate, unfussy appeal of a dive bar, Chez Jay is a half-block south of the pier and operates a no-photos policy that’s been in place since Marilyn and JFK visited in the 60s: head here on Fridays and Saturdays when doors stay open until 2am. 

Reviews

Photos The Pierside Santa Monica reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this coastal Californian stay and unpacked their fluoro swimwear and Reformation sun dresses, a full account of their beachside break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Pierside in Santa Monica…

Out-of-the-box new, the Pierside reopened for 2023 following a head-turning overhaul. The result: a surf-inspired boutique retreat with an enticingly laid-back welcome. Easy-going in character, this Cali-coast address – on the corner of Ocean and Colorado avenues – makes the transition from bed to beach a (sea) breeze. Light-filled, contemporary bedrooms are decorated in soothing tones with coast-inspired art and floor-to-ceiling windows. The hotel’s proximity to Santa Monica Pier and its cotton-candy-cute Ferris wheel and rollercoaster aligns with the hotel’s sense of fun. Days are best spent on the beach, catching waves, or blading (you can borrow kit for free from the hotel’s Boardshop), and inhaling a soft serve along the shore when the sun is at its strongest is de rigueur. Back at the hotel, conditions at the heated saltwater pool are always dip-friendly. Mooching at the hotel’s low-key dining spot, the Surfing Fox – where tables spill outdoors and the sundowners and SoCal plates are as seductive as the relaxed ambience – comes with a side of people-watching. Talking of which… the street performers and bohemian spirits of Venice Beach are only 15 minutes away via a scenic coastal bike ride. 

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Price per night from $259.20