The Haunt Ghost Tours sells this as a 1 hour 45 minute after-dark investigation at a single North Beach address, booking from $115 per person at our August 3, 2026 check. It meets right outside the restaurant Fior d'Italia at 2237 Mason Street and ends back there, because the restaurant downstairs and the San Remo Hotel upstairs share one building. Three things decide it. It is the priciest of the four San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for and much the smallest, capped at ten. It is the only one of the four whose listing names an indoor stop. And it was flagged as likely to sell out at our August 3, 2026 check. It rates 5.0 from 46 Viator reviews, and 46 is a thin base for a perfect score.
| Detail | What the listing shows |
|---|---|
| From price | $115 per person (checked August 3, 2026), the priciest of the four San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for, in a band that starts at $26 |
| Duration | 1 hour 45 minutes (checked August 3, 2026). The operator's own page says two hours; where the two disagree the listing governs here. |
| When | Night. Our July 29, 2026 facts pass recorded a listed 8:00 pm start; no start time was returned in the August 1, 2026 pull. Take the departure from the booking page. |
| Rating | 5.0 from 46 Viator reviews (checked August 3, 2026), up from 45 on July 29 and August 1. The smallest review base of the four, so read the score against the sample. |
| Availability | Flagged as likely to sell out at our August 3, 2026 check, the only one of the four carrying that flag. It is a dated observation rather than a standing property. |
| Age band | An adult booking band running 14 to 85 (checked August 1, 2026). No age line in prose was captured at either check. |
| Alcohol | Alcoholic beverages appear among the listing's inclusions, and our July 29, 2026 facts pass recorded the wording as a cocktail or alternative at the bar stop. Age and alcohol are two separate facts on this listing, which states no rule joining them, so we print neither as one. |
| Meeting point | Right outside the restaurant, Fior d'Italia, 2237 Mason Street |
| End point | Back at the meeting point, per our July 29, 2026 facts pass |
| Stops named | Three entries and two places, Fior d'Italia and the San Remo Hotel, which share one building at 2237 Mason. The third entry is the operator's own storefront carrying a pass-by flag, not a location. |
| Group size | Posted maximum of 10 travelers (checked August 1, 2026), the smallest of the four |
| Accessibility | Not wheelchair accessible (checked August 1, 2026); the stop is upstairs in a three-storey 1906 building. Stroller access is not stated either way, so we print nothing about it. |
| Confirmation | At time of booking |
| Cancellation | Free cancellation flagged at our August 3, 2026 check; free to 24 hours in advance at our July 29, 2026 facts pass |
One building, and what happened in it
Fior d'Italia dates itself to 1886, a year the restaurant, the hotel, the Marina Times and 7x7 all agree on. Its line about being America's oldest Italian restaurant is a claim about a business rather than a room, and the business has moved repeatedly: it arrived in this building only in 2005, when its half-century tenure at the Washington Square and Union Street premises ended. A reader who takes 1886 for an 1886 dining room has been misled, so we give the year and the move together.
The building went up in 1906, after the April earthquake and fire, as a workingmen's hotel called the New California Hotel. The hotel's own history page attributes it to the Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini, calls it a 62-room three-storey Italianate Victorian, and says it housed labourers rebuilding the city, many of them free of charge. A claim elsewhere on the hotel's site, that this was the first hotel built after the 1906 earthquake, is an unsupported city-wide superlative and we do not repeat it. In 1922 it was renamed the San Remo, after the Italian town on the Gulf of Genoa; brothers Tom and Robert Field have owned it since 1971, per that page, whose text dates to about 2016.
The best material here is a documented crime, and the details matter because the operator's telling does not survive the newspapers intact. On June 18, 1911 a man fired into a Sunday dance in a hall beside the hotel bar, during Giuseppe Ghiorso's wedding celebration. Eugenio Basso died at St Mary's Hospital toward midnight on the 19th; Antonio Gotelli and Rodolfo Brignoli were left in grave condition. That is L'Italia of June 20 and 22, 1911. A year later the San Francisco Call recapped that Guido Lananna shot and killed Tony Gotelli and Eugene Basso and escaped, with an accomplice serving fifteen years at Folsom; the same item records that he had been caught at Pueblo, Colorado about two weeks earlier. Two men dead is that 1912 recap rather than the contemporaneous report, no trial or sentence was located, and the 1911 street number is not today's, so we name the building rather than a number.
Two corrections follow, and both matter. The shooting was at a dance beside the hotel bar, not in Fior d'Italia, which did not arrive in the building until 2005: a ghost stalking Fior's dining room since 1911 would be a false story about a real crime. And the motive usually attached to it, a former lover of the bride, is contradicted by the paper. L'Italia of June 20, 1911 has a young Sicilian pressing unwanted attentions on Maria Gotelli, the groom's niece rather than the bride, being warned off by her brother, and returning minutes later to fire at her.
The ghosts, and whose they are
The haunting belongs to The Haunt Ghost Tours, the operator selling this tour. Its blog says the hotel is haunted by at least five ghosts and then describes three: the Painted Lady, a retired madame said to have died there in 1978, who knocks at doors and is associated with Room 33; a girl in a pale dress and bonnet at Room 42, tied to a suicide behind that door in 1970; and a dark-haired man watching diners from the shadows, tied to the 1911 killings. All three are the operator's. Nothing in our research supports the first two, though no death or coroner record was searched, so they are uncorroborated rather than refuted. The hotel's own history page says nothing about ghosts either way.
Who it suits
People who want a small group and paid after-hours access to a building with a real crime under it, and who will pay four times the cheapest listing in this city's set for it. Ten is the cap, 105 minutes the length, a drink is included, and the whole thing happens at one address rather than across a neighbourhood.
- Not for anyone who needs wheelchair access. The listing is flagged not wheelchair accessible and the stop is upstairs in a 1906 three-storey building.
- Not a walking tour of the city. Both real stops are the same address.
- Age and alcohol are two separate facts: the band opens at 14, and alcoholic beverages are among the inclusions. The listing states no rule joining them, and neither do we.
- Read the rating with its sample: 5.0 across 46 reviews is the smallest base of the four.
How it compares
The denominator is four, the San Francisco ghost products we carry pages for, recomputed against our August 3, 2026 check. This is the priciest at $115, against $55, $28.99 and $26; the smallest cap at 10, against 26, 30 and 35; and the smallest review base at 46, against 931, 313 and 189. It is the only one flagged as likely to sell out, the only one whose listing names an indoor stop, and the only one with a start time on file at any check. It shares its operator with the $55 Chinatown ghost hunt, which is outdoors, wheelchair accessible and capped at 26, a genuinely different product rather than a variant. The others are the $26 Gold and Ghouls tour and the $28.99 San Francisco Ghost Hunt Walking Tour. Our San Francisco page has the rest of the city.
Questions people ask
How long is it, and what time does it start?
One hour 45 minutes at our August 3, 2026 check. The operator's own page says two hours; the listing governs here. Our July 29, 2026 facts pass recorded a listed 8:00 pm start, and no start time came back in the August 1, 2026 pull, so take the departure from the booking page.
Where does it meet, and how many people come?
Right outside Fior d'Italia at 2237 Mason Street, ending back at the same point per our July 29, 2026 facts pass. The posted maximum is 10 travelers at our August 1, 2026 check, the smallest group in this city's set.
Is a drink included, and what is the minimum age?
Alcoholic beverages appear among the listing's inclusions, and our July 29, 2026 facts pass recorded the wording as a cocktail or alternative at the bar stop. Separately, the booking band opens at 14 and runs to 85. No age line in prose was captured at either check and the listing publishes no rule connecting the band to the inclusions, so we print the band and nothing more.
Is the hotel really haunted?
The claim belongs to the operator selling the tour, which names a retired madame associated with Room 33, a girl at Room 42 and a man tied to the 1911 killings. Nothing in our research corroborates the first two, and no death or coroner record was searched, so they stand as uncorroborated rather than disproved. What is documented is the 1911 shooting at a dance beside the hotel bar, which killed Eugenio Basso.
Is it accessible, and can I cancel?
Not wheelchair accessible at our August 1, 2026 check, and the stop is upstairs in a three-storey 1906 building. Stroller access is not stated either way. Free cancellation was flagged on August 3, 2026, and our July 29 facts pass recorded free cancellation up to 24 hours in advance.
