City : Los Angeles
Where : Hollywood. Sunset blvd, a few minutes drive west of Kodak Theater area
Website : www.standardhotels.com

Thumbs up from me. Also one of my favs, and if I’m in LA on business, I check this place’s availability first. Not because of the chick’quarium in the lobby, nor because of the lack-luster food service at the funky retro-diner on-site, but just because the place has a good vibe to it. Playful, sexy… Hollywood. Luckily on each of my visits, I was never dangled outside the balcony like Johnny Drama (Entourage anyone?), but the pool-side & bar are good looking places.

Rooms are fresh, spacious (even the inexpensive ones!) and typically nice big beds. Bathrooms have playful electric-orange wall to wall ceramics. Some see this and cringe. I see this and smile (and put my shades on). The important thing is that they try. Rather than conform to the dull standard of your average Hampton Inn, they stand-out.

I also like the playfully suggestive labels on their various items… like the fan settings of “slow, hard, harder”, or the keycard that asks you to “slip it in”. Also, be ready to see non-standard people around. Like the one guy who was just standing on his balcony in very unflattering underwear a few rooms over, who just casually gave the “whaddup” nod when we noticed each other that warm May evening. I turned down his offer to share his spliff - how he expected to hand that over I have no idea.

The Standard is anything but.