PLEASE is a San Francisco strategic hospitality firm that unlocks latent commercial real estate value through the development and operation of successful hospitality ventures.

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Founded by Philip Spiegel, a third-generation San Franciscan and veteran hospitality executive, PLEASE develops and operates high-performing restaurants, event venues, business centers, and destination gathering spaces inside premium commercial real estate assets. The firm’s work sits at the intersection of hospitality, leasing strategy, placemaking, and asset value creation — a particularly urgent discipline in a city where the old office model no longer sells itself.

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Spiegel is the vision and operating force behind The Conservatory at One Sansome and the adjoining Holbrook House, the landmark Financial District project created in partnership with PGIM Real Estate and Barker Pacific Group. Through a $25 million renovation, One Sansome Street — long one of downtown San Francisco’s architectural jewels — was reintroduced as a layered hospitality destination: The Conservatory, a singular historic event venue; Holbrook House, an opulent but approachable bar and restaurant; and the Conservatory Business Park, a full-service business center designed for the new era of work.

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Three years in, the project has become one of downtown San Francisco’s clearest case studies in post-pandemic reinvention — a place where office, dining, events, and civic theater meet under one spectacular roof.

That model did not emerge by accident. Before founding PLEASE, Spiegel spent more than a decade in the upper echelon of San Francisco’s high-stakes hospitality industry as the key business architect and operational force behind Merchants Exchange Productions, the Clint Reilly-backed platform responsible for iconic properties including the Julia Morgan Ballroom, the Merchants Exchange Club, and Credo Restaurant.

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PLEASE is now applying that playbook at greater scale. In early 2027, via a partnership with Presidio Bay Ventures, the firm will open a new penthouse restaurant and event space at 88 Spear Street, a 14-story trophy building undergoing a $100 million transformation into an “office resort.” At the top of that redevelopment, Spiegel and PLEASE will bring the Holbrook House north star — opulent but approachable — to a new destination designed to anchor the next chapter of San Francisco’s downtown revival.

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In a city still arguing over the future of work, PLEASE is making a more practical wager: the future belongs to buildings with the strongest pulse