Founded by brothers and former tech executives Dipesh and Manish Gupta, Shashi Hotel was built with Silicon Valley tech workers in mind.
Shashi Hotel officially opened three years ago, in 2021, but it held off on its grand opening until the Covid-19 mandates lifted and business travel picked up again.
With employees returning to their Silicon Valley offices and companies increasing their travel, the time had come to finally mark Shashi Hotel’s opening to the Mountain View business community.
On Thursday, Shashi Hotel held an opening celebration that featured vice-president of culinary operations and Michelin-starred chef Jarad Gallagher to draw a crowd.
"Community is important to us," co-founder and CEO Dipesh Gupta told the Business Journal at the event. "Our goal is to provide the best experience for our guests, and this evening's official grand opening is validation of everyone's hard work. We're here to celebrate."
Shashi Hotel features 200 rooms, two meeting pods, three traditional meeting rooms and three restaurants. The hotel’s indoor and outdoor bar called the Emerald Hour sits in the middle of the ground floor and connects to Spanish restaurant Broma, which is also next to a café named Carte Blanche.
"It feels wonderful to finally open our doors officially after so much planning, prep and execution," Gallagher told the Business Journal. "We've been anticipating this moment for quite awhile."
Its sustainability components include being LEED-Gold-certified, having a quarter of its power from solar, and using a recycled-water system for irrigation purposes.
Its location near Google offices allows it to be one of a handful of options for out- of-towners flying in for a meeting or visiting their techie friends and family members. Through proprietary technology, guests can get a hyper-personalized experience.
Guests can book a room in three clicks, says CEO Dipesh Gupta, without entering their name because of its booking engine’s integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay. They can also choose their room, much like they can choose their flight seat.
The level of control guests have over their stay continues with the ability to pre- select the minibar, move up the check-in time with a simple click, avoid front-desk check-in with a mobile key and control the lighting and temperature in their rooms.
“To me, Shashi Hotel is an illustration of the future of hospitality,” the CEO added. Dipesh and his brother got into the hotel business after recognizing a shortage of hotels in the area and a lot of demand. The pair got their feet wet by becoming franchisees of Marriott-owned Aloft and Nest hotels.
They placed the first Aloft near Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino in 2013. The hotel received national attention in 2014 for adding a robot butler to its staff, first of it’s kind in the country. The brothers added another Aloft in Sunnyvale and San Jose through their corporate entity, Shashi Hospitality Group. They also placed a Nest Hotel in Palo Alto.
But the hotels weren’t meeting a niche need that closely catered to “Silicon Valley and savvy global travelers,” said Gupta, prompting the brothers to create their own lodging.
Shashi Hospitality Group, the brothers’ corporate entity named after their mother, manages the urban-themed hotel. Gupta told the Business Journal that north of $100 million went into the construction. Shashi Group hired Gensler to architect the building, Arcsine and HvA as designers and Davis Reed as the general contractor.
General Manager Justin Rodriguez oversees around 100 staff.
