News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
RETAIL SPACE on Fillmore Street has become among the most desirable in San Francisco, second only to Union Square. Much of the demand comes from national brands finding creative ways around the city’s attempts to curb the proliferation of chain stores. The city defines “formula retail” as companies with 11 or more stores. So major…
“FRESH PERFUME IS THE BEST,” proclaims Meg Christensen, manager of Le Labo, the scent emporium that opened during the holidays at 2238 Fillmore Street. The spare shop has no perfume in stock, but will mix one of its 12 fragrances on the spot while the customer waits. Costs range from $58 for a 15-ml. portion…
Q & A | VASILIOS KINIRIS Zinc Details has turned 20. How did it all begin? I was fresh out of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley and simply had an idea and some very strong feelings. At the university, Wendy Nishimura and I had developed an understanding and…
By CARINA WOUDENBERG Floyd Trammell — whose position as president of the Fillmore Community Benefit District ended when the group was defunded in mid-December — walked the blocks of Fillmore south of Geary on a recent morning and took note of the changes he was seeing in the neighborhood. The sidewalk was littered with plastic…
There’s a welcoming new men’s and women’s boutique on the street, with clubby arrangements of chairs and sofas, record players loaded with vinyl LPs, spineworn books and old framed fashion spreads from Ladies’ Home Journal lining the exposed brick walls. For Ron and Tricia Benitez, the husband and wife couple who own and operate Asmbly…
With minimal fanfare, the barricades have come down and the French-accented fashion boutique Cotelac has opened its 100th retail store at 1930 Fillmore, longtime home of Fillmore Hardware. While the brand of separates and accessories has wide saturation worldwide, especially throughout France and Asia, this is only its fourth store in the U.S., with others…
Gerri Nuval was a pre-med student at San Francisco State, working part time at a little lingerie shop called Victoria’s Secret on Union Street, when she got sick and the doctors told her to slow down. She pushed through the pain and realized she had found what she really wanted to do: “to be around…
Heidi Sabelhaus Myers presides over a small retail empire of three women’s fashion boutiques on Fillmore Street that began as an online venture. As she prepared to celebrate her 10th anniversary, she paused to reflect on Steve Jobs, believing in destiny and a decade of retail on Fillmore Street.
[nggallery id=11] By Barbara Kate Repa While putting the finishing touches on on her new Fillmore store, owner Annie Hurlbut was interrupted often and lovingly by longtime devotees of the Peruvian Connection catalog who welcomed the shop and thanked her for providing its unique designs.
By Barbara Kate Repa Owning her own lingerie shop was quite literally a dream for Beverly Weinkauf. “I actually had a dream about a candy store with large black and white diamonds on the floor,” she says, “and shelves of apothecary jars full of panties.” Then, driving home from the airport one night, she saw…