{"id":1507,"date":"2011-10-11T20:02:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T10:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2013-12-29T17:41:18","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T07:41:18","slug":"san-francisco-2011-part-2-shopping-haight-downtown-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=1507","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco 2011 part #2 – Shopping – Haight, Downtown SF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haight<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haight is one of those suburbs that has a young creative vibe and a slew of quirky shops to match. Sure, you cant swing a stick without knocking the fake glasses or beanie off the -back- of some hipster kid’s head but in general it has the eats of West End<\/strong> and the boutique shopping of the Valley\/New Farm <\/strong>in Brisbane<\/strong>. If you’re heading out early (re: before midday) pop into one of the many cafes on Haight St. Most seemed pretty busy so you may be in for a short wait if you’re after a table.<\/p>\n

The People’s Caf\u00e9 <\/strong>was right near the bus stop so it was an easy choice \ud83d\ude09 Food was quite good, reasonably fast turn around even if the service was a bit average, free WiFi more than likely makes up for it for most people. Judging from recent Yelp<\/a> reviews this place has since closed, possibly rebirthed under a different guise?<\/p>\n

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Bellies full it was time to burn some Greenbacks, starting at the Masonic Ave <\/strong>end of Haight st…<\/p>\n

Stussy<\/a> – one of the larger stores we’ve come across but nothing out of the ordinary for the range. They did have a clearance rack with some old school Stussy designs though. Seeing their Stussy “Peace Dollar” vinyl figures on display in all forms of disrepair and missing pieces gave me the warm and fuzzies knowing I had a mint one waiting for me from my LA haul \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Super 7<\/p><\/div>\n

Super 7<\/a> – local designers obsessed with Star Wars<\/strong> and Anime, they have a good range of their own shirt designs and a small range of toys and books. Shirts are overpriced but there are some fun original designs like the “Weapons of mass destruction” that has a bunch of space ships and vehicles from movies like Star Wars, Tron, Battlestar Galactica<\/strong> etc. Toys and collectibles also fetch a premium, a few odd pieces may have deserved the extra tax but Kidrobot<\/strong> items not so much since the KR store is just across the road.<\/p>\n

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Super 7<\/p><\/div>\n

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True Sole<\/p><\/div>\n

True<\/a> (Sole) – set up like a clearance store, they had some of the cheapest new release sneakers we saw in California with a good $10-20 less than regular retail prices. They also had older models on clearance, just cross your fingers they have your size. There’s also a small selection of clothing and accessories.<\/p>\n

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California Surplus<\/p><\/div>\n

California Surplus<\/a> – Listed as the sister store to the one in LA, this one was mostly focused on the surplus side of things rather than the work wear. They still had a small selection and thanks to a misjudgment on clothing for the day, a pair of overpriced Dickies pants were a life saver.<\/p>\n

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Shoe Biz II<\/p><\/div>\n

Shoebiz<\/a> II – This second store leans more towards the sneaker niche market. A few rarities along with clearance items on footwear and clothing. This was the only place at the time that I saw the Nike Air Vengeance<\/strong>‘s in “maize”, didn’t have to tell me twice \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Shoebiz 1 – Caters more towards women’s shoes and boots, plenty of stock but you will have to battle a thousand other women as it didn’t seem like there was a time it wasn’t packed.<\/p>\n

Adidas Originals<\/a> – up the Willy Wonker glass elevator from Shoebiz 1 is a small selection of Originals gear leaning towards the more outlandish designs and colours. The clearance bin is always a welcoming sign and this one had an out of production Adicolor jacket for $40USD *yoink* along with some sneakers and a few other bits and pieces. If you’re looking for range you’re better off heading to the Adidas store in the Westfield<\/strong> in the city.<\/p>\n

Kidrobot<\/a> – pretty much the same as the LA store apart from a couple older Michael Lau figures. More fuzzies when I notice they were selling for $150-200, 10 times what I paid for mine \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Loyal Army<\/p><\/div>\n

Loyal Army<\/a> – and then there was one. This is their only retail store left now, not in short due to a decline in their designs from cute and kitschy to trying too hard to be “now”. In saying that there was plenty of multi-buys and clearance items to be had.<\/p>\n

FTC skate<\/a> – renowned for knowledgeable and friendly staff, this is a good sized store with decent range of all things skate related.<\/p>\n

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Amoeba Music<\/p><\/div>\n

Amoeba Music<\/a> – Not having time to make it to the one in LA I was really looking forward to popping in here, and it didn’t disappoint. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling of music. Its what iTunes would look like if it was a real store, just with less thieves and a more user friendly environment \ud83d\ude09 It took well over an hour just to paw through the electronic music and hiphop (with a quick detour through punk) for a yield of about 35 cds, so make sure you put aside the right amount of time proportioned to your musical appetite.
\nSince these cds were going to be shipped back with the bulk of our haul, I stripped the cases to save some weight. The guys were only too happy to take the empty cases back (:<\/p>\n

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Downtown<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two major stops for the downtown area were the Westfield<\/a> and Nike Flagship<\/strong> store. The Westfield was unfortunately a fruitless experience even with Champs, Footlocker, Vans and Lids on the directory save a store exclusive track jacket from the multi-level Adidas<\/strong> store. A couple doors down at Shiekh’s<\/a> had a much better result with a large range of clearance items and new range footwear and clothing, easily one of their bigger stores too. Jordan Rare Airs <\/strong>were a steal at $60USD.<\/p>\n

The Nike Flagship <\/strong>store, while in all intent and purposes was very similar to just about every other one in other cities fell short because of this. If you’ve been to one you’ve been to them all as the stock was almost identical to that in LA.<\/p>\n

Next up we head to the two (little)lands of the orient, Japantown and Chinatown.<\/p>\n

Milpitas 2011 – Great Mall<\/a>
\nYosemite 2011 part #1 – LA to Oakhurst via Bakersfield<\/a>
\nYosemite 2011 part #2 – Yosemite National Park<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #1 – Arrival<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #2 – Shopping – Haight, Downtown SF<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #3 – Chinatown<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #4 – Japantown<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #5 – Alcatraz<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #6 – Fisherman’s wharf, Golden Gate Bridge<\/a><\/p>\n

Complete Yosemite 2011 photo gallery here<\/a>
\nComplete San Francisco 2011 photo gallery here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haight Haight is one of those suburbs that has a young creative vibe and a slew of quirky shops to match. Sure, you cant swing a stick without knocking the fake glasses or beanie off the -back- of some hipster kid’s head but in general it has the eats of West End and the boutique […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1319,388],"tags":[1006,181,1350,1341,767,1346,439,638,119,1127,438,1352,619,1349,1340,487,122,583,195,179,1348,525,1313,1328,1288,1312,1347,990,1293,521,183,1345,100,1342,1343,2774,391,1344,78,1351,1305,444,1285],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4227,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/4227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}