12 posts tagged “530 castro street”
The oft-closed, oft-opened, serial crazy-person's-estate-sale has reincarnated as a Tibetan import shop, as rumored. The new store is named Dolma, which I'm supposing has some meaning other than tasty grape-leaf-wrapped hors d'oeuvre. It's great that the place didn't stand empty long, but on the downside it basically looks exactly like the last store before it, with a window crowded with as much merchandise as possible. (Apparently Walgreens' window dresser is moonlighting.)
There are the customary prayer flags up front, which is the universal sign that either this is a Tibetan goods shop, or else perhaps a really sincere college sophomore lives here. One or the other.
One more thing to note is that there is no permanent sign yet. The only signs are computer printed sheets of 8.5 by 11 paper (two of them!) and scrawled on them is ... oh cripes. Look at this!
The store has been open a week and already everything is 25% to 30% off? Forget asbestos -- can they check the walls of this store for crazy dust?
The long-touted closing of the rummage sale at 530 Castro Street has finally come to pass. Saturday was their last day, and by Sunday the place was empty and the tile floor (or what was left of it) was being scraped up. Butcher paper is up in the windows now, and bets are being taken on what is coming next. History would suggest another crazy-aunt's-parlor-inspired variety shop, but I'm hoping that this high-traffic, high-visibility spot will get a more viable tenant.
I've posted before and again about the supposed imminent shuttering of the flea market at 530 Castro Street. They promised us a June 15 closing, but with a touch of yellow reflective tape they've now postponed the closure to June 30. They've continued to evolve away from their origin as a poster stand and now have a product mix that is somewhere between a Pier One and a head shop. I guess it's at least one fewer empty storefront for Pride weekend, but still, when can we get a "real" store in here?
A wrap-up of small items that have been knocking around my camera's memory card for a few weeks now:
- Razors has been open and razoring away for a couple weeks now. This is the former location of ENZI salon, which is now up the street a couple blocks. I'm told that the owner of Razors used to be at Joe's Barbershop before deciding to strike out on his own.
- The perpetual garage sale at 530 Castro Street -- only the name seems to change, and did the latest incarnation even have a name? -- has sharpied an update on its "Closing soon" sign that the end is coming "June 15th or Soon" (sic). Note that I first reported this eminent closing back in freakin' April, so "soon" is a relative term for these people.
- Remember the grease fire at All-Season Sushi & Bar (or as we called it, "All Season Sushi Bar and Grill")? A quick peak inside the place reveals that much more is going on in there than repairs to the kitchen. It seems that a full remodel is underway. This photo is from a couple weeks ago:
- The Cove cafe is entering the late-night food market by staying open until 2 on Friday and Saturday night. They still aren't taking reservations for the high-visibility, window-side "attention-whore" booths though, so be prepared to wait.
- Bazouzi market and deli at the corner of 18th and Eureka has posted a notice announcing a change of ownership. I'm told that the couple who own the place have finally decided to retire. According to the posted announcement, the new owners are renaming the place Adorabella's, which is further evidence that all good store names are taken.
- A sign up at Off the Beading Path at 18th and Douglass (and nextdoor to the new location of ENZI) advertises a store-wide liquidation sale. I don't know if this is an indication that the owner is picking up his beads and going home -- or possibly to Fisherman's Wharf where he recently opened another store -- but generally store-wide 25-50% discounts are not signs of a bright future.
- I wrote about the changes over at the-cafe-formerly-known-as-Philz, but at the time had forgotten the new name. Well, the building is repainted now and the new sign is up. Welcome Bean Here, Brew That!. (ref. My comments above about the name Adorabella's)
Some recent changes in signage in the Castrohood:
- SF MUNI has installed these new signs in the Castro underground station, and judging from the comments people have already been left, a lot of you don't like them. I actually like the font and the use of lowercase for the header words "castro" and "outbound," but the "Boarding Zone" looks like it was designed by an entirely different committee.
I wish they had installed signs like the ones that they have on train platforms in Japan, which give the names of the next station in either direction. Here's an example which I took from jpellgen's Flickr stream:
Not that our train system is so complicated, but when you are riding an unfamiliar line it is very comforting to know where you are headed next.
- And speaking of signs, DeLano's IGA has finally removed the outside Cala signs are replaced them with the new name:
Signs on the inside of the store have also been updated.
- Probably the best sign I've seen in a while is in the window of the yard-sale-like store which occupies the space which was Lot'sa Stuff which was Browser's Nook. According to signs in the window, right after the "big sale" this retail melange is "closing soon."
Although the store started out with a specialty in posters, its stock has been evolving and now funky peasant handbags, colorful scarves, and huge nativist wood carvings (no joke) fill the window. What is it about this space that only attracts these crazy, thrift-shop, do-it-yourself stores?
So a reader had chastised me for never "officially" announcing that the Lot'sa Stuff flea market (nee Browser's Nook) had closed and was cleared out, but before I could snap a picture, look what sprang up toadstool-like in its place:
Yet another hodgepodge of decorative offal. This time, the rummage sale has a theme (well, other than "gypsy encampment that takes credit cards") as the space is filled with stacks and stacks of posters covering every horizontal surface. I poked my head in, and the place seems to stock items worthy of your favorite freshman's dormrooms wall. I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll fine "Persistance of Memory," "Starry Night," or "The Kiss."
(And just so I don't come off as so superior, I'll admit that as a freshman I bought "Christina's World," which, now that I look at it, damn that's gay!)
Lot'sa Stuff, the store-cum-rummage sale on Castro Street where Browser's Nook used to be, has posted signs which indicate that, like a comet or Marilyn Monroe, its radiant streak across the Castro sky was bright but short-lived (and possibly on heroin). The above sign went up during the past week, and a new one graced it this weekend which proclaimed, "LAST DAY." Additionally, the piles of eponymous "stuff" in the store have thinned out considerably, and the place looks like it is emptying out again in preparation for a new, real tenant.
I shouldn't pick on these people and their dream so much, but the place really was a mess. I went in once to look at the book rack and was driven out by the overwhelming musk of dank mixed with bad life decisions. It was pretty amazing how they could take an empty, cleaned out space, and make it seem like it had been the home of mouldering piles of flotsam for generations, all within a week's time.
So we're back to the guessing game of what will move into this space. There isn't any sort of zoning which requires the business here to be random crap piled on ding'ed up furniture, does it?
I know I seem obsessed with the shop that sprouted toadstool-like in the spot where Browser's Nook was, but I can't help cringing at the missed possibilities there. Well, it seems that the former signage that went up was mostly correct, and the store is named Lotsa Stuff.
The name was on the first computer-printed signs, and it was confirmed on the hand-written sign posted to the right of the door in the photo above, except minus the extraneous apostrophe that had been between the "lot" and "sa." The big signs still trumpet "Collectibles" and "Antiques" but the hand-written sign concedes that the store also serves as a "flea market" of sorts.
Boding well for the life of the store, this ghastly four-foot statue in the window was already proudly proclaiming its status as "SOLD." I knew that statues prominently displaying boy-parts sell well in this neighborhood, but the speed of this sale surprised even me. Thank goodness it sold before another neighbor with small children demanded a tasteful kilt to be fitted over the statue's privates.
Note that the rental sign is also still up, giving hope that this is just a way for the landlord to clear out his basement while looking for a less musty tenant.
Update: The hand-written sign has changed, and the wayward apostrophe is back. So I guess the name is back to "Lot'sa Stuff".
The former Browser's Nook continues to fill up with detritus treasures, but sadly last week someone smashed the glass pane next to its front door. At first I thought it was another Halloween decoration, and fortunately it didn't break all of the way through the window.
I don't know the cause of the window-smashing, but I refuse to believe it was a robbery attempt because, well, have you seen the piles of flotsam in that place? It could have been a homeless guy with a rock, but I prefer to think that my blog has whipped roving bands of Castro gays into a frenzy, driving them to random acts of editorializing on the state of what passes for an antique in this town.
So, time for another update on the site formerly inhabited by Browser's Nook. As I mentioned, signs have gone up and a scene which I called reminiscent of "All in the Family" has appeared in the window.
Well, as more stuff has moved into the store, it seems that the comparison to a sitcom set was fairly apt. There now appears to be scenery left over from a high school theater production in the store, as well as random old furniture, bits of lamps and household items, and, well, trash.
Here's a close-up of a half-crushed can of Safeway Select diet Dr. Skipper on the floor, right smack dab in the middle of the window. Nice.
Also on the windows are more and larger signs, some of them even from a computer printer! The largest sign proclaims "LOT'SA (sic) STUFF" which frankly is seeming more and more like a threat.
