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With its grand department stores and funky secondhand boutiques, San Francisco summons a full range of shopping experiences. From the anarchist bookstore to the mouthwatering specialty-food purveyors at the gleaming Ferry Building, the local shopping opportunities reflect the city's various personalities. Visitors with limited time often focus their energies on the high-density Union Square area, where several major department stores tower over big-name boutiques. But if you're keen to find unique local shops, consider moving beyond the square's radius.
Each neighborhood has its own distinctive finds, whether it's 1960s housewares, cheeky stationery, or vintage Levi's. If shopping in San Francisco has a downside, it's that real bargains can be few and far between. Sure, neighborhoods such as the Lower Haight and the Mission have thrift shops and other inexpensive stores, but you won't find many discount outlets in the city, where rents are sky-high and space is at a premium.
Seasonal sales, usually in late January and late July or August, are good opportunities for finding deep discounts on clothing. The San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner advertise sales. For smaller shops, check the free SF Weekly, which can be found on street corners every Wednesday. Sample sales are usually held by individual manufacturers, so check your favorite company's website before visiting.
A local beacon of publishing produces inventively designed fiction, cookbooks, art books, and other titles, as well as postcards, planners, and address books—all of which you can purchase at its home near Oracle Park.
A local favorite with a huge used-book department also carries new books in every field. It's known for its history room and rare-books collection, as well as fiction CDs, DVDs, comic books, and graphic novels.
Windows at this modest-size bookstore frame close-up views of the docks and San Francisco Bay. Commuters snap up magazines by the front door as they rush off to their ferries, and kids browse the Kids' Corner while Ferry Building visitors thumb through the thorough selection of cooking and travel titles. Author events take place several times a month.
This fine bookshop sells current releases, children's titles, and offbeat periodicals. Authors passing through town often make a stop at this neighborhood institution.
This old-school collective, around since 1976, stocks books on anarchist theory and practice, as well as titles about gender issues, radicalism, and various other left-leaning topics. A portion of the revenue supports anarchist projects and the Prisoners Literature Project.
Opened in 1976, one of the city's most beloved independent bookstores resides quietly among the chic fashion boutiques lining Fillmore Street. All ages will find ample choices, from contemporary fiction to children's books to a large selection of Buddhist Dharma literature. The store is owned by Inner Richmond favorite Green Apple Books.
An eclectic group of shoppers wanders the aisles of this pleasantly ramshackle bookstore. The diverse stock is mostly used and unique, including quirky selections like local zines, vintage children's books, and remaindered art books. There are also paintings from local artists on sale.
For full-frontal nerdity in a chic modern setting, visit SF's premier comic book hangout. You'll find a great selection of graphic novels and artwork by popular and local artists, as well as lively after-hours events.
The selection of English-language books about Japanese culture—everything from medieval history to origami instructions—is one of the finest in the country. Kinokuniya is also the city's biggest seller of Japanese-language books. Glossy Asian fashion magazines attract the young and trendy; the manga and anime books and magazines are wildly popular, too.
Love to eat? Love to read? Then this place is paradise. The shelves are bursting with books on growing and cooking food. The store stocks cookbooks on such diverse subjects as the cuisine of colonial Jamaica or 1940s creole cooking. And if you're after a signed first edition by Julia Child or James Beard, you'll find that, too. The shop frequently hosts fun conversations with cookbook authors and chefs.
Architect William Stout began selling books out of his apartment, then opened a Jackson Square store in the mid-1980s, where it remains the definitive source for professionals looking for tomes on architecture, urban planning, and design.
