Mission Mission

But instead of candy inside, these pinatas are just full of hot air.  BA-DUM-BUM-TISHHHHHHHH

(Thanks Laurie!)

Capp Street Crap just published a great story on Marian’s, a longtime neighborhood institution:

Jutting from metal trays atop a display case at Marian’s Apparel, the longtime clothing boutique near gritty 16th and Mission streets, are hundreds of yellow paper cards handwritten with customers’ names, addresses and account balances.

A holdover from the days before department store credit cards, the old school but increasingly challenging account management system may soon go by the wayside. Lately, store owner Joe Anker has been wondering whether the same thing ought to happen to Marian’s too.

Marian’s gave up one of its two storefronts around the beginning of the year because a family member of the landlord’s wants to open a Vietnamese restaurant there. When business was at its best around 2000, Marian’s carried more than double the number of accounts for its mostly Latino and middle-aged clientele. Customers would come in two or three times a month, pay on what they owed, and buy more, Anker said.

Read on for lots more.

[Photo by Google Maps]

Corner of 24th and Treat! And apparently Hollywood superstar Eric Stoltz was hanging out there!

(Thanks, Cynthia!)

Capp Street Crap reports:

Owner Leef Smith said he decided to look for a new space after their 20th Street landlord wouldn’t agree to anything more than a new short-term lease renegotiated every couple of years.

As a small business owner in a pricey real estate market, the lack of long-term security was scary, and Smith thought he “could do better than that.”

“It definitely felt like I had to be proactive and not rely on the whims of a landlord,” he said.

Mission: Comics & Art’s new store will be at 2250 Mission between 18th and 19th streets, in what used to be Vimy Electronics. After nearly 40 years in business, the couple that owned the electronics store wanted to retire, Smith said. A contractor is now working to modernize the 1970s era space.

Read on.

[Photo by Wordfury]

Wow, has it really been two years already?

The Adobe Books and Arts Cooperative has been an amazing adventure, thanks for joining us on the journey. We need your help to continue to stay open and to thrive. Join us on July 24th and raise a glass to a wondrous creature known as Adobe Books, and to learn more about how you can get involved by joining the co-op.

There’ll be art from the staff, music, and treats from Tartine!  Check out all the details here.

Previously:

• How to celebrate an anniversary

While I don’t think this news factored at all in their decision to abandon plans to open a store in the old Adobe Books location, it’s still kind of funny.

After just two years on the market, Kate Spade Saturday — Kate Spade‘s lower-priced, more casual offshoot — is closing all 19 of its stores. Jack Spade, Kate Spade & Company’s 22-year-old menswear brand, is also shuttering all 12 of its stores. Stores will close gradually over the first half of 2015, and Kate Spade Saturday’s e-commerce site will remain active during that time.

[Link, Photo]

(Thanks Raun!)

Timbuk2 have been pumping bags out of their Mission factory for 25 years, and tomorrow night they officially open their Factory Store to the public, on the corner of Shotwell and 20th Street. The free party starts at 6pm and features fine entertainment like a Skeeball Tournament (from Joey The Cat), a live Polka cover band called Polkalicious, local beer, drunk factory tours, raffles, discounted stuff and way more!

While this is a free event you do need to RSVP on facebook to get in, so go to the event page to do that.

Well, this is some GRAND news!  Instead of having to close their doors for good in May as they previously feared, they’re going full Voltron:

First, Lost Weekend, in partnership with Oakland’s 1234Go! Records, will be relaunching the Valencia Street location on April 18th (Record Store Day 2015) as a new video store/record store hybrid, ready to serve all of your physical media needs. VHS, DVD, cassettes & vinyl – all in one place – with an expanded staff of enthusiastic fans ready to recommend the best in new or classic music & film.

A little bit of Oakland is just what the Mission needs right now!

Read on for the rest of the plot.

(Thanks Andy!)

Sneaking peeks into The Shop Barbershop from inside Dirty Pigeon Clothing, at the corner of Potrero and 24th. They have been around since 2013, but I finally made my way in to see their well-designed hoodies, shirts, starter jackets and hats with cool pigeons on them.  Mission Local did a brief interview with shop owner Ron Perez, which you can check out here for more info on/photos of the shop. Or just go and visit the shop for yourself.

From the Borderlands blog, here’s the deal:

In November, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a measure that will increase the minimum wage within the city to $15 per hour by 2018.  Although all of us at Borderlands support the concept of a living wage in principal and we believe that it’s possible that the new law will be good for San Francisco — Borderlands Books as it exists is not a financially viable business if subject to that minimum wage. Consequently we will be closing our doors no later than March 31st.  The cafe will continue to operate until at least the end of this year.

Many businesses can make adjustments to allow for increased wages.  The cafe side of Borderlands, for example, should have no difficulty at all.  Viability is simply a matter of increasing prices.  And, since all the other cafes in the city will be under the same pressure, all the prices will float upwards.  But books are a special case because the price is set by the publisher and printed on the book.  Furthermore, for years part of the challenge for brick-and-mortar bookstores is that companies like Amazon.com have made it difficult to get people to pay retail prices.  So it is inconceivable to adjust our prices upwards to cover increased wages.

Just can’t win. Read on for more of the story.

(Thanks, Jeremy.)

[Photo by Google Maps]