Categories: Shopping; Geek

Curious and curiouser - a weirdo's guide to San Francisco's strangest shops

By Juliette
updated about 1 month ago

Do you have people in your life you'd call "impossible to shop for"? Those people who are just so damn specific because they hate everything except for like, two things in the entire universe, and you have no idea what those things are, so when their birthdays come around, you're like ugh what the hell.

Or, was there ever something missing in your life and you didn't know what it was because that big gaping hole in your heart knows no name, and it's entire non-being-ness is like this creepy desire being constantly displaced and you're like if I just knew the one thing missing in my life I could bridge that figurative abyss???

Well, I was both of those things. First of all, I had this friend who I had to send a birthday present to, and I didn't know what to get him, but then one day I was walking in the Mission and I saw this store called the Pirate Supply Store that only sold weird pirate stuff. Among those things were a bucket of lard. Hellloooooooooooo ker-ching. I totally bought him some lard and he loved it!!

Then, as I was leaving the store, I noticed next door, a place called Paxton Gate. It was a taxidermy store. I realized, once and for all, that big chasm I had lived with my entire name, that desire which could not be named. I needed some taxidermy in my life, and immediately began to collect dead, stuffed animals. At the lovely birth of my beloved collection, my feelings of loss immediately dissipated, and in its place was the warmth of knowing that taxidermy kept me from killing myself - or if that sounds dramatic, then at least it kept me out of jail.

Paxton Gate

824 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

LOVE TAXIDERMY THE WAY I LOVE AIR AND THE SOUL SUSTENANCE OF POETRY! Seriously. Where was I all my life without Paxton Gate? Beware that this is an expensive hobby so if you decide to collect, you need to put aside some serious cash. In my case, as I’m perpetually short of cash, I basically stop eating and spend that grocery money instead on things like my new formaldehyde shark named Alice. Want to hear about my collection? It’s just a baby collection, but I have pieces I am proud of, including Alice, a tarantula (Simone de Beauvoir), a bat (Batty Poo), a mouse with wings (Ho Chi Minh), a blowfish (Puff Daddy), and an embalmed chicken foot (that has no name). Just six things. But I’m starting my collection and I’m proud of it, and the next piece I get will be something like deer antlers or something cool that I can mount on my wall.

Honestly, Paxton Gate is the best thing that ever happened to me. They sell lots of weird stuff there, from insects (they have classes where they teach you how to mount your own insects), to animals (they have a lion, a huge boar, lots of exotic species including a leopard, which cost thousands of dollars and I can just oggle at), artwork, weird dried plants, entire sets of skeletons (I am saving up to get the chicken skeleton in a glass case), books, tea & candles & weird shit you find at an apothecary store, and art. By art I mean they sell both traditional art like photographs and paintings (of weird subject matter, of course, such as medical photographs of people with elefantitis) AND taxidermy art, like mice dressed up as famous people, or weasel skeletons in cool outfits. I love this one mouse called “She’s a Lady!” that is dressed up in drag. I also love the “Punk” which is a mouse with a mohawk. These are real mice that have been taxidermied, FYI, so they are really one of a kind. If you want it, get it before someone else does. Or you’ll be kicking yourself for the rest of your life

BellJar

3187 16th Street San Francisco, CA 94110

Beauty beauty beauty. It’s offered in BellJar for free, but if you want to take it home with you, you gotta pay that fat cash. I’d make it rain here anyday though, as everything in this shop just resonates quaint, bohemian, San Franciscan charm. You will find nothing in here you need in your life. Yet you will want to have everything in here because you are a greedy little magpie and shiny things like the stuffed peacock in the front window display which I want so bad I could punch a hole in the window and steal it outta there.

This store is a pleasure to be in. It’s your basic boutique that sells clothes, jewelry, and handbags, but also home decor, art, and knick knacks. I’d akin it to something like Anthropologie, in independently-run, boutique form. It has that same sort of upscale shabby chic aesthetic. The owner’s name is Sasha and she’s a sweetiepoo. Everything in here is carefully selected for its quirky j’en sais quoi and, for sure, it’s now one of my favorite places to windowshop in SF.

It’s so ironic this place is on 16th Street, because just wander down a block and you’re literally in a sea of crackheads. These crackheads will scream things at you like “When life hands you lemons, I have a big dick!” which will make you run to Valencia and into BellJar, the desert oasis. God, I love those crackheads.

Double Punch

1821 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA 94133

A toy store for adults! But not the kind of toy store that sells sex toys. This is an innocent fun kinda store that kids would love too, but I think adults would love even more. Double Punch sells legit toys that engage adult minds, and has millions of usefully useless things, mostly out of Japan (like stuffed ninjas), and tons of anime. Yay!

Some of my favorites are the “Sonny Angel Pig Style” which is essentially a naked baby with a pig hat on, in a jar. Seal stickers in a jar! Love that too! What’s with all these things in a jar! I want everything!! Know what I also want? Besides everything? These Bear mittens which have fake fabric claws, and you can even order the ones with the claws that have blood on them, yippeeeeeee.

This store is literally the only thing good about North Beach. I seriously hate North Beach. My boyfriend lives there and I think we’re going to break up because I refuse to go to his house because North Beach traumatizes me so much. It’s not the sex shops that freak me out. I like a healthy dose of slimey. It’s the weird sorority girl type outdoor cafes all over the place that scare me. Luckily, Double Punch exists to remind me that there are good things in North Beach, albeit few. Like this adorable stuffed mustache that has it’s own eyes sewn onto it. Amazing. I want to curl up next to that everynight.

This place also sells great art and moonlights as a place that has artshows and stuff at night. I could live in this store. Let me let me let me.

The Curiosity Shoppe

855 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110

Weird shit abounds here. They have an entire section of wooden mustaches on sticks… weird purses… weird plastic vegetables with eyes on them. My favorite thing is this phone handset, which is shaped like the curved earpiece of an old school telephone, that you plug into your cell phone, so that you can be chatting on your cell phone like it’s a regular phone (okay this is confusing, and I have no idea how to describe it, but it’s COOL!)

The owners sell independent little crafts from local artists, which is awesome, bc San Franciscans are hella weird and have lots to offer in the bizarre crafts department. The downside is it’s hecka expensive, like a wooden mustache will cost you $50. Wut in de hell? If you grew up in the 70s you’ll love this place though, bc it’s really retro and from people I’ve talked to who have indeed grown up in the 70s, it reminds them of childhood, which I guess is good, if they’re buying the stuff, cuz I guess that puts them at like being in their 40s and 50s and I guess people who are that old make more money than I do at 22. I mean, I grew up in the 90s, so maybe I’m less prone to spend a ton of cash on a paint-by-numbers kit.

What else. What else. OH! They have a huge wall of concert posters for the Fillmore which is cool. You can buy them. They’re also expensive. So are the crocheted octopuses which I covet like a bag of gold. Ahhh! Curse the day I chose to be a writer and not an investment banker. Or a founder of my own web 2.0 startup. Gimme some of that internet monies!

826 Valencia

826 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

This is THE pirate supply store. I don’t know exactly how to describe 876 Valencia to you in a way that will make sense unless you’ve been there. It’s a store that takes itself completely seriously, selling things you might need should the year be 1592 and you be sailing the ocean blue for the first time, perhaps for Portugal (ahh, that last year Portugal was relevant…), and like, you needed things like a bucket full of lard.

The website also has a “Store Log,” which tells it how it is. It’s really funny. March 20, 2008: “A woman just put her baby in the vat. The baby remained in the vat for three minutes.There is subsequently a lot of sand now on the floor.I am angry and amused.”

The Pirate Store also promotes kids learning how to read, which I totally support. Yay! They do tons of cool lessons, like how to be a pirate (these lectures can be found on the website), and also run a tutoring service for kids, which – for all you volunteers out there – can be applied for online.

Oh, did I mention this is the brainchild of Dave Eggers? He created the store and runs it as not only a pirate store, but as a magazine/publishing house. Things get curioser and curioser. It’s technically MCSWEENEY’S pirate store. Bah! I’m so confused!