SF Corner Stores That Would Survive a “Bodega” Extinction

A start-up called Bodega recently caused mayhem on Twitter and in the media for trying to put corner stores out of business. The solution? A five-foot-wide pantry box filled with nonperishable items that you can unlock with an app on your phone. The company has made San Francisco its testing lab and already installed a few of these boxes in various locations. For those of you who don’t know, the word “bodega” is a term frequently used on the East Coast to refer to what San Franciscans typically call corner stores.

After the outcry, one of Bodega’s founders, Paul McDonald, wrote a letter to the public explaining that Bodega isn’t actually trying to replace corner stores and that instead the start-up is trying to “bring commerce to places where commerce currently doesn’t exist.” We’re still skeptical, and the imagination is an untamed beast, so it’s hard not to panic over the thought of San Francisco without corner stores. To honor the possibility of that sad reality, here’s a list of San Francisco’s most beloved corner stores (validated by Yelpers) that we hope would survive a mass bodega extinction.

O’Looney’s Market (Lower Haight)