Just over a year ago, one of San Francisco’s most iconic book stores was repurposed into a movie theater.
The arrangement was nothing more than a projector and a bedsheet, and the moviegoers were the store’s co-owner, his family, and another family in their quarantine pod. But it was the busiest Green Apple Books would be for a very long time — and the store was, technically, closed.
Last year, many “non-essential” retailers scrambled to survive while San Francisco health and safety regulations shut their doors to customers. Meanwhile, the city allowed larger chain stores, like Target, to remain open. As a result, anyone who spent the past year in SF can easily name many restaurants and retailers that have shuttered for good.
It’s an understatement to say that SF retail business owners had a hard year.
No neighborhood was spared as thousands of small businesses went under, and those that remained tried desperately to support their employees who were suddenly without work.
“We’ve never in 52 years of business had to lay anybody off,” said Pete Mulvihill, the aforementioned co-owner of Green Apple Books. “So that was hard, gut-wrenching. Obviously, it was worse for the people who were laid off than it was for me. But just having to tell everybody who works for you that their job is gone, it’s brutal.”
Even as businesses slowly reopened, day-to-day operations posed outsized difficulties for small retailers.
Sanitizing stores required a lot of time, and PPE required a lot of cash. Emptier streets made way for surges in both shoplifting and organized retail crime, not to mention harassment of store employees. Keeping people and properties safe required money many small business owners didn’t have. Some retailers were additionally challenged by the proliferation of parklets. (The outdoor seating is a lifeline for restaurants, but difficult for stores like Cole Hardware with no parking lots and heavy items for sale.)
“The animals won the pandemic!”
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, city-funded employee sick leave reimbursements, tax deadline extensions, and eviction moratoriums relieved some of the pressure on small retailers, but each new program also came with lots of paperwork and anxiety. Employers who used the city’s sick leave reimbursement program, for example, had to pay their employees first, then fill out forms, and hope the city would pay them back. For stores operating on razor-thin profit margins, that’s a nail-biting amount of risk.
So it’s an understatement to say that SF retail business owners had a hard year, and they have every reason to be discouraged by the massive windfalls of big stores that slashed their pandemic profits. But there are also surprising reasons for optimism as the Bay Area reopens and people start shopping more.
For starters, the past year proved that local retailers are nimble enough to serve unique and immediate needs in their communities. Their ability to pivot quickly gives them an edge over behemoth businesses.
“The animals won the pandemic!” That’s Steph Miller, co-owner of Bernal Beast pet supply store, referring to the great “puppy boom” of 2020.
When Steph Miller and Alan Belgard took ownership of the store that April, during shelter-in-place, they started puppy socials on Saturdays. “I had a clipboard with paper and a list–give me your name, give me your email and I’ll send you information. It was 20 pages within the first two months,” said Miller. Bernal Beast now offers six puppy classes and six socials per week.
Similarly, Cole Hardware was able to perform impressive product sourcing gymnastics to find toilet paper when other larger stores had all but run out. Green Apple Books fulfilled online sales amidst San Francisco library closures that left many stuck at home with nothing to read. They did eleven years’ worth of online book sales in just three months.
Many local retailers were additionally buoyed by an outpouring of community support for their businesses, and that support may be here to stay.
Mulvihill, for example, was shocked by requests to add a “Donate” button to Green Apple’s website during their store closure. As more and more people reached out wanting to help, he thought of a design to print on apparel, masks, and other merchandise.
“It’s a green apple that says ‘Stay Home, Read Books,’” said Mulvihill, “and it was the simplest thing in the world…we sold over a thousand t-shirts and sweatshirts and tote bags.”
All of the local retailers I met agreed: the Shop Small movement actually gained momentum in San Francisco over the past year. According to Mulvihill, “when people saw that storefronts were shuttered and things were closed, the shop local message got in their heads.” Small businesses can’t beat larger stores on price, but they stand out in other ways, and their communities took notice when it mattered most.
So despite the challenges of 2020, there’s still a special place for small businesses in San Francisco. And, luckily for us, local retailers still think San Francisco is a special place, too.
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“Pre-pandemic, we could oftentimes hear particularly young people walking by the store with their parents, and stopping and saying, ‘This is my hardware store,’ and bringing their parents in to look around. Just as a way of understanding what part of their relationship to San Francisco is,” said Rick Karp of Cole Hardware.
“We’re always very happy to be part of that.”
