Last month, the San Francisco Small Business Commission added Castro mailbox and shipping store P.O. Plus (584 Castro St.) to the city's Legacy Business Registry, which recognizes "longstanding, community-serving businesses" that have established themselves in area neighborhoods for at least three decades.

The Mission-Bernal Big Lots at Mission and 29th Streets has delivered oddball retail joy for decades, but is now boarded up and permanently closed.

Brooklinen, a growing retail chain that promises to “deliver simple, beautiful, high-quality home essentials at a fair price” has opened up a brand new store in Hayes Valley.

The chic menswear designer Todd Snyder New York will be taking over the space at Laguna and Hayes streets vacated last year by b8ta.

In this edition: a hot chicken and ramen restaurant changes concepts to a sushi restaurant and a custom sofa store and medical spa open in the Castro.

Bouncing back from bankruptcy, the once-ubiquitous toy retailer Toys R Us will rear its giraffe head again in San Francisco, inside the Union Square Macy’s store, as early as October 15.

Plants by Rare Device (505 Divisadero), the plant store that opened in November 2021 as Plant House by Rare Device, is closing on Monday, July 18, after just eight months in business.

North Beach may soon be San Francisco’s go-to destination for fans of retro fashions.

Castro residents now have a new source for hanging plants, house plants, and moss baskets.

The longtime owner of the plant shop and nursery, David Gray, says the shop hasn't been profitable for a while. "I'm gonna have to find a job," he says.

After 13 years in the Castro, Trudy's Tattoo Parlor (2275 Market St.) quietly shuttered this month due to pandemic-related financial stresses.

Since opening in North Beach as a pop-up store specializing in Italian language books in 2017, Libreria Pino has outgrown several different locations in the neighborhood.

North Beach is home to what may be the country’s first smartshop, a retail concept born in Europe featuring mushrooms, psychedelic plants, and the like.