 HOT CHOCOLATE Warm chocolate cake at Citizen Cake at 399 Grove Street
(415-861-2228; www.citizencake.com), where the patisserie, chocolate and coffee are
unrivaled.
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(415-552-4580, www.paoloshoes.com) The whole street was like this. Or rather the whole “valley,” this little demarcation of Hayes Street from Franklin to Laguna, within sight of both City Hall and housing projects. Numerous good things have happened to San Francisco in the wake of its tragic earthquake in 1989. The best-known is that the Embarcadero Freeway fell down and, in a brilliant spurt of urban enlightenment, was not rebuilt. Part of it used to exit into the Hayes Street area, and did as much as anything to keep the neighborhood grim and transient. Now it doesn’t. |
 A FINN-WIN SITUATION Great clothes and great accessories are at Finn at No. 364 (415-861-2888), including brightly appealing Hester Van Eeghen wallets, purses and handbags designed in Amsterdam and made in Italy. |
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hayes craze 1. Paolo Shoes 2. True Sake 3. hufsf 4. Shoppe Unusual 5. Finn 6. Alla Prima 7. Manifesto 8. Flipper’s Burger 9. Citizen Cake 10. Absinthe |
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In its place has come a bursting array of shops and cafes, filling three city blocks and their radials. Store owners who have watched the long, slow renaissance of the neighborhood complain about rising rents. Which means that this is exactly the right time for you, inveterate shopper, to go: not too soon, not too late. Oh, you’re not an “inveterate shopper” who cheerfully, studiously spends mornings and afternoons in the aggressive pursuit of the well-priced, the next-wave, the drop-dead thing? Well, here’s your cover if anyone asks or teases you: Visiting a neighborhood like Hayes Valley is like visiting a museum of contemporary design and manners. You have to shop to understand it fully. |
 NEW JACK CITY Your little skateboarder will be smitten with the news of leading-edge Jack Purcell from Converse and Nike shoes at hufsf at No. 516 (415-552-3820, www.hufsf.com). For shoe-lovers (and isn’t that all of us who are in touch with our inner Carrie Bradshaw?), the whole Valley is a bonanza of styles. |
 FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE! Beau Timken runs America’s best store for the Japanese rice wine at No. 560, True Sake (415-355-9555, www.truesake.com). Don’t know what to purchase? He’ll match your typical taste in wine with a mild or bracing sake. |
| Some highlights: WHO TO TALK TO—Sarah Franko has been in Hayes Valley for a decade at Manifesto at 514 Octavia. She’s seen it all and is happy to share the oral history of the ’hood. Along the way you’ll fall in love with one of her locally tailored bowling shirts, or possibly a supertasteful infant tank top with Billie Holiday stenciled on it. STRENGTH!—It’s an improvident shopper who lets his fuel run low. As we all know, that can lead to decisions we regret later—the hideous thing we did buy, the gorgeous thing we didn’t. I prefer nourishment in this order: a solid training lunch at Flipper’s Gourmet Burger at No. 482 (415-552-8880), possibly taken outside if the weather’s fair; a midafternoon top-it-up at Citizen Cake and cocktails at Absinthe Brasserie and Bar at No. 398 (415-551-1590), where the list runs to three pages but the Celt in me wavers only between the Daedalus and the Bobby Burns. —Duncan Christy |
 NOW THAT’S UNUSUAL! Shoppe Unusual, round a corner at 354 Gough (415-522-2440, www.shoppeunusual.com), stocks the fascinating artisanship of generally Bay Area craftspeople.  MANIFESTO “Haberdashery” takes on a new meaning at Manifesto at 514 Octavia (415-431-4778, www.manifestoclothing.com). |
