- By Greg Wong | Examiner staff writer
- Aug 21, 2023 Updated 54 min ago (SFExaminer.com)
San Francisco’s first Ikea is stocked and ready for customers. The Swedish furniture giant will debut its first couches, media stands, and famous meatballs, starting Wednesday.
For City leaders, its arrival at at 945 Market St. couldn’t come sooner.
Amid a mass exodus of major retailers from downtown’s core, The City is counting on IKEA to be a key catalyst in its economic recovery.
But Ikea is also counting on San Francisco. The new store is part of Ikea’s recent effort to appeal to residents of dense metropolitan areas — selling items fit for tinier rooms and open-space offices — as opposed to their typical sprawling suburban warehouses full of beds, couches and other household furniture.
Ikea has opened similar stores in London, Mumbai and Paris.
The San Francisco store is less than a third of the size of Ikea Emeryville location — one of its two previous Bay Area stores, along with another in East Palo Alto — and will sell roughly 20% of the company’s range of more than 10,000 products.
Ahead of the much anticipated launch, The Examiner took a tour of its multi-floored corridors lined with kitchenware, lighting, futons, curtains, and other products tailored for San Francisco urbanites and “small space living.”
Due to the size of the store, it doesn’t even carry full-sized carts that are as common as cars on a freeway inside Ikea’s normal warehouses. Instead, shoppers can use downsized versions of carts, essentially baskets on wheels.
The store’s three floors, including a basement level, are airy and more free flowing compared to Ikea’s usual endless labyrinth of hallways.
Take a look inside San Francisco’s first Ikea
Get a sneak peak of The City’s brand new Ikea on Market Street.
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A strawberry vanilla frozen yogurt swirl at the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
The Swedish Deli during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
People enjoying frozen yogurt swirls at the Swedish Deli during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
The exterior of Ikea in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Ikea coworkers in the bedroom storage display area during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23. Hej! is Swedish for “hello.”
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
The Malm storage bed during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Cristina Viseu (left) and Ally Chen taking a selfie on a Malm storage bed during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
A room setting during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
A room setting during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
A room setting during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
A room setting during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, August 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Chairs on display during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Sofas on display during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
The Swedish Deli during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, August 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Traditional Swedish meatballs on the left and plant-based Swedish meatballs on the right with Rosti (potato Fritter), gravy and lingonberry sauce at the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Gifflar Buns at the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Plant-based Swedish meatballs during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
Traditional Swedish meatballs during the Ikea preview tour in San Francisco on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023 before it officially opens on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
- Craig Lee/The Examiner
The floors featured a swath of mock-up model rooms, which store employees said were inspired by actual San Francisco residences.
“We really want to bring convenient and affordable solutions to the many San Franciscans that live in the area,” Nele Bouchier, communications officer for Ikea, told The Examiner. “We are always trying to make our stores very locally relevant. Our designers do research about where people live, what their homes look like and what their needs are in the area that we’re operating in. That is what we’re trying to replicate as much as we can in the showrooms.”
She added that many of the employees live close by and gave the store details for how they live and what it looks like inside their homes.
Customers will enter the expansive glass building on Market Street, greeted by a floor of decorative household ornaments, potted green plants and Ikea’s first ever Swedish Bites store, which offers pre-packaged food a la a grab-n-go station.
But the main draw is on the top floor, at Ikea’s Swedish Deli, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. The deli is a blend of Ikea’s two main eateries; its full-sized dining hall and what it calls the “bistro” and the concession where it sells its famed $1 frozen yogurt and hot dogs.
The restaurant is unique from Ikea’s typical dining halls because the space is smaller — the restaurant seats 68 people — the food is served in tinier portions and offers more to-go options for customers that can’t sit and eat a whole meal. The idea, which fits with the store’s larger theme, is to pack as much as it can into a smaller space. The menu features favorites like potatoes, apple cakes, oat crisps, wraps and, yes, Swedish meatballs, including a plant-based option.
Ikea will be the anchor tenant and first retailer to open inside a 250,000-square-foot mixed-use development in Union Square. Ikea’s sister company, Ingka Centres, purchased the six floor complex for $260 million in 2020.
The structure, which Ingka Centres calls a “meeting place” and has yet to be named, will feature a food hall, a co-working space on the top floor, and other retailers. The work space is scheduled to open early next year, while the rest of the complex will open in the spring. It will be one of more than a dozen such complexes worldwide, and the first in the U.S.
“We want to create a place that goes beyond shopping, that is something that resonates beyond well with the local people that live here and work here and create more reasons for them to come and spend a day with us,” Miia Kautovaara, Ingka Centres manager, told The Examiner.
