- By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer
- Apr 4, 2024 Updated 23 hrs ago (SFExaminer.com)
Former sellers from a now-closed vintage and antique emporium in the Mission have found new homes at offshoots of the business in San Francisco and the East Bay.
About two months after Stuff permanently closed its doors at 150 Valencia St. in February, many of its vendors have opened up stalls at new locations in Russian Hill, Albany and Oakland.
“The setup is very similar to the former Stuff, with all of our different vendors curating their own space,” said Ha Kwan, a former Stuff vendor who, with the blessing and help of Stuff’s original co-owners, has opened her own location at 1545 Pacific Ave.
Stuff by LUXE is already a couple of weeks into its soft launch, with a grand opening slated for later this month. Kwan said she brought 19 of the original Stuff’s longtime vendors over to the space with her in the hopes of keeping the store’s magic alive.
“Everybody tells me it’s like walking into the old Stuff, but it’s a more fresh approach,” said Kwan. She painted the building the same bright orange as the old location, and even has the original sign.
“Even our layout in the store is very similar to the old Stuff, with the front counter and then the staircase,” she said.
Another location, Stuff East Bay, run by former Stuff vendors Angelina and Joe Carling in Albany at 619 San Pablo Ave., opened last month.
The original Stuff opened in 2011, quickly becoming a hot spot for customers searching for everything from crystal stemware to Raggedy Ann dolls and art deco clocks. For more than a year before its closure, co-owners and married couple James Spinello and Will Lenker, were in constant negotiations with their landlord about a rent hike.
Spinello told The Examiner in an earlier interview that their landlord had planned to raise rent by up to 40% more than the $25,000 a month they paid at the time.
Despite trying to find alternative solutions, even considering buying the building altogether, the couple said goodbye to their beloved business and have since moved to Hawaii. They said they are pleased that their sellers are continuing on thanks to Kwan and the Carlings.
“I feel 100% that they are wonderful and that they will do great with the business,” Spinello told The Examiner on Wednesday.
Before moving, Spinello said he spent time with Kwan and the Carlings helping them set up their own stores. He recalled scouting locations for them, sharing advice on what they should pay in rent and providing general encouragement.
“They’re really doing it on their own,” he said. “But they took our knowledge and experience and listened very closely.”
While Stuff by Luxe stays true to the spirit of the old location, Kwan said she has made some adjustments. Her layout looks more like a showroom, focusing on home goods and furniture rather thant the vintage clothes, jewelry and random tchotchkes that customers often found at the original.
Even with the changes, Kwan said that the response from the new neighborhood and their longtime shoppers has been resoundingly positive.
“A lot of [old customers] have been by and they’ve found that it’s amazing,” she said. “I’ve only gotten really rave reviews from them.”
Her sellers, like veteran Daniel Lewbin, said they have settled into the new location as well. Lewbin, who said he was one of the original Stuff’s first vendors, has split his time between Stuff by LUXE and Narrative Oakland, a vintage and antique collective at 560 2nd St. in Oakland, alongside around 11 other former Stuff sellers. Lewbin said that the spirit of the old store is there, too.
“I think it’s taken it to another whole level,” he said. “It’s just beautiful.”
Narrative’s owner, Vanessa Murray, wasn’t affiliated with the original Stuff but ran in the same circles of vintage sellers in the Bay Area. She said she wanted to open a larger collective for several years, and her opening just coincided with Stuff closing.
“When they announced their closure, we kind of started hearing about the lease negotiation,” she said. “We went, ‘Oh, well, we’ll have a home for a lot of them over here, and we have plenty of room.’”
Spinello said he was grateful to hear of Murray’s plans when he first announced the possibility of closure around two years ago.
“It actually warmed my heart to learn that there was another space for the vendors to go to,” he said. “That was our main concern as we were closing down — I wanted to make sure that our vendors were taken care of.”
Narrative had its soft opening Monday, with a grand opening scheduled for Friday and Saturday with wine from Berkeley-based Covenant Winery and a local DJ.
As for Kwan, she said now has a wait list of vendors for her location on Pacific Ave. Once she can expand to the rest of the building, she said she will bring them into the fold.
“We’ll be close to the size of the original Stuff when that happens,” she said.
