Paul Bradley Carr and Sarah Lacy, who opened the Best Bookstore in Palm Springs in 2022, will open a second store in their other home city, San Francisco. To be dubbed the Best Bookstore in Union Square, the new shop will be part of an urban revitalization project, Vacant to Vibrant, launched by the nonprofit SF New Deal (SFND) and the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD).
V2V is a component of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Heart of the City initiative, which so far has attracted more than $50 million in private sector investments. To encourage independent startups, SFND and OEWD award grants, offer technical support with permitting and red tape, and provide generous leasing arrangements worked out with property owners and managers. “To continue accelerating downtown’s comeback, we are prioritizing safe and clean streets, supporting small businesses, drawing new universities to San Francisco, and activating our public spaces with new parks and entertainment zones,” Mayor Lurie said in a press announcement.
“We are thrilled that the Best Bookstore is moving forward, which means that the mayor will have exceeded his goal of bringing five new Vacant to Vibrant storefronts to the downtown before the end of the year,” said Kate Patterson, OEWD director of external affairs.
The V2V program incentivizes small businesses to rent core retail space and revive a neighborhood that emptied of office workers during the pandemic. “Three quarters of the stores were unoccupied,” Carr said, and Union Square lost institutions such as Alexander Book Company, which shuttered in 2023 after 32 years in business. Now, popular local brands such as Dandelion Chocolate, textile creators Nooworks, taqueria Al Pastor Papi, and clothing store Fibers of Being are popping up in the neighborhood.
Lacy, a writer who works with business authors and spends most of her time in San Francisco, discovered that Union Square was making a comeback when Nintendo opened its second U.S. location there in May. “I hadn’t been downtown in a long time, and I believed the talking points that it was wildly unsafe,” she said. Instead, she found a line around the block for the video game retailer and, while waiting for her teenagers to finish—“they’d be in there for hours”—she needed somewhere to spend time. “I thought, it would be great to have a bookstore right here.”
Carr (The Confessions) often stays in Palm Springs to write and to work at the original Best Bookstore. When his family told him that Union Square was regenerating, he had to see for himself. “There was new energy—they have really walked the walk,” Carr said. “I had to grudgingly admit, to Sarah’s delight, that she was right. Foot traffic is back to where it was pre-pandemic, and small businesses bring back the vibrancy.”
Carr agreed with Lacy that Union Square needed a bookstore. “San Francisco is not short of bookstores, but there’s no general interest independent bookstore in Union Square at all—it’s a 20-minute walk in any direction,” he said. The couple contacted the city with their proposal, and with V2V’s help, they found a storefront on Powell Street just off Union Street, with a 2,000-square-foot main floor plus a downstairs event space.
This week, the Best Bookstore signed a two-year lease, at V2V’s exceptionally appealing terms, to be renegotiated with the landlord at a later date. “When the universe tells you that you can have a bookstore on Union Square at these economics, you go for it,” Carr said. “This gets us off to the races. I want to open by Thanksgiving, because when people come to Union Square to shop for the holidays, they’ll find a bookstore.”
Lacy agreed on a target opening date of November 28. “I have no doubt we can do it,” she said. “I have no idea how many shelves will be assembled or how many books will be alphabetized, but we will be open on Black Friday.”
