Fabled toy store to close S.F. doors FAO Schwarz's parent firm trying to avoid bankruptcy

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/25/02 | Jenny Strasburg

[I_Love_My_Husband]

FAO Schwarz's high-profile San Francisco toy store near Union Square will close in early 2003, the manager of the store said Tuesday -- a day after its troubled parent company said it could close as many as 70 stores by late March.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

This is sad news! It's a great store! It always seemed really busy even in the off-season...so I don't understand why it's closing.

And I don't agree with the person in the article who said it's the same as Toys R Us. It has a better quality of toys there at FAO.

[Cicero]

If FAO Schwartz can't make it in San Francisco, it must be in real trouble. Although come to think of it the number of families with children in SF must be way down from what it used to be.

My wife and I often visited the original FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue in New York. I hope they don't close that one too. I must admit that although we loved it as children and often took our children to visit there, we could seldom afford to buy their stuff.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

The TRU in SF was filthy and filled with ghetto/welfare types. They closed. It was really gross.

FAO was filled with a better class of shopper. People on welfare could never afford their toys.

[Consort]

[EggsAckley]

When I was a kid the big Christmas thrill was to go to the 9-story department store called the White House. The building was open in the middle and they always had a Christmas tree the full height of the nine floors. You could look at it from any floor.

The White House is now a parking garage.

[littleleaguemom]

This reporter is misinformed. The San Diego store closed a year ago, along with half of the FAO locations. The only other stores in CA are in Costa Mesa and Los Angeles. I agree the selection was not good except for the unique lifesized stuffed animals.

Zany Brainy is a sad case. Expensive toys that kids don't like. Grandma loved to take my son there but we could never find anything he wanted. It's obvious why they went Chapter 11. Why Right Start bought them I can't imagine.

[Lancey Howard]

A toy store in San Francisco?
What kind of parent would deliberately take a child into San Francisco?

[SuziQ]

Although come to think of it the number of families with children in SF must be way down from what it used to be.

Yep, homosexuals don't tend to have too many kids, from what I understand.

[Timesink]

This is sad news! It's a great store! It always seemed really busy even in the off-season...so I don't understand why it's closing.

There are three reasons:

1) FAO's mindbogglingly insane business plan over the last few years. Their top management sucks.

2) It really does carry largely the same items as an average Toys R Us, except FAO charges full price for everything. And these days, people aren't willing to pay 30-40% more than Toys R Us just for a swanky FAO gift-wrap job. As for the "better quality" toys that they do carry, they tend to be wildly overpriced. $175 for a small teddy bear? Maybe on Fifth Avenue across from the Plaza Hotel, one of the snootiest corners in Manhattan, but it's not gonna fly in the average mall, or San Francisco street.

3) As long as San Francisco - and particularly Union Square - are known more for huge swarms of homeless people who love defecating in the middle of sidewalks, you're going to have problems meeting sales targets.

[stripes1776]

The store's planned closure poses a significant loss for Union Square, which has struggled this year from high commercial-vacancy rates and lower- than-normal spending by its primary moneymaking visitors: shoppers, diners and tourists who stay in hotels.

Tourism is down in San Francisco. Who wants to go to a town where there are agressive homeless bums on every street corner sticking an empy cup in your face? Then there is also the matter of watching where you step to avoid the pools of human urine and piles of feces. The sidewards are literal toilets in that town.

San Francisco is an awful place to visit.

[Timesink]

The TRU in SF was filthy and filled with ghetto/welfare types. They closed. It was really gross. FAO was filled with a better class of shopper. People on welfare could never afford their toys.

Unfortunately, those "better class of shoppers" are also the ones least willing to drag their kids through a sea of thousands of filthy ghetto/welfare types to get inside the snobbish safety of FAO's building. And they're the only ones willing to pay FAO prices.

[Bella_Bru]

Nooooooooo! I love FAO Schwartz!!!! That location in Union Square is the best!

[Bella_Bru]

And what beautiful city do you live in?

[.38sw]

Then there is also the matter of watching where you step to avoid the pools of human urine and piles of feces.

Don't forget the vomit - there's plenty of that, too, particularly in the morning before the merchants a have chance to hose off the sidewalks. I have heard that many of them are using bleach, as well, in an attempt to do a little sanitizing. Ugh.

[retiredtexan]

Refer your 8. For queer san francisco, they were carrying the wrong type of toys.

[L.N. Smithee]

Being a bachelor, I rarely go into toy stores anymore, but when going to FAO, I would think, "Where was this place when I was a kid?"

The only knock I have on FAO is that durn song ("Welcome to our world, welcome to our world, welcome to our world, welcome to our worrrrld of toys")!

[SamAdams76]

I went into an FAO Schwartz a couple years ago in Boston. I must say that I was underwhelmed. While it is clearly a step up from Toy 'R Us (which is a low-class dive that I will never step foot in again), it did not live up to the hype. I get my two boys mostly books, sporting goods and building toys (such as K-Nex) at Christmastime and those items are available on the web.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

I hated that song too!

[American Preservative]

There's no T in SCHWARZ.....and soon, there won't be a T-O-Y in the FAO SCHWARZ store ~ ping! : ) / : (

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Smaller toy stores with smaller, more controllable inventories and storage overhead are going to be the vanguard of the next wave of retailing - especially considering that anything you want is just two days away with a computer and a FedEx box (not to mention that any retailer will be happy to place that order for a small markup).

How do you like that? We've reinvented the mom and pop store, and will probably drive WalMart out of business in 10 years time.