Looking for a locally-owned business to shop at?

Use our search engine to find locally owned business near you!

Read the SF Chronicle editorial in support of Shopping Local!

click here

Don’t see your favorite SF business?

click here to see how you can help us.

SFLOMA MISSION STATEMENT

“The San Francisco Locally Owned Merchant Alliance (SFLOMA) endeavors to identify and promote locally owned retail businesses in San Francisco. Our goal is to educate and inform residents of and visitors to San Francisco of the positive economic impact on the community and the value to the individual of shopping at independent retailers first.”

SFLOMA members among SF Bay Guardian’s 2009 Small Business Award winners

Green Apple Books and acting SFLOMA executive director Hut Landon were recognized by the Bay Guardian in their annual Small Business Awards issue published in May, 2009.

GOLDEN SURVIVOR AWARD
Green Apple Books

What is the special ingredient that transforms a business from just another store into a place that makes people feel inspired and connected? After 42 years as a San Francisco independent bookseller, Green Apple Books and Music seems to have found it. Located on Clement Street in a building that predates the 1906 quake, it's a "big, sprawling, dusty and funky new and used bookstore," as co-owner Pete Mulvihill describes it, creating an atmosphere for interactions that might seem impossible in a big-box store. Several weeks ago, for instance, a customer approached the store clerks, presented a CD, and requested that they play it. He also asked them to clear out the philosophy room. "I want it to myself for just a minute," he explained. The staff complied, the music started, and the man whisked his girlfriend into the philosophy room and proposed to her.

"To me, that's an honor that somebody loves the place so much that they would propose to their girlfriend here," says Mulvihill, one of three owners and an employee for more than 15 years. A founding member of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance, he has been at the forefront of a push to identify and promote the city's small, independent businesses. "Locally-owned businesses recirculate more money in the local economy than national chains," the SFLOMA Web site points out.

"Frankly, we're invested in the community," Mulvihill explains. "[We] love San Francisco, and we don't want to go anywhere." (Rebecca Bowe)

CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD
Hut Landon

Hut Landon is responsible the past few years for helping direct millions of dollars into small business in San Francisco and beyond, and millions more into the local economy.

He does it through his energetic and creative leadership of two key organizations that promote the interests of locally-owned small business. Landon has been the executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), which promotes the interests of 200 independent bookstores in the region. He is also executive director of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance (SFLOMA).

Under Landon's stewardship, the two groups commissioned a pioneering 2007 study that quantified the value of locally-owned businesses in the city. Their stunning finding: if consumers redirected l0 percent of their retail purchases from chains to locally-owned merchants, the result would generate about $200 million for the economy, l,295 jobs, and $72 million new income for workers.

Landon's timing could not have been better. As the economy tanked, local merchants and neighborhood business organizations used the l0 percent consumer shift as a mantra. The study also pointed out that the local economy could get another big boost if the city would shop locally with the tens of millions it now spends outside the city for goods and services.

Landon likes to use the example of two brothers who live together. One works on Potrero Hill and eats lunch at one of the many locally-owned restaurants. The other works at Stonestown shopping center and eats at a chain restaurant because that's all there is out there. The Potrero Hill money, he points out, stays in the community. The chain store money is sent back to headquarters. (Bruce Brugmann)