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    Smoke Signals

    4.8 (74 reviews)
    Closed 8:00 am - 5:30 pm

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    Helena M.

    The most comprehensive, eclectic newstand and inspired magazine collection can be found in this treasure trove on Polk Street in San Francisco! I used to live on the other side of town and made special trips to this shop to get all my favorite magazines. Then, about 5 years ago I had the opportunity to move to Russian Hill, where I'd now be in walking distance of Smoke Signals and Fadi, the kind, intentional curator and owner of the shop. Years later it's my neighborhood & I'm still a regular visitor, customer and fangirl of this magical spot.

    Excellent magazine selection @Smoke Signals...Harvard Business Review magazine's latest issue
    Joanna T.

    One of the few remaining shops focused on magazines, newspapers and assorted items. The magazine selection is huge! European fashion (French, German, British,etc), Business journals (MIT, Harvard, Stanford and more). I like the business, lifestyle and travel periodicals myself. Of course my newspapers of choice (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal) are available here. There is also the Financial Times of London. Table top magazines that home stagers adore as well the savvy homemaker get their magazines here! If you love to read and feel the crisp pages as you do so, stop Smoke Signals. Say hello to the owner and his lapso apso dog!

    Best magazine source in the Bay Area
    Mark F.

    I love this little store. I love it because they are so keenly focused on providing the best selection of high quality magazines in the entire San Francisco Bay Area. The owner lets me browse in peace for as long as I like, but is there to answer any question I might have, with kindness and a friendly attitude. His dog is cool - he's a little old and sits in his dog bed beside the register and watches you, hoping you find your favorite magazines, and maybe something new.

    Eric B.

    Smoke Signals features a YUGE selection of general circulation and specialized newspapers/magazines, including foreign. The only downside is that there are so many of them, that they're sometimes too densely stacked to figure out what's for sale. I'm not sure what their browsing rules are, but Smoke Signals could give the nearby Russian Hill Books a run for time among the "stacks". I'm especially appreciative that in this digital age, analog reading options are making a stand, and hopefully successfully. The name of this place also tells you that tobacco products are sold. Snacks and Lotto tickets are also available for purchase.

    They carry Baseball America.  My man likes to come in here now.
    Veronica T.

    The most impressive newspaper & magazine joint in the city. And if you need a pack of Dunhill's, they've got you covered. I quit smoking ages ago, but this place makes me a little nostalgic for those days. A fresh pack of Dunhill's & the new issue of Vogue or W? The Fashionista Diet. It's neatly packed w all the basics (Time), the favorites (Vogue), & the avant garde (titles I've never even heard of). My man even found something new for him; Baseball America. The owner is polite & helpful. He lets you freely peruse without disturbance. When I asked for a certain title, he immediately guided me to what I was looking for, right from behind the counter. And he always says hello & goodbye. I'd had a manicure/pedicure appointment recently & my nail salon had 2 brand new beauty magazine issues. One of them ran a feature I wanted to have for reference, so I came by here to buy it. Only I couldn't remember exactly which issue it was. The owner let me endlessly browse the pages to make sure that it was indeed the issue I wanted. All while I had my handbag plopped on top of his counter. He didn't flinch. He really didn't seem to mind. Props for that. The full service newspaper & magazine shop is a dying breed. This place is a real gem. 5 stars.

    véhicule 2020 avant-garde transportation!

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    2 months ago

    A good selection of magazines. Friendly staff. I found what I was looking for. Worth a visit.

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    2 years ago

    Nice magazine shop. Helpful person at counter. Good selection. Hard to find a magazine shop these days and this is the real deal.

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    4 years ago

    I needed TONS of magazines for a client project - and they had everything!!! Plus they were so sweet. Definitely recommend!!!

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    3 years ago

    They have the Sunday Chronicle at $3.25! The gentleman who was working there is friendly and attentive.

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    8 years ago

    Monster selection of newspapers and magazines. I live right around the corner and have to stop in daily to see what's new.

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    Page 1 of 2

    Ask the Community - Smoke Signals

    Review Highlights - Smoke Signals

    To this day, Fadi, the owner, remembers my name and always greets me with a friendly hello.

    Mentioned in 5 reviews

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    The Grand Newsstand

    The Grand Newsstand

    4.5(8 reviews)
    1.5 miFinancial District, SoMa
    $

    First went to this place for the opening event and had a great time...rumor has it that maybe more…read morelive acts will happen in the future, and that sounds really fun! I didn't have my card with me that night, so I came a few days later after work. The craft market was bustling pretty hard that day, but the shop girl, Courtney (ps anyone who has the same name as me is a+!!) made sure to give me some good recommendations. I walked away with a really cool food focused zine (Remedy) a San Francisco zine (Wonder & Wander) and a hilarious red hot chili peppers fan fiction zine. Courtney recommend a few others, but I grabbed all my lil bag could carry. Despite the small little store front, I felt like there was a pretty good mix of things to look through. A lot of feminist lit, lots of political stuff, travel, food, and just general aesthetically pleasing things. I told her id be really interested in reading more queer zines, (they definitely have some!) and she assured me that she cosigns in small quantities to keep the shelves fresh and to date. I really enjoyed the market itself, but this newsstand is definitely a gem and brings a lot of community to a place where some locals would consider a tourist trap. I look forward to seeing The Grand Newsstand soon!!

    This is perfectly awesome small 'zine, poetry and art kiosk right off of market street by that…read morepublic market thingy they do. This is a walk up kiosk by justin herman plaza/fountain and thus you will not be driving here. This is however, one of the most walkable parts of one of the most pedestrian friendly cities in the world so you have about a half dozen non driving ways to get here from around the city. This is the business inspiration of one local artist (it's the woman running behind the counter) and it sells art. It's in an re-purposed ticket booth and as such it's super tiny. There is no interior space so you'll be browsing via the sidewalk. Small whimsical locally produced self published pamphlets (hereafter referred to as 'zines), buttons, patches, cards and suchlike. The written items focus on various themes-love, city life, humor etc. are the stock in trade, made both by the owner and by other local artists. Pricing can be as low as a couple of bucks for a tiny booklet to 20 ish for a full size book. This is a perfect place to get some unique, local art/spoken word items and to find a little inspiration.

    Photos
    The Grand Newsstand
    The Grand Newsstand - The shop and Courtney!

    The shop and Courtney!

    The Grand Newsstand - My spoils!!

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    My spoils!!

    San Francisco Magazine

    San Francisco Magazine

    2.4(25 reviews)
    1.0 miNorth Beach/Telegraph Hill

    Vapid, socialite slick consumerist fodder…read more Content is Not for the typical Yelper. I canceled my subscription 2 months ago, but they're still sending it to me. Like I'm going to buy a $1million SOMA condo or a $50,000 diamond for my wife. Yeah right!

    I'll never forget my first San Francisco magazine. I had just moved to the Bay Area, only to be…read moreheaded on a trip to New Zealand, and I was browsing the airport bookstore for reading materials when I saw it: the extra-large mag with a pic of Gavin Newsom on the front. I was glued to the pages the whole flight and subscribed the second I got back. Those were the heady days of my budding love affair with San Francisco, when the city could do no wrong and waves of discovery were washing over me at an almost unbearable rate. So the magazine was quite helpful for marinating my brain in the local flavor and gaining some semblance of orientation. But now, I've got a lot more personal experience with SF (and, let's face it, I've got Yelp), and the magazine isn't quite the eye-opener it once was. More importantly, though, the city (and, let's face it, Yelp's uber-populist medium/message) has turned me into something of an anti-consumerist eco-hippie, and the dream of high-society hobnobbing and owning that killer loft has palled considerably since I realized I was just being subjected to the incredibly paradoxical mass-marketing of luxury "lifestyles". Unfortunately, though, there are still a lot of Boomers (ok, and some young folks) in this city who subscribe to that dream, and SF Magazine is catering to them more than ever these days. So aside from the excellent "Reporter's Notebook" articles, there really isn't much to interest me anymore, and I find myself on the lookout for a Bay Area lifestyle magazine that caters to my *actual* lifestyle. Sorry SF Mag--to quote one of your ads, you may have overlooked nothing, but I don't actually want to overlook everything.

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    San Francisco Magazine
    San Francisco Magazine - City Guide 2019

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    City Guide 2019

    The New Yorker Magazine - This week's issue, 5/16/16

    The New Yorker Magazine

    3.0(1 review)
    1.1 miNorth Beach/Telegraph Hill

    #71/2016 I really…read morecan't believe I have to give this once-fine magazine a three-star review. What has happened to the writing? I find the same self-confessional tone in another Conde Nast title, Vanity Fair. You're engrossed in an article and then the writer inserts how he identifies with the subject, often in a self-congratulatory way. (How many times did I have to use the word "self" in my thesis? I ask you: When did the writer become the subject?) Case in point, reading a perfectly adequate review in the May 9th 2016 issue of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night", my eyes widen at the parenthetical musings of writer Hilton Als: "I have been in love with James and Mary since I started reading plays; I was barely a teen-ager when I first picked up O'Neill's script and followed his family, in every sense of the word, into that awful home..." WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR LIFE? THIS IS A THEATER REVIEW, NOT AN "ABOUT YOU" REVIEW! (And PS, I almost threw the magazine across the room that you consider yourself so precocious. And PPS, Did you REALLY teleport yourself back to 1912 and actually walk through that awful home "in every sense of the word" 'cause that's what you wrote, fool). This editorializing crept into TV news many years ago (Dan Ashley, you're the king) but now it's HERE, in the lauded New Yorker? There was another writer in a long ago issue who apparently never heard of a complex sentence or the usefulness of punctuation like semi-colons but this latest ...stain is almost too much. William Shawn, Dorothy Parker- you're spinning in your graves.

    City Lights - The staircase leading upstairs to the main floor.

    City Lights

    4.4(816 reviews)
    0.9 miChinatown
    $$

    One of the neatest bookstores in the US. The Poetry room upstairs is wonderful. So much fun…read morehistory here to learn about. And this bookstores has some amazing staff book recommendations with little tags on the bookshelf telling you why they loved that book so much; found some great new finds that way. Dont forget to get your books stamped with their bookstores stamp on the way out!

    An amazing bookstore and so glad I asked chatGPT to give me some ideas for a stroll around SF near…read moreUnion Square. Well, ok, this place isnt close to Union Sq, about a mile away, but it was a perfect delicious end destination for a post dinner stroll! I like bookstores and I like eclectic, unique ones. I'll go to Barnes & Noble if I had no other choice, but my favorite bookstores are independent ones and ones where they carry very unique books you can't find elsewhere. This bookstore made my inner little nerdy self so happy. I immediately got lost up front looking at very recent publication by Ai Weiwei. I then wandered onto the main floor and found an entire section of Asian works, which you will not find at B&N. I also found books from Norwegian writers too which I had never seen before, which thrilled me. I then made my way up to their attic floor which is dedicated to poetry and seems I just missed Allen Ginsberg's Howl centennial celebration. Ugh! I then came back down and then proceeded to their basement section and again I was quite pleasantly surprised by the depth and breadth of Asian themed books they had. They had plenty of the Chinese classics in English and found so many different versions of Journey to the West, I was completely overwhelmed. And then, saw an entire section on Africa and I had to fight hard to not pick up a copy of a book titled Prison Letters, which is a collection of Mandela's letters while imprisoned. I ultimately settled on two books by Ai Weiwei as he has continued to inspire me to be proud, to not conform, to be brave, to speak up, to be authentically and unapologetically me, to honor my ancestry and to push boundaries and to fight for what matters. And it just so happens too that my Chinese give name is also Weiwei. I loved coming to this bookstore and it will definitely be on rotation for me when I am in SF again.

    Photos
    City Lights - Downstairs

    Downstairs

    City Lights - The upstairs location of the bookstore.

    The upstairs location of the bookstore.

    City Lights - The bottom floor that you have to go downstairs to.

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    The bottom floor that you have to go downstairs to.

    Smoke Signals - mags - Updated May 2026

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