If there’s one mama bear to all not-really-a-dollar-stores, it’s gotta be Giant Value on 22nd and Mission. I always find myself staring at it while waiting for the 49 bus and I snapped this sweet pic of it’s glorious façade over the weekend.

I honestly don’t understand how these businesses are sustainable. First of all, you got ten more shops on the same two block radius selling the same stuff. Secondly, that’s got to be one of the biggest buildings in the mission and rent can’t be cheap. With prices hovering somewhere near a dollar the profit margins can’t be that high.

It’s got to be a front for something. Maybe they are smuggling carne asada to the east coast.

Oh, and the Yelp reviews about the place are pretty hilarious. Not amazon.com wolf T-shirt reviews hilarious, but still a good read:

“…here you can find home pregnancy tests that actually work for $1.49!!!  Because sometimes you need more than one test.”

“Granted there’s something a little off about their brands of breakfast cereals (does Tony The Tiger have pinkeye?)”

“…shop there before the hipsters infiltrate and buy all the jesus belt buckles and cans of pabst lite!”

“…it’s fun to buy something completely written in another language and just hope it does what you think it does.”

BTW, still no takers on that mission theater. Can’t one of you dot-com cash-outs buy it and open a theater full of couches that serves the People’s Beer and  plays awesome movies like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters?