One of Hearts

About 3 weeks ago while walking down 16th street in the Mission the dreamboat and I passed a storefront window where a man was busy painting a beautiful new sign. The Bell Jar, gorgeous little things, is what it said. I was so impressed with the signage I told the dreamboat we had to come back when it opened. Well that time is upon us!

The dreamboat and I walked over to The Bell Jar yesterday afternoon and I must say it’s a cute shop chocked full of awesome things. There are quite a few adorable quirky knick knacks like these bird patterned throw pillows and this half animal skull. They also have tons of bell jars with interesting things under them, my favorite being a cute two headed chick. They also have a jot of nice ceramic creations like containers to hold your treasures and a beautiful classically styled blue and white tea set that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of but really liked.

The back room of this establishment serves as a quaint and cozy art gallery. Currently they are showing the interesting artwork of San Francisco photographer Jen Siska.

My only gripe about this wonderful storefront is the lack of customer service, which seems to be quite common in the shops on this block. The dreamboat seems to think that it’s often just a case of me having high standards, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

If you haven’t paid the Bell Jar a visit yet I recommend doing so, even if it’s just to admire their beautiful black and gold hand lettered sign.

Check out their website and their myspace page for more info and a look at more of their gorgeous little things.

photo credit to Amit Gupta

And if your local co-op grocer is half as awesome as Rainbow you should too. This week I’m sharing 5 reasons why I love Rainbow Grocery here in San Francisco, and why I think you should at least “like it like it” too.

Monday, reason #1 -

Everything is vegetarian friendly. – Can you believe that? FRICKEN EVERYTHING!! Having been a vegetarian since I was 12 I have become very quick and very thorough at scanning labels on food packaging to check for animal derived ingredients, but it is SO nice to not have to worry about that. No animal rennet in my cheese, no hidden chicken or beef broth in my vegetable soup, no gelatin in my cereals. The only meat found in this veggie friendly grocery store is in their pet food, and I’ve only known of one person who ate dog edibles and enjoyed it, so I think we’re good on that!

More to come tomorrow, when I let you in on the second reason Rainbow Grocery has captured my heart.

photograph taken by Amit Gupta and used under creative commons.