Gimme Shoes

It's indicative of the sought-after shoes here that Gimme maintains two Hayes Valley stores less than a block away from one another and that both are perpetually packed. Located amid Hayes Street's bustling restaurants and bars, it's a regular post-brunch stop for locals and an easy time killer while waiting for a table for dinner. The mini-chain offers a range of hard-to-find brands for women and men, from international labels (Coclico, Repetto, Chie Mihara, Costume National among them) to homegrown designers like Rag + Bone, Loeffler Randall and Jeffrey Campbell. In fact, Gimme was among the first Bay Area stores to import European labels like YMC, Dries Van Noten, and Veronique Branquinho. Though many of the shoes here are splurges, locals keep tabs on the sale nook in back, where past-season styles are marked up to 60 percent off.