Haight & Cole Liquors

One of the cheapest spots for Parliaments and they also got good desperation Amy’s TV dinner selections.

I have been going there for few years now and always find every thing that I need. Its not your typical corner liquor store that you see all over SF, this place is an iconic place and operates like an iconic place.

sign reads «Frank’s». place is very cramped, narrow, have to walk like a penquin with my arms/​wings tucked in so i don’t knock anything over. the usual gourmet items, wines, microbrews, chips, snacks, mostly priced
drink: «purity organic» lemonade (1.99)
–organice lemon juice, organic cane juice/​natural flavors
–64 grans of sugar, yikes!
–very tart., 260 calories.
drips:
–3.5 stars for the nice assortment of groceries, pricey yes but priced.
–nice friendly service.

Great service! Employees are always nice and helpful. The store has a wide variety of products for a great price! Frank’s Liquors is definitely one of my favorite places to shop in the city.

It’s sad when we «like» this place because it’s our only option. This corner would be so much better with out Frank’s liquor store and the adjoining smoke shop. I used to live right next door and it brought in a questionable crowd which than led me to call the cops on these street kids at LEAST once a week to either break up a person-​fight, a dog-​fight, or just mellow our the drunk/​angry crowd.
Frank’s is dirty and the people who work in there are pretty rude. Haight Street– we can do better.

One-​seventy-​five for 20-​ounce sodas. That’s about the standard in San Francisco and other expensive parts of the Bay Area, sadly, but it’s nice to know that a straight-​up liquor store isn’t overcharging its teetotaling customers. Many liquor (and other) stores do just that; they charge the most for their non-​featured items.
What brings this place up to a four-​star rating is the genuinely friendly woman working when I stopped in earlier tonight. Working in a liquor store near the corner of Cole & Haight on a Friday night? Except for my last full-​time job, I can’t think of a worse job in San Francisco. But she was sweet, not zoned out, and really awesome.
What brings this place down a star is its wheelchair inaccessibility.

Good ol’ Franks. Across the street & down a bit are a couple old corners where the SFSF (San Fran Scumfuc’s) and a few wanna-be’s, dropouts, and runaways might congregate to spange, drink, and make fun of passer-by’s. Years ago, we’d get a bit of money, and then send off someone that was sober enough to stand in line and buy the next round. I forgot the story behind it, but it was known to the locals as «Fuck you Franks». And with the locals he’d (as stated in the review above) kindly say «Fuck you» as you leave. Pretty funny, but he was a cool if you were a regular and didnt have say, oh 25 cents or 50 cents even. He’d cut you a break. Decent selection of all things ghetto and all the stuff you’d find in a bodega.

This is the only place that carries this hella good Lemonade. The only problem is I can’t remember the name at the moment. Its a dollar and some change, but money well spent
Here is a few flavors to choose from
Limenade
Strawberry Lemonade
Mango Lemonade
TO BE CONTINUED WITH THE NAME

Late last night when I opened the door for the Crazy Sushi delivery guy, a cat strolled in as well. The delivery guy and I just looked at each other, amazed, as she resisted all my attempts to shoo her back outside. And hey, it was late, it was raining, I don’t blame her.
I tried calling the number on her collar-​tag several times, but no one answered. And it seemed wrong to just send her back out into the rain to get hit by a car or eaten by a raccoon, so it looked like I was going to have a guest for the evening. All was swell, I was reading, she was purring, when I realized there was an essential item missing from my house if I was going to host a cat.
It was midnight, they’ve closed my 24-​hour Cala, where would I turn?
I called Frank’s. «Do you have kitty litter?» «What?» «Kitty litter?» «Kitty litter?» «Yes.» «Lemme check…» [long pause] «Yes, we have kitty litter.»
Yeah, not only did they have kitty litter, they had these crazy disposable litter trays pre-​filled with litter. Pretty much exactly what I needed on this strange night of unexpected feline visitors.
I have never had Frank’s answer in the negative when I’ve made one of my desperate late-​night calls for some essential item. The incredible range of supplies they have, hung on the walls all the way up to the high celings, collecting dust and just waiting for the distant day they might be called into use, make them my number-​one stop should disaster strike the San Francisco metropolitan area.
I’ve never bought liquor here, which I assume is their main trade, along with a fine assortment of munchies, but I’m so grateful for their existence every time I need toilet paper or pie plates or kitty litter at 1am. The lovely women of several generations behind the register are always unfailingly kind and helpful, keeping their pleasant demeanor with the crowds of blazingly intoxicated hippies, yuppies, homeless folks, and hipsters who careen through smelling of brewery and hash-​pipe.
Frankly, Frank’s is the only option open so late in this neighborhood, and they miss out on the fifth star for taking advantage of that fact with pretty high prices, but I just count myself lucky to have any options for buying kitty litter in the middle of the night.

«you know me, i’m your friend
your main boy, thick and thin
i’m your pusherman
i’m your pusherman»
(Courtesy of Curtis Mayfield)
Ah, Frank’s. That’s what people call this place, after the owner, who’s the king neighborhood pusher man. I’ve only met him once, but he cheerily shouted to me «Fuck you» at, what 1am or something? And his daughters work there, completely at ease with the peculiar mix of clientele that come through Frank’s to get their booze, their junk food, their soda, their toiletries???
EVERYONE in this neighborhood knows Frank’s and comes here for their convenience store needs. In a way, this store is a great equalizer. Hippies stand behind hipsters standing behind gonna-​be-​yuppies who stand behind homeless folks, everyone waiting to get their convenience store fix.
So there’s an ecology to Haight Street. The drunk, dazed, and confused street urchins collect your change as you come out of the restaurants, stores, and bars, after shopping on the hippie-​row mall known as Haight. Then they all go to Frank’s. Because (stay with me now)…
«Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?» (YES!)
«Sometimes you want to go» (Come on everybody)
«Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.»
One night I was stumbling home, I strolled into Frank’s to get some potato chips to soak up any extra alcohol in my belly, and some seltzer water to help me re-​hydrate before going home to Unilocal.And Baglady Betty (one of the resident hippie-​trannies) was in there, poking about. Frank’s brother? cousin? friend? yelled out «Hey Betty, check the price on this» and he ran over to the chips. «This one doesn’t have a price, this one doesn’t have one either, this one doesn’t have one…». Frank’s kin rang me up as Baglady Betty continued to check the price on ALL the chips on the rack, with a droning commentary.
So, while I have mixed feelings about this place, because I see it as occupying an unsavory niche in the homeless ecology, it occupies an important place in my urban routine. It’s small. It’s not particularly clean. It’s just one step up from a drug pusher, because it’s supplying alcohol to known street drunks.
But its always here. And they get to know you. I get a knowing, familiar smile, a nod, a how are you. And late at night, when I’m craving some junk food to go with my movie or to ease the shift from drunk to buzz to sober, I go to Frank’s. Because sometimes…
«You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.»