Virgin Megastore

I’m saddened by the passing of the SF Virgin Megastore, even though the writing was clearly emblazoned on the wall.
Sir Richard Branson sold off the Virgin Group’s Virgin Megastores stateside due to dropping sales & prestige of the stores & in part to satisfy then ongoing negotiations w/​US authorities to allow his fledgling Virgin Airways to be hubbed in the US.
Virgin’s first store opened in London in January /​February of 1971. The first megastore opened in 1979. Throughout the 1980s & 1990s Virgin Megastores expanded & opened over 100 stores in the UK, & many others around the world.
The first US Megastore was opened in Los Angeles in 1992. The US stores were purchased by Related Companies & Vornado Realty Trust in 2007. They operated under the Virgin Entertainment Group name.
In March of 2009, the Virgin Entertainment Group sold the SF location to Thor Equities to «run». Thor Equities is a real estate flipping company w/​zero experience or interest in running a music store. They just wanted to valuable Market Street real estate (which they got for a song), so they proceeded to sell their merchandise to a liquidator who in turn facilitated a pseudo «going out of business» sale.
All merchandise were cherry-​picked & removed from the store prior to the mark down sales. The items were marked sown surprisingly little for a true going out of business sale. They maxed out at 50% off non-​music & video items & 50% off most other catagories. I’ve seen equivalent or better deals during regular X-​Mas time sales!
It’s disheartening when I see greedy financiers ruin long-​running business that are struggling for short term turn-​around gain. The same happened w/​Kay-​Bee Toys & to a lesser extent Toys’R’Us & F.A.O. Schwarz.
Thor Equities also took over the vacated CompUSA store down the block & has recently rented it out month-​to-​month to a shysty menswear liquidator while they wait for the real estate market to re-​inflate.
My first visit was during the SF Megastore’s opening day & I was there at their very last. What a contrast in experiences those were! I went there for my Kylie music (they had plenty of Euro imports that is hard to find elsewhere), the Virgin Cola in the long-​gone vending machines, & video game & comic movie-​related action figures.
Their $ 10 DVDs were also a good bargain & source to fill out your DVD library. I also liked that they had a live DJ, complete w/​a strong British accent «spinning» music suggestions. They also had occasional live musical appearances & performances, including rooftop concerts in the «olden days».
Santa’s Unilocaler sez: «Mega store, mega sad it’s gone…» :(

Mid to late 90s pop culture cheeziness at its finest and one hell of a record store too. The top of the top as far as chains are concerned. They had every CD imaginable, imports included. Whch were usually too expensive, but just the experience of holding a $ 30.99 Japanese import and savoring it for a few moments is good enough.
List price was expensive, but the majority of CDs were on sale for $ 10. They had tons of British imports random boxed sets for $ 10.
This was the only place I could consistently find pop culture paraphernaelia too. (Super Mario World knit caps… Domo-​kun wallets and stuffed toys… gotta love that.) And I’ve probably gotten more apparel from this place than any other single store, including clothing retailers.
This place gets four instead of five stars because of the downhill slide that happened the past few years. The staff seemed to not care as much. Their clothes became trashy. The place became eerie. The hours cut back. But that can’t completely negate the many years of loyal service this place provided before that.
That being said, it breaks my heart to see this place go away. But it needed to happen. I remember going there one Friday night at 11 PM and being just about the only person in the store.

So sad! When I think of big cities I always think of the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco and New York. I cannot believe that they are leaving us. My favorite entrepenuer is Sir Richard Branson. Could the recession be affecting him? I like to think not.
He has the siccest set-​up on Necker Island. Would love to visit someday.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies better hurry up and tap that Virgin one last time while she continues to offer what’s left of herself at major di$count$, before she shuts her legs, I mean doors for good…
Girl, I never liked your prices.
But I will always remember some fun time$ I had in ya…
For examples
— taking the day off work, and lining up 9 hours IN THE RAIN waiting to meet my gothic hero Robert Smith and his band (The Cure) at or around V-​day of 2000. No thanks to many hippie alternative rock wannbe hipsters cutting in line, and no thanks to security guards telling me I couldn’t have my acoustic guitar signed. And no thanks to Virgin requiring me to trek all the way up here to buy the Bloodflowers album the night before at the store (when I already had one) just for the right to line up and get a wristband…
— watching a free spectacular and breath taking acoustic instore of then new band ELBOW from the UK, about 2 years after that, followed by a meet and greet with the guys to have them sign the ASLEEP IN THE BACK album and a few overpriced import UK singles
— finding some absolutely smashing imports… classical music and opera sets, that made for memorable delightful special occasion gifts for members of my family. Again this Whore charged superhigh prices to pay for skyrocketing rent no doubt.
— bought many great imported UK books of my favorite bands, compilations, singles, and a few random UK pressings of CD albums.
— the in house DJ once delighted my day by playing Beatles and Radiohead back to back. Nothing like a sexay British accent to top it off that also made the shopping and browsing experience tolerable.
— decent listening stations in the day that had a good yet eclectic mix of new music to get my preview groove on.
Goodbye VM… I will see you… in the next life.

Oh Virgin Megastore… How I love you… Oh how I’ll miss you!
V — value! While others were charging $ 16.99 for a CD I could count on you for a few bucks less.
I — interesting! I love your listening posts. So many things to listen to that I ended up buying and loving!
R — really! I cant believe that your really going out of business! That sux!
G — great! So many great bands will never get to see their CDs on your shelves!
I — Invincible! Well at least my CDs are even if I cant buy them from you anymore!
N — never more! And so you’ll soon be gone…

They are currently having a going out of business sale.
30% off ALL PORN. Yes. They have porn. And yes, it is on sale.
And yes, they have DIRTY PORN.
5 Stars for Porn… Yesssssss…

Sucks that the internets have devoured yet another music store, but oh well.
Their prices were never great, and I can tell you that since last week. they still aren’t.
R.I.P.

This Virgin is latest victim of the internet. And rightly so – when they first opened, Virgin brought a few cool innovations to the music megastore model. But in the last 3 years or so, nothing new at all — — they became beyond stale and overpriced, thus they’ll soon be gone.
Worser and worserer: I stopped by Virgin’s Going Out of Business Sale where they promised crazy giveaway prices. Unbelievably, the prices on the items I checked were still higher than other SF stores normal prices, not to mention the internet. Skip it.

Good bye Virgin Megastore… you will be missed… I had alot of very good memories of spending time in your store… and perusing your aisles… and checking out the latest imports. See you on the other side.

Stay away from the closing sale! 25% off, but they raised prices. Weak!!!
I found DVDs there tonight that cost twice as much, with discount, as I paid for them a couple of months ago. Weak!!!
I actually was going to buy a new cd or two, but I was so disgusted by this practice that I decided to download instead. I guess this is why internet killed the music store.

Not surprised that this store is closing. You can buy most of the stuff they sell for less elsewhere. And in my experience customer service was usually missing, poor, or rude (at the 1^st floor registers). I bought a pair of expensive Sony headphones from this store, but later I find that there’s a new model that’s much better. The next day I come back to return it (I didn’t exchange it because they didn’t have the new model). To make the story short, they gave me a difficult time and refused to credit my credit card, even though I had my receipt and the package was intact. They claimed that they could only issue me a store credit. They had wasted my lunch hour and I was already upset, so I took the store credit and bought a bunch of CDs I didn’t need. In the past I had bought many CDs & Animé tapes from them, I never came back to shop after that.
I was glad that someone told me about the upcoming closure (in April 2009) today, because I still have one of their gift cards that I haven’t used (according to their rules they don’t expire). It’s gonna be difficult to decide what to buy, because I’d rather shop elsewhere.

Regardless of the fact that they’re closing, it’s still one of my staple entertainment stops in any major city. I know the $ 10 rack is right in front of me as I walk in, the DVD’s are upstairs with the comic books and they’ve got the BEST selection of music.
I could get lost in this store for an hour per level. I found the Perfect Strangers box set and a Bush parody book entitled «Goodnight Bush.» You’ve gotta check it out. It’s got a weird selection of hats and t-​shirts that I’m not a fan of but again, don’t go in there for that stuff.
The staff here is scarce but friendly but I’m sad to see it go. Goodnight dvds, goodnight animé, goodnight $ 10 CD’s, goodnight moon, goodnight Citizen Cupcake.

This 2-​story Virgin Megastore is huge! Books, DVDs, games galore.
Been here a couple times, but the only time I ever bought something from here was when Jenna Jameson was doing her book signing here back in August of 2004 before we hit up USF’s Monte Carlo night when we bought her book, «How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.» We took pics with her too with my friend’s old school ghetto digital camera, but I have no idea what happened to those. She looked kind of old in person and not as hot as she does in her videos. Maybe she was tired or didn’t have her makeup artist present with her. But damn, I think we waited in line for almost 2 hours to get those $ 20 books signed by her. She’s a cool chick though. Tito’s a lucky guy.
Interesting and entertaining book though. Finished it in 2 weeks after I bought it. Cool pictures in it too.

This store sucks in so many ways — let’s count them, shall we?
1) gift cards don’t work online
2) customer service is sorely, sorely lacking
3) large store, small selection
4) with their prices, it’s no wonder they’re failing
5) Twilight t-​shirts next to Bob Dylan box sets?
6) the two idiots at the cash register i had to deal with — oh wait I already mentioned their crappy customer service
7) so I could use my gift card (in store only) i had to get them to put in an order since the item I wanted wasn’t in stock — to do this I had to make a deposit and get YET ANOTHER IN STORE ONLY GIFT CARD
8) 3 weeks to order a freakin book?
9) impossible to navigate the store (see number 5)
10) did I mention their customer service sucks and the gift cards don’t work online?

i know a lot of people hate this place because it’s a huge corporate music store. However, I’m a fan. Anytime I can’t find a CD at music stores, I seem to be able to find it here. I was searching all over for a CD called «Screaming Masterpieces». It’s a live CD with a bunch of different Icelandic music groups. I searched every music store (didn’t want to do Amazon) including Rasputin’s, Best Buy, Tower Records (when it was around) and others. I came here and found it instantly. This has happened before with other more obscure albums.
They are constantly having the $ 10 sale where they have a ton of DVD’s and CD’s on sale for $ 10. How can you beat that? This place is 3 stories and very well organized. The top floor has gone down hill in the book department however. It has the largest world music and jazz section that I’ve seen at any music store. Bottom line is that it has a huge selection and you can find whatever you’re looking for.

I love this store long time.
Why?
At the end of an epic day of determining the boss of the sauce, searching for the seward slides, dancing in the store window of the Sketchers store, eating at Roy’s, and being unbelievably pooped and walking back towards my car, I walk by the Virgin Megastore.
I do a double take as I stare at a window display and ogle at the tokidoki clothes and bags.
«WE MUST GO INSIDE!»
The girls agree, Michael L. does not seem to agree, but since I drove him down here, he seems to have no choice but to stand around while the girls go into a shopping frenzy for the next hour.
Sadly to say, I bought no tokidoki that day. I made Lubs get something, so it was like I was living vicariously through her. I do that a lot.
Since I made her get something, it was only fair she found something for me to buy as well. I got this awesome asymmetrical HL hoodie with all these zippers and doodads all over the place. I love how she knows what I’ll like. Rarr!
While I was squealing my delight, one of the workers here asks if they can help me. I casually mention this obscure CD I’ve been hunting for months and months and had been too lazy to order online, and surprise surprise, they carry it here!
There’s also a Citizen Cupcake upstairs, and it’s pretty yummy.
All in all, this Virgin Megastore has given me everything I could have possibly wanted in one day. Thank you!
I’m not sure if my friends who had to listen to kids songs all the way back in a long car drive would agree, but this place rocks!

One of the perks to no longer being in the music industry is not having to deal with the bullcrap that results from an industry that screwed itself by being too greedy. One of the downfalls of this is no longer getting promo copies of music from industry friends and being forced to shop at mega-​gigantor stores like the overkill king of the them all: Zee Virgin Megastore.
My goodness, how I forgot what a clusterfuck these stores are. It’s seriously been about 3 years since I’ve stepped foot in one, but when the need for Journey’s Greatest Hits by Monday arose, well, I had to suck it up and face my sensory overload demons.
The one positive I will note is that amidst all of the chaos, it is a pretty well organized store. Things are alphabetized correctly, categories are about right and the service at the store was friendly and efficient. But beyond that, I’d much rather buy it on Amazon than deal with all of that noise. If it were up to me, Virgin Megastore in general would be a 1 star, but as for as this branch of it goes, they are doing a fine job.

Meh… Virgin’s a little too MEGA for me. Not my ideal place to shop for DVDs, CDs, or books but hey– it’s there and they always come through at the last minute. And since last minute is the only kind of shopping I do, this ends up being in my regular rotation for last-​minute frantic, sweaty, panicked shopping attacks.
Say for instance, your mom likes DJ Shadow (mine does) and she’s in town and you’re going to dinner and you need one last thing to round out that gift basket. Virgin has Mom’s DJ Shadow AND Steel Magnolias on sale for just $ 10. Double Mom’s happiness! Or say your dad’s really into Nirvana (mine is), Virgin has the MTV live cd AND the dvd (he really needed to upgrade from his gritty home VHS version of it, which we lovingly taped when the show first aired). Double Dad’s happiness. Or say your Boy’s super into the Muppets (no comment) — Virgin has lots of Muppet movies AND art books AND other great stuff to surprise Boy with.
As much as I don’t really like the whole concept, Virgin (in all of it’s mega-​ness) does indeed carry something for pretty much everyone on your list. It’s a solid go-​to place late night during the week when once again, your organizational skills have failed you and you’re ready to shell out for a gift that will be passable.

I haven’t stepped foot into a music store since god knows when.
Tonight, I walked through the doors of Virgin, lost and confused and a bit sweaty. It was supposed to be cold today. It’s been freezing all week. It was supposed to be cold today. I had worn a thick sweater and knee high boots with wool socks. I even had a scarf. A scarf with a freaking hood. (Scoodie!)
I was assaulted with Christmas and red stickers in various sizes all over the place. $ 10! $ 10! $ 10!!!
The music business is shifting and changing. I long to toss my cd collection, like little Ninja stars, at Christmas shoppers this season.
I am immeadiately aware I will never step into a Virgin Records again.
I was there for Season 1 of Flight on the Conchords.
I picked it up, purchased it quickly and walk-​ran outside towards my bustop in a rush to get home.
Jemain Clement makes me want to masturbate.
Three stars for the really really nice guy who rung me up, complimented me on my awesome purchase and said my boots were cute.

Nah!!!