Considering everyone and their mother is a frequent patron, I'm shocked this place has no local…read morereviews. Shocked, I say!
**I had to ding a star - while I love this place and every positive thing I and every other reviewer has said is absolutely true, I've been in two or three times now and they didn't have the beers I was looking for. Still a great place, but it is simply too small to keep a true variety of offerings regularly stocked.
It's a teeny, tiny place smack in the middle(ish) of Hillcrest, and it's one of the single most popular stores in the area, especially on a hot day. I personally love their beer fridge, because it's refreshing on a hot day, a shocker on a cold one, and it is full to the brim of delicious, scrumptious, well-traveled, filling, refreshing, beautiful beer. They have stacks of Diamond Bear and Lost Fourty, as well as a wide variety of brews from our neighbors across state lines, in all directions. I've found everything from local favorites on my to-try list, to obscure familiar bottles from my past lives in Portland (i.e. Rogue "Dead Guy"), San Francisco (i.e. Anchor Lager), and in between.
They strike the same balance of local love, neighborly sharing, and reasonable selection in their wine and liquor shelves too - something that's all the more shocking because this shop is *tiny*
I go here to get my wife's favorite wines, my favorite beers, and something or other to have under my arm to impress any host from a dinner party connoisseur to an indiscriminate guzzler.
The location is a really nice perk on First Thursday (the first Thursday of every month) where you can walk up and down Hillcrest and be greeted with complimentary gifts from businesses, but also because it's a rare occasion where you can have a beer on a public street.
I've also had consistently great experiences heckling and/or chatting with the staff here, although I don't think I've ever seen the same people twice!