Shopping in San Rafael
Recommended Shopping by Groupon Customers
The upbeat employees at Lombardi Sports actively participate in the same athletic pursuits for which they sell and repair gear and apparel. Customers who visit the sprawling, 50,000-square-foot sporting-goods store benefit from the staff's rich supply of first-person training insights and anecdotes about hiking, running, swimming, and other sports. As a hive for sporting wisdom, the store boasts attractions such as live tennis demos as well as camping-supply rentals that come with the sales team's recommendations for enhancing camping fun with bear-proof food coolers and extradurable bear-tickling sticks.
A community staple since 1948, Lombardi Sports began as a somewhat smaller purveyor of biking, skiing, and camping equipment. Still owned by its originators, the store's enduring success has enabled its involvement with local charitable causes, proudly supporting Susan G. Komen for the Cure's efforts to eradicate breast cancer as well as the work of Team in Training, an organization dedicated to curing leukemia and lymphoma.
Over the past 23 years, Cheap Pete’s framers have honed their technique to a science, creating high-quality framing for any type of artwork, document, or object. Four Bay Area locations stock a huge selection of ready-made frames, including environmentally friendly options crafted from sustainably harvested pine or bamboo. Collage frames display a multitude of photos, showcasing favorite family memories or charting the development of a tiny infant into an adult-size infant. Customers can also create DIY frames with a large selection of framing tools and supplies.
Cheap Pete’s custom-framing services give customers the choice of more than 300 styles of mouldings, five types of glass, and a rainbow of mat colors. Shadowboxes display three-dimensional objects such as sports jerseys, matchbox cars, or exhibitionistic human beings. The shop also stretches canvases onto canvas bars, readying them to be hung at home or on the walls of a gallery.
The artisans at Pearl Lounge Jewelry Design arrange one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces with a careful selection of Japanese Akoya pearls, south sea pearls, and cultured freshwater pearls. Working with high-quality hardware such as silk cord and white gold, they crafts matching bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, as well as repairing heirloom pieces. Pearl Lounge Jewelry Design's artisans can also match clients' outfits and dental braces with natural stone pieces crafted with amber, turquoise, and jade.
Paul Mahder Gallery showcases contemporary works of art and every month, presents new exhibits created by painters, sculptors, and photographers from around the globe. Opened in conjunction with the gallery in 2007, Paul Mahder Framing extends the shop's services into the realm of preservation, helping customers artfully safeguard keepsakes without having to freeze them in a mixture of finger-paint and carbonite. Head designer Richard Plagmann and expert framer Jonathan W. Wind join forces to encase a wide range of items, from 3-D objects and family portraits to oversized mementos. They also offer complementary onsite consultations, and every project is completed right in the store.
Far more than an emporium of colorful textile patterns, Urban Burp holds over 5 tons of vintage fabric dating back to the early 20th century, collecting original vintage threads that weave memory and nostalgia into their very fabric. The studio takes its unusual name from the intense experience of recognition that seeing and touching a piece of familiar pattern can bring. "All that emotion has been shoved down into the lower chakras and all of a sudden it takes one piece of fabric to bring you back to that place," owner Electra Skilandat told The San Francisco Chronicle. She continues to elicit that response with bolts of cloth decorated with the floral designs and abstract art of the 1920s, or the bold color mixtures and fractal patterns that were popular in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Skilandat traces her love affair with textile design back to her childhood in Boston, where her mother lovingly hand-crafted all of her clothes for school and play. Over the years, Electra amassed a collection of over 1,000 bolts of fabric and experience in interior decor. After the death of her only son, she rediscovered her creative instincts, opening the fabric shop with upholstery and drapery services that would precede Urban Burp's stunning display of warp and weft. As guests peruse the studio's ample supply of original vintage pictorial and patterned designs, sewing patterns, and notions, Skilandat unfurls her decades of wisdom during interior decor consultations.
After consulting with customers and getting a feel for their decorative style, the experts at Marin Frames preserve small and large pieces using custom-selected mat and frame choices. The staffers specialize in works on paper, painted canvases, and inkjet prints, but they can arrange all manner of pieces thanks to a full stock of classic frames, thick frames, and sleek, contemporary shadowboxes. The Marin Frames team also offers delivery and hanging services for people with abnormally tall walls and shrunken arms.
