Skip to main content
Life

I went to San Francisco’s shuttering Target, and they threw me out

empty shelves inside a department store
The Target at 1690 Folsom St. closed Saturday. The shelves were seen bare on Friday. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

If you wanted to buy a lifetime supply of birthday cards, a single box of Plan B and a once-frozen spinach and goat cheese pizza that’s been thawed on a shelf for hours—and at 90% off to boot—you would have been right at home at the SoMa San Francisco Target slated to close Saturday. 

But then, there wasn’t much else at the Target on Folsom Street when I stopped by during its penultimate day of business.

Many of SoMa Target's remaining items were clustered on a few shelves inside an otherwise empty store. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

What greeted me instead was a sea of empty shelves, many of which were soon to be broken down and sent to other Target stores. Only one part of the store remained accessible. Two shelves were packed with random, unorganized stuff, such as allergy pills and sippy cups, all next to a rack of jeans. Another two were stocked with birthday cards.

RELATED: Target Closing San Francisco Store, 2 Bay Area Locations Citing Rampant Thefts

A woman picks out cards from a shelf on the second-to-last day of business at the Target store at 1690 Folsom St. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

There were as many as 20 customers in the store at one point, with maybe half of them walking out empty-handed, despite the 90% markdown. 

The Folsom Street Target is one of three Bay Area Target stores closing Saturday, with the other two in Oakland and Pittsburg. Target said organized retail theft in these markets has contributed to an “unsustainable business performance.”

A once-frozen pizza was room temperature on a shelf when The Standard visited the Target on 1690 Folsom St. on its second-to-last day in business. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

READ MORE: Downtown San Francisco Target Plagued by Thefts, Workers Say

There has also been a litany of business closures in nearby Downtown San Francisco leading up to the SoMa Target store’s demise, including an Old Navy in Union Square and seven Starbucks locations.

I had a mind to ask a customer what they thought about Target’s closure when I got kicked out. Target’s security doesn’t like journalists, it turns out.

Workers in casual clothes, including some wearing green vests, stand in an emptied out store under rows of fluorescent lights.
Asset protection workers stand inside the Target at 1690 Folsom St. during its second-to-last day in business Friday. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

“Hey boss, you’ve got to leave. You can’t be asking questions here,” said a worker in a yellow uniform labeled “asset protection” flanked by two security guards. “You reporting on something? Yeah, you can’t be doing that here.”

And without even the time to snag a deeply discounted, thawed frozen pizza on the way out.