Help Save The Jug Shop

My name is Mike Priolo, my family owns and operates The Jug Shop, Wine, Spirits & Beer store, a San Francisco legacy business established in 1965.

The Jug Shop has served the beverage needs for the residents of Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Pacific Heights and surrounding areas from 4 different locations, within the Polk St corridor for nearly 60 years.

In June of 2021, amidst the ongoing pandemic, The Jug Shop was displaced from a 15 year location on the corner of Pacific Avenue & Polk Street, for the construction of the Maison Pacific building. The pandemic had already lost us the majority of our downtown corporate delivery clients. Many businesses struggled to survive the pandemic alone and we were forced to move out and survive or close our doors.

We worked closely with the developer from the inception of the development to arrange for our return to the 1590 Pacific Avenue address in the corner commercial space of the completed building.

During the development of our return space, The Jug Shop relocated to the closest proximity possible at the mid block of Pacific Avenue between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, to the historic firehouse building, Engine Company 8. The relocation required a significant capital outlay for the move itself and to bring our temporary space to an operational level.

Although this charming old fire house space is only a half block away, the smaller storefront with severely diminished visibility, foot traffic & no customer parking immediately decimated our sales revenue by 50% in the first month(s) and well beyond in the subsequent months and years.

The immediate severe loss of business combined with initial delays of the Maison Pacific development extended the timeline and compounded financial impacts, which resulted in delays with our plans to return to our former address. To date The Jug Shop has endured nearly 3 and 1/2 years in the temporary location, while functioning in a limited capacity with regard to staff and inventory. Unfortunately this temporary location did not accommodate the business format we moved over with.

Despite the challenges presented by the temporary relocation, The Jug Shop committed to push forward, although it has been extremely difficult to make it this far, but we have always been optimistic at the prospect of returning to such vastly improved dynamics at the new Maison Pacific building. The shop will regain its corner visibility, foot traffic on the Polk Street thoroughfare, and street level garage parking spaces for customers. The 53 residential units above us is an element we’ve never had in the past and know will be a great benefit. We have secured a long lease term and sincerely believe we can restore the business to its original form and thrive at our former address.

We are launching this GO FUND ME campaign with encouragement from our customers and community leaders and turning to the community for support via the power of strength in numbers crowd funding can achieve.

The funds raised via our campaign will be utilized to complete the tenant improvement construction of our return location and assist with distributor payables, rent, and payroll.

We genuinely hope for the opportunity to continue to serve the community we love and carry on The Jug Shop’s San Francisco tradition as a purveyor of Fine Wines, Spirits and Beer.

If you are in a position to contribute and help save our family legacy business we would greatly appreciate your support!