Phones, shoes — why we wait in lines.
Bay Area notorious for long lines, thanks largely to Apple
Amusement park rides. New tech gadgets. Hot DJs. Portable toilets.
Yup. Each of these things comes with a line in Northern California. Often a very long line. Take the line that formed Tuesday in front of a San Francisco store for a sale of new Air Jordan shoes.
Sometimes a line peopled with professional linewaiters who, for a fee, will hold your spot to, say, pick up that new iPhone X for you.
Lines, of course, are a national epidemic. But here in the San Francisco Bay Area, partially because it’s home to Apple, we’ve got a region that’s probably one of the largest line-creators on the face of the planet.
People in and around San Francisco wait for Burma Superstar to open. They wait outside Tartine Bakery in the Mission. They wait for Cream in Berkeley and Humphry Slocombe to get their ice-cream fix. There’s even a Tumblr page devoted entirely to places where Bay Area resident can be found queuing up, just as surely as that fog will roll in and those sea lions will bark at tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s called, yup, SanFranciscoWaits.
On Tuesday, the line in San Francisco led straight to the latest Air Jordan IVs. It started Monday evening, with deck chairs and people swaddled in warm clothing up and down Market Street. By morning, the line for sneakers stretched for more than a half-block from the front of the Levi’s store at 815 Market Street. And the line promised to grow in length because the shoes aren’t even available until Wednesday morning.
“These shoes they’re releasing are special,” said line-waiter Randy Laxa, 25, trying to explain himself to my colleague, staff photographer Karl Mondon:
Another guy in line, John Vargas, said he was in line for the sneakers for one reason only — his own finely tuned sense of sartorial style:
“Some people do it for the resale,” he said, referring to those who’ll buy and then quickly sell their pair of brand-new Airs. “I do it for the fashion.”