Wasteland has held down a spot on Haight Street since well before most of San Franciscos current resale shops existed, and the citys location at 1660 Haight Street remains one of five California stores carrying the name today. The chain traces back to 1985, when founders Joe Swinney and Cheryl Cohen opened the original store in Berkeley, drawing on death rock and mod subculture influences to build what became a curated style destination rather than a generic secondhand rack. That original shop quickly earned attention from national fashion press including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Details, Nylon, and Paper, a level of coverage that helped turn Wasteland into a recognizable name well beyond the Bay Area and eventually led to additional locations across California.
The Haight Street store fits naturally into one of San Franciscos most storied shopping corridors, a street long associated with counterculture fashion and secondhand style long before vintage resale became a mainstream trend elsewhere. Inside, the mix blends vintage pieces with contemporary and designer clothing, curated toward customers building an individual look rather than simply hunting for the cheapest available basics. The shop is open 11 in the morning to 8 at night Monday through Saturday and 11 to 7 on Sundays, with a dedicated buying window from noon to 6 for anyone looking to sell clothing rather than just shop.
That buying program, marketed as Sell With Us, is central to how Wasteland keeps its floor stocked with genuinely current, wearable pieces rather than relying purely on estate finds or wholesale vintage lots. Locals bringing in their own closets for evaluation is part of what keeps the inventory feeling fresh and specific to San Francisco style rather than identical across all five store locations, even though each shares the same brand history and buying philosophy. The other California locations, in West Hollywood, Studio City, Highland Park, and Silverlake, each carry the same commitment to curated vintage and designer resale, but the Haight Street store in particular carries the added weight of operating within walking distance of the neighborhood that shaped so much of the citys fashion identity since the 1960s.
For anyone visiting San Francisco with an interest in vintage shopping, the Haight Street corridor offers one of the most concentrated stretches of resale and secondhand retail in the city, and Wasteland has been part of that landscape long enough to have outlasted plenty of shorter lived competitors. The four decades of brand history give the shop a credibility that newer resale startups cannot easily replicate, particularly among shoppers who remember the original Berkeley store or who have followed the brands expansion across the state over the years.
Wasteland on Haight Street is San Franciscos outpost of a California vintage and designer resale chain with roots going back to 1985, open seven days a week and actively buying clothing from local sellers, making it a reliable stop for anyone looking to build a distinctive wardrobe out of secondhand and designer pieces in the heart of the citys most iconic vintage shopping district.
