Two years after Nordstrom pulled their gigantic department store out of San Francisco, the high-end retailer is back with a small shop that just opened in the Upper Fillmore, though this shop only offers pick-ups, returns, and alterations.

The cries of “doom loop” were already a common refrain when fancy retailer Nordstrom closed its Westfield Centre mall location and nearby Nordstrom Rack in the summer of 2023 (little did we know at the time that Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s would be the next big dominos to fall). But that downtown SF Nordstrom store had already reduced its national footprint well before the pandemic, and before the coining of the phrase “doom loop,” because Amazon and online retail were already making downtown destination shopping centers a dying breed.

Nordstrom feels they’re adapting, so they’re now back in San Francisco, incarnated as a completely different breed.

KPIX reports that a small, pared-down shop called Nordstrom Local just opened Thursday at 1919 Fillmore Street, in the Upper Fillmore space that was most recently a card shop called Minted. This small, 1,750-square-foot retail store does not carry any actual inventory. Instead, Nordstrom describes their Nordstrom Local store as a "convenient service hub for easy order pickup, returns, [and] alterations,” plus the store also offers gift-wrapping and cosmetic packaging recycling.

"We really wanted to be where our customers are in the neighborhood, so that it's just convenient for them to shop," Nordstrom Stores president Fanya Chandler told KPIX. "We really are happy to have our Local here to serve the customer in this way, to make it easy for them."

This new location is the fourth Nordstrom Local in California, but also the first in Northern California.

This concept seems an obvious evolution in response to online shopping overtaking traditional brick-and-mortar retail, aspiring to be a complement to online Nordstrom shopping. Certainly the gift-wrapping would come in handy around the holidays, and the cosmetics packaging recycling is a nice addition.

And again, this Nordstrom Local does not offer physical retail stock. That’s why neighboring retailers absolutely supported it when Nordstrom had to get their formula-retail conditional-use authorization for the new shop this past June, as SF is famously opposed to formula retail chains.

“Their convenient services, from order pickups to alterations, will attract customers who are likely to explore and shop at nearby stores, further strengthening the local economy,” VP of sales Andrew Graham of the competing retailer Marine Layer said in a letter to the SF Planning Commission at the time.

Related: Nordstrom to Shutter Downtown SF Department Store, and Nordstrom Rack, This Summer [SFist]

Image courtesy Nordstrom