Old Navy, San Francisco
Playa del Carmen, with white sand beaches on the Caribbean coast, is a popular tourist destination. Parallel to the beach is the vibrant 5th Avenue filled with shops, restaurants, and bars. Even as tourism has grown much over the years, most of these businesses and hotels remain small businesses. It has not been overrun by chain stores and big hotel brands. Playa del Carmen still has the independent, small town feel.
Nevertheless, a major shopping mall, Paseo del Carmen, has opened at one end of 5th Ave. A semi outdoor shopping mall with soaring canopy, here you will find many well known retail brands – Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret, Zara, Starbucks, etc. Even some ordinary fast food chains like Carl’s Jr and Crispy Creme have stores in this mall that are a lot more flashy than they are back home.
The first store you encounter is Old Navy, its name is prominently shown overhead. Moveover, it mentioned Old Navy’s home town – San Francisco, California – in its tagline. It highlights San Francisco to stand for something creative, cool, original.
Back home in San Francisco, the last Old Navy store in Union Square was shuttered in 2023. It was my favorite store. But it could not survive the post COVID downtown San Francisco retail collapse. Afterward, Old Navy no longer has a real retail store in the city of its own headquarters. It was such an irony for me to see the Old Navy here, an anchor in a splashy shopping mall.
Having lived in San Francisco for over half of my life, I feel the city has lost its way, it has let me down. It was a comfort to see it is still a great brand name abroad. The story of its past continues to glow. But will the city thrive in the future?