Shops & Merch >>

• Personal Best
  Amanda Magnetta-Ottati
  For years, Amanda Magnetta-Ottati helped her husband Tate run Tate's Comics, but it wasn't until the couple decided to expand the popular comic book store this year that she quit her steady gig in advertising. Magnetta-Ottati now runs an eclectic hideaway, Bear and Bird, in the store's loft... More >>
• Best Computer Repair Store
  Take a Byte
  Yes, that's a huge glass case filled with toothpicks mounted on the east wall of the Take a Byte showroom in downtown Hollywood. To answer your next question, there are exactly 1 million of them. As to the questions of why someone collected them and who that someone is, let's all agree not to... More >>
• Best Pawn Shop
  Casino Pawn & Jewelry
  You can hock Granddaddy's watch in any old shop, but rare are the pawn shops where a fellow can pawn in bulk. Like his helicopter. Or his bulldozer. They buy it all at Casino Pawn & Jewelry, located across Stirling Road from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino — a short stroll for the... More >>
• Best Health Food Store
  Simply Natural
  Any health-food store can sell stuff that claims to be good for you. But go to the counter at Simply Natural and you're liable to find Richard or Shahrooz, the husband-and-wife owners who have been known to offer free meditation classes, free guest lecturers, and even free samples of vegan... More >>
• Best Stencils
  BlackBooks Stencils
  So there's this guy, Books. He won't say his real name. He does some graffiti, but he can't talk about that either because, you know, it's illegal. He and his business partner, Dr. Black (don't ask him his real name either), have taken stencil to an artistic level. Remember stencils from grade... More >>
• Best Place to Game
  Sub Zero Games
  Sub Zero Gaming Center is a mix of Internet café and video arcade, with a twist of home gaming. It's got all the comforts of gaming at home (a snack bar, comfy chairs, individual glass desks, and headsets) without the solitude. The Greenacres joint has 17 computers equipped with 19-inch... More >>
• Best Toy Store
  Kids-n-Science
  Babies are stupid. Many of them can't even talk. So they're in no position to complain if all their toys serve some ulterior parental motive, like education. Rather than letting the TV set play babysitter, pop in Brainy Baby, the DVD that teaches junior how to access his right brain (for... More >>
• Best Gift Shop
  Sticks and Stones
  So you need to buy some turquoise jewelry created by local craftsmen, pick up a chunk of petrified dinosaur dung, and relieve that pesky itch via a holistic earwax-removal candle, but you don't have time to run all over town. Lucky for you, the Hollywood Beach Resort has just the one-stop... More >>
• Best Signature Gift
  Rose Vine Winery
  Thanks to the enterprising folks over at Rose Vine Winery, you can now do in a Federal Highway shopping plaza what it took Robert Mondavi acres and acres of expensive Napa Valley real estate to do: make your own wine. First, a winemaking specialist lets you sample a range of flavors and explains... More >>
• Best Housewares
  Jezebel
  Over the past 20 years, this boutique has evolved from humble roots: It started as the Stock Exchange in Wilton Manors, a tiny closet of a shop jam-packed full of vintage textile treasures. Now (and for the past 16 or so years), it calls the Gateway Plaza home and has expanded its inventory to... More >>
• Best Leather
  Minimalista Inc.
  We all know that the softest, most sublime, and supple leather comes from Italy. Whether it's shoes, a jacket, skirt, pants, or even chaps, the Italians can make even the most loyal vegans want to wear it. And at Minimalista Furniture in the Gateway Shopping Plaza — where Sunrise Boulevard... More >>
• Best Mechanic
  Rothe's
  He could have said it was the flux capacitor, and sadly, I wouldn't have known the difference. So you can imagine my surprise when the vehicle that I had nervously abandoned only 15 minutes earlier was already prepped for surgery, diagnosed, and broken down into words that even I understood.... More >>
• Best Motorcycle Shop
  Competition Cycle Center
  Outside Competition Cycle Center, a hulking doorman sits on a chair, his vest appliquéd with rock 'n' roll patches and an embroidered outline of a middle finger. Inside, rows of gladiator-style body armor hang from waterfall racks like a daredevil army. Across from them, a weathered man... More >>
• Best Nursery
  Flamingo Road Nursery
  For a place with sand instead of soil, South Florida's got some persistent native plants. And if the long drive west on Griffin Road is any indication, there's no shortage of businesses that want to sell those plants to you. But the question you have to ask yourself is: "What kind of Eden do I... More >>
• Best Pet Store
  Chippy the Pirate
  To get voted Best Pet Store, a place has gotta have pizzazz! It needs spunk, it needs that certain something that really puts it over the edge, it needs (drum roll here) "Parrotphernalia." Yes, that's right. Chippy the Pirate is as authentic to Florida as margarita lunch breaks, because at... More >>
• Best Place for Musicians
  Alpha Kinetix
  Musicians know that one of life's greatest pleasures is to plug in and turn on an amplifier: The hum as it warms up, a familiar sound promising future tones and harmonics served up loud. Knowing that she has a willing slave, the glowing red beacon of an LED bulb beckons the musician on. But... More >>
• Best Dollar Store
  99 Cents Stuff
  This Deerfield Beach discount store, between a Pier One outlet store and Costume World, is one of about a dozen in a locally owned chain. If the little girl in you can resist the pink plastic "Fancy & Cutie" comb-and-mirror set, perhaps the grown-up you could use the TGI Friday's hurricane... More >>
• Best Vintage Store
  House of Vintage
  As Gen Xers age, they take their love of thrift-store scavenging with them. The only difference now is that nobody has the time to dig through rack after rack of hideous garments to find the real treasures: sexy '50s hot pants, girly '60s swing coats, or coy '20s sheers. Time is too precious a... More >>
• Best Place to Donate Your Clothes
  Covenant House Florida
  Covenant House Florida has helped thousands of displaced kids each year since opening in 1985. The Fort Lauderdale Beach crisis shelter is famous throughout SoFla for its open-intake policy, which provides food and shelter to youth with no place else to go, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These... More >>
• Best Shoe Shop
  $9.99 Shoe Warehouse
  Click your heels together three times and say, "I want to go to the $9.99 Shoe Warehouse." Once you've made it to this bonanza of delight for the feet, you'll find ruby red slippers and more. Got a hard-to-match outfit of orange, lime green, purple, or electric blue? No worries — there's a... More >>
• Best Boutique
  Bear and Bird
  Inside the Lauderhill staple Tate's Comics, girls jog up a sturdy wooden stairway to a living-room-sized wooden loft where a metal sign on the wallpapered perimeter reads: "Bear and Bird." The space radiates vibes of being part boutique, part girly clubhouse. Toward the front, sterling-silver... More >>
• Best Comic Book Store
  Tate's Comics
  When Tate Ottati opened his comic book store, he wanted it to be an alternative to the cutthroat, high-priced comic book retailers in town. The then-17-year-old high-schooler used money he'd invested in Marvel stock to buy the place. Now, almost 15 years later, Tate's has become the one-stop... More >>
• Best Record/CD Store
  Backbone Music
  Who the hell would want to open a record store in the Age of the Digital Download? It's pure masochism. At least, that's what everyone told Backbone Music's Nunzio and Rafael Esposito before they opened the place in late 2005. But they didn't listen, and you can thank the vinyl gods for that.... More >>
• Best Sex Toys Shop
  Hustler Hollywood
  Before the advent of Larry Flynt's 17,000-square-foot porn emporium, local sex freaks had to slum it. Try as they might, local triple-X video joints never shake their sketchiness. They may claim to be couples-friendly, but there's always a supercreepy dude behind the counter or shady characters... More >>
• Best Adult DVD/Video Store
  Rio Vista (This Is It)
  Have you ever wanted a sandwich, a bottle of wine, a seven-inch dildo, and some beef jerky all at once? If so, then Rio Vista in southern Fort Lauderdale was designed exactly for you. This well-stocked porno/convenience store has all the goodies of a 7-Eleven but with a sex-toy department in the... More >>
• Best Liquor Store
  Crown Wine and Spirits
  Perhaps the crown jewel of the Crown franchise, this exquisitely well-stocked pantry at the corner of Yacht Captain Row and Cruise Ship Lane caters to those with a need for the finer things in life. Landlubbers and regular wage slaves come in and gawk at the kind of victuals a real-life Thurston... More >>
• Best Salon
  Tease
  It looks like an airy loft apartment and is so smartly urbane that forward-thinking stylists like Gina Zompa won't let you settle for just a trim if what you really need is a re-'do. Even if you've got perfectly long, straight, blond locks or fabulous cork-screw curls waving throughout your... More >>
• Best Discount Beauty Supply Store
  Fantastic Beauty Supplies
  Forget about leaving here without spending at least $20. If you have a nail-polish fetish so severe that the vast subtle difference in pink from "Ballet Slippers" to "Sugar Daddy" means that you have to buy them both, then this warehouse-in-a-strip-mall is your mecca. You've got $7-a-bottle... More >>
• Best Place to Get a Blue Rinse
  Artistic Expressions by Riviera In Athena's Salon & Spa
  Women used to be so striking. Look at Billie Holliday's pin curls, held taut with gardenias. Or Lucille Ball's slicked-up, lacquered-down poodle cut. There were soda-can bouffants, beehives woven into architectural wonders, and, of course, more sexy, bad girl, and rockabilly up-dos than you can... More >>
• Best Massage
  ManKind
  Men aren't always that comfortable pampering themselves. Most guys are more likely to buy spa packages for their spouses than expect one as a gift for themselves. Theories abound on why that is, but it's important for certain male-only day spas like ManKind in downtown Fort Lauderdale to pick up... More >>
• Best Skate Shop
  Surf World
  Don't let the name fool you. At Surf World, you'll find supplies for everything you can do in South Florida that requires putting both feet on some sort of board and holding your body in balance while moving. In the back of both of these Broward County locations, past that hollow black $1,049... More >>
• Best Gym
  The Athletic Club at Weston
  At about $115 a month, the Midtown Athletic Club in Weston is about triple the cost of Gold's Gym or L.A. Fitness. But those other places don't have 25 tennis courts, three pools, and classes on how to dance the zumba. Bring CDs and DVDs to play while you're burning calories on the elliptical... More >>
• Best Dive Shop
  The Scuba Club
  It's advertised as "a country club for scuba divers" and, less humbly, "the best damn facility on the planet since 1972." Those claims are hard to argue with, because the Scuba Club has everything you need, from wetsuits and regulators (for rent or sale at the pro shop) to a classroom (basic... More >>
• Best Hardware Store
  Riverland Hardware
  American hardware stores bore witness to three distinct evolutionary stages: First came the mom-and-pop epoch, where a kindly soul would take you by the hand down dusty aisles to find exactly the eyehook or hose bib you'd been searching for. Next came the Ace/TrueValue era, which began to... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill in Broward
  Beer Pong at the Cloud Nine Lounge
  Much like the National Beer Pong League and the American Beer Pong Association of America, the Cloud Nine takes its beer pong seriously. Not only does the bar have its own custom-built plywood competition tables, house rules, and referees; it knows how to draw hardcore "athletes" — with... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill in Palm Beach
  Driving as Fast as You Can
  Everyone knows there isn't a legitimately cheap thrill to be found in money-mad Palm Beach County, so we decided to focus more on the thrill aspect of this award. And what could be more thrilling than driving your car as fast as you damned well please? Although you can achieve this cheaply on... More >>
• Best Not-So-Cheap Thrill
  Gotham Dream Cars
  At press time, luxury car-rental shop Gotham Dream Cars had seven shiny machines in its fleet: a Lamborghini Murcielago with scissor doors ("as loud and as screaming a car — visually and acoustically — as you can get," according to the company owner, 28-year-old Noah Lehmann-Haupt), a... More >>
• Best Place to Purchase the Florida Dream
  Spyke's Grove
  They came for the spot of subtropical sand with an orange tree in the backyard. That's the way Florida was built: countless bungalows on drained swamp with fresh citrus at near arm's reach. Then came the canker scare and the state's disastrous killing spree, wherein the dream was turned into a... More >>
• Best Tattoo Parlor
  Stevie Moon
  When you show up for your appointment with Stevie Moon or his cohort, Todd K., you realize one thing the moment you step inside the new, cathedral-ceilinged studio: You are not about to get beaten up. This may seem like an obvious point, but it's not. Most tattoo parlors are fetid swamps of... More >>
• Best Cigar Bar
  Macabi Smoke and Beanery
  We may have been in a port-wine-induced haze, but we could have sworn that Macabi's has something that so many modern establishments lack: an aura. It wasn't just a cloud of delicious cigar smoke. We recall dim lighting, a couch in the corner, and endearing piles of clutter behind the bar. There... More >>