Have you been to these stores? 5 places to buy local gifts

Buying local is big this year.

But what happens when your regular go-to locally owned store doesn’t have the perfect gift? Sure would be nice to stumble across a hidden gem of a store.

We can help with that.

Between my 11 years as a reporter covering stores and shopping, and a completely unscientific poll of Fresno Bee readers via social media, we came up with five stores you may not have discovered.

All are locally owned and in Fresno, Clovis or Visalia.

Bullard Pharmacy

From the outside Bullard Pharmacy looks like you’d expect a pharmacy to look – understated, with a faded green and beige sign. Inside is a pharmacy, sure, but there’s also a sizable gift shop. The store is at the northwest corner of Bullard and West Avenues.

The entire right side of the store is packed with things like giant wind chimes, tiny birds wearing little Santa hats, stuffed animal bunnies, 1,000-piece puzzles and tractor tire Christmas ornaments. There are also gifts for teachers, such as the mug in a knitted red cozy that comes with hot cocoa mix and a tiny whisk, points out Lynn Taylor, the pharmacist in a white coat who owns the store with her husband Allen.

Longtime readers may remember the business when it was Bullard Village Drugs, which started in 1972 at Palm and Bullard avenues. That’s not around anymore, but the couple later opened smaller a store under the name Bullard Pharamacy at 2026 W. Bullard Avenue. It also has a U.S. Postal Service counter inside.

The store carries a few boxes of chews from Bakersfield candy shop Dewar’s and a few boxes of chocolates from Stafford’s Chocolates from Porterville.

A popular seller: The Baggallini travel bags, wallets and small backpacks. They’re lightweight, with lots of zippers and pockets, from a company that was founded by a pair of flight attendants.

Grizzlies pop-up shop

The Fresno Grizzlies have a temporary shop in River Park you may have walked past without noticing. It sells the same funky merchandise that’s at the team’s store in downtown Fresno.

You don’t have to be baseball fan to shop here. T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts are geared toward anyone who like tacos or Fresno, in addition to baseball.

You’ll see tacos printed on lots of merchandise because every Tuesday during baseball season the team transforms into the Fresno Tacos. There is even a “stress taco,” one of those rubbery things workers squeeze at their desks.

The store also sells shirts with the team’s 20th anniversary logo and, of course, game tickets.

To find the little shop, look for the new spaces the River Park created by enclosing part of the parking garage. The store is across the street from Me-n-Ed’s Coney Island Grill and will be there until the first week of January.

A popular seller: The hat with a taco on it and a serape design on the bill, which sells for $36.

Pacific Treasures

At 219 W. Main St. in Visalia Pacific Treasures & Gourmet has a prime spot. But if you think it’s only a kitchen and cooking store, think again.

The store has evolved over the years, adding a men’s section, along with candles, babies and kids, and garden products. Owner Michelle Wiebe calls it an “everything that’s fun store.”

So now you can buy a manly “Big Ass Brick of Soap” that smells like “productivity,” says the label from Duke Cannon company.

The 25-year-old store also sells home decor, edible gifts and toothy Jellycat brand stuffed piggies and sharks.

“They have the cutest stuffed animals I have ever seen,” she says.

Pacific Treasures still sells kitchen goods like cheese spreaders and is one of the few sellers of Le Crueset cookware in the area.

The shop also does gift baskets while you wait.

Foxtail Gallery

This shop in Old Town Clovis isn’t an art gallery, though it has plenty of eye-catching things. The Foxtail Gallery at 614 Fifth St. sells rocks, including birthstones, fossils and other natural history related merchandise – even meteorites.

The store started nine years ago when founder John Eliason’s rock collection got so big he started selling parts of it from a Fresno lumberyard, the family’s other business. They quickly learned a shop in Old Town was a better place to sell pretty little gems and rocks, says his son, Ethan Eliason.

Now Foxtail Gallery draws shoppers from all walks of life, the younger Eliason says. Kids love adding little, colorful rocks that cost $2 to $5 to their collections. Serious mineral collectors go for the rare stuff from around the world. Decorators opt for the giant “wow” pieces as focal points in a home or office, like the $2,300 bowl carved from banded onyx from Mexico.

The back of the store is like a mini natural history museum with several fossils on display. They range from small fish so perfectly preserved they look like paintings to large rocks with brittle stars (like starfish but with thin, wavy arms that lived millions of years ago when Morroco was covered by a shallow sea).

A local woman makes necklaces from some of the minerals. And tiny meteorites are for sale, either on their own or as necklace pendants. (Hint: This is great way to tell your wife she’s “out of this world.”)

A popular seller: The owners were surprised to find about half their business comes from people who believe certain stones have metaphysical properties, like healing powers. So that $16 green prehnite stone might be carried in a pocket or kept by the bed.

Heroes

Heroes, the comic book store at 110 E. Shaw Ave. near Highway 41, isn’t exactly hidden. But plenty of people have driven right past it thinking there was no reason to stop because they’re not into comic books.

However, the store also has posters, hats and wall art for people who aren’t diehard comic collectors, but instead just like the movies or the characters. Stick to the perimeter of the store here (comics are in the middle and that’s still Heroes main gig) to find merchandise inspired by Batman, Superman, Star Wars and the Avengers.

There’s a Wonder Woman visor for $5 and a hat with images of Harley Quinn, a villain from DC Comics for $15, for example.

A popular seller: The coin banks that look like action figures from the front. Most are under $20 and feature Ant-Man, the Joker, and Rocket, the gun-toting raccoon from “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

This story was originally published December 16, 2016 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Have you been to these stores? 5 places to buy local gifts."