Thursday Night, November 22nd

I arrived at the Chestnut Street Apple store at 9 p.m. to find…the sidewalk was empty. A lone security guard had a stool and crossword puzzle laid out on the front display table, but that was it. The street has lots of small shops, restaurants and bars, so the sidewalk is slightly busy with passersby who are drawn to the store's bright lights. Even motorists slow down, some even rolling down their windows to take cellular phone photos.

The store is one gigantic space, shaped like a Kleenex box, and a one-of-a-kind store. The entire front is glass, with the two side panels measuring at least 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide. The entrance doors are set in to keep the doors from impeding sidewalk traffic, and overhead is a suspended Apple logo, a miniature version of the Fifth Avenue store logo. The narrow exterior wall that surrounds the window opening is off-white masonry, which matches the buildings to the east. At the top of the building is the red clay roof tiles that distinguish the set of buildings of which the Apple store is a part.

Inside, it's back to the standard design--stainless steel walls, wood tables and stone floors. However, the usual effect of being squeezed in by the ceiling is gone, since the ceiling is at least 15 feet tall. It gives a very spacious feeling to the space, enhanced by the bright lighting from the back-lit wall graphics.

According to my calculations, the store is 35-feet wide by 90-feet deep, or 3,150 square-feet. There is a second-level storage space on the back side of the store property that adds more squre-footage to the overall store.

The sidewalk out front has been replaced, another standard Apple tactic for taking control of the store's appearance.

It's definitely the brightest night spot on Chestnut Street, although it's possible Apple will turn down the brightness on subsequent nights.

About 11:30 p.m. a four-person crew arrived to work on the grout coloring between the stone floor panels. Apparently there were three or four places that were too light, so the workers applied blue masking tape on either side of the grout seam. They then paint-brushed down some paste material and rubbed it in. After some cleaning and mopping, they were done.

Their work prompted me to look at the stone floor tiles in general. The variation in shading of some tiles seemed to be greater than usual. Some of the stone tiles seemed darker than the surrounding tiles. Yes, it's a very difficult task to color match these stone tiles.

As the bars closed, more pedestrians passed by, including one man with a triple dose of bad karma--he just switched to Apple products last week, and his MacBook, iPhone and iPod nano were all bad. Perhaps his intoxicated state exaggerated his frustration…or maybe not. I pointed him to the new Genius Bar.

OK, I gave a woman $10 who said her car (w-a-ay up the street) ran out of gas, and she needed gas money to get back to Sacramento, about 100 miles away. "I'm a student. I'm engaged, so I'm not lying," she said. I gave her a bunch of $1 bills.

Two SF police sergeants rolled by, sharing that all the Best Buy and CompUSA stores in the city were crowded with their own waiting lines. As one sergeant typed on the mobile laptop, the other recounted a Mac problem story. Again, I pointed out the new Genius Bar inside.

Oh, they were visiting after they stopped at the 24-hour All-Star Donut shop up at the corner, the "other" beacon along Chestnut Street.

Trivia: Look for the piegon tracks permanently set in the new sidewalk cement, about 10 feet out from the store and slightly to the left of the entrance.

A duo of patrol officers confirmed what other passersby had told us: work to finish the store had been going on 24-hours during the final days. The cops said they'd even fielded some complaints from near-by residents about the overnight construction noise.

Friday Morning

The temperature dipped to 47 degrees around 5 a.m. under clear skies, and still no one has joined me in the waiting line. Thanks to Jake for coming by and keeping me company, though! Delivery trucks have been arriving for Starbucks across the street and other cafes, along with pick-up trucks re-stocking the newspaper racks.

Two workers appeared just after 5 a.m. and one disappeared in back. The other was then standing in the front-right of the store, and began talking to the ceiling. Turns out the missing worker was up above the ceiling, working to realign some ceiling panels. It made for good window watching.

During my stay, one source said that Apple was paying about $24,000 a month in rent, rather than opting to actually owning the building. Another person explained the demographics of Chestnut Street: young money, sometimes inherited, children, lively, active, etc.

The eastern sky began glowing a lighter blue around 6:15 a.m., but it's another 15 minutes before the next two Apple enthusiasts arrived in the waiting line. Within 10 minutes, another person arrived, then another and yet another. By 7 a.m. the line was up to 45 persons east along the sidewalk. Inside, staffers dusted and wiped down every surface in the store, including walls, shelving, computers and other products. Other workers cleaned off the dust from over the entrance door and cleaned (OK, re-cleaned) the windows.

The arriving staff included employees from several other stores, meant to bulk up the staff for the waiting crowd and expected buying surge.

Passersby were confused--they expected that a line on Black Friday meant the store was offering irresistible bargains. It took some extra explanation to convince them it was more than bargains that brought everyone to the line.

Pedestrian traffic and car traffic began to crank up, too, as residents in the area began to hit the cafés, walk their dogs and jog. By 8 a.m. the line had turned the corner at Steiner St. and totaled about 75 persons. Sr. V-P Retail Ron Johnson arrived with his two children, greeting V-P Real Estate George Blankenship with a smile and a hug.

Staffers brought out the plastic bins filled with T-shirt boxes and placed them on both sides of the door.

The employees clapped and shouted when Johnson came into the store during their final pre-opening meeting. Then they all gathered behind the Genius Bar counter for a group photo, and afterward took their place on either side of the center aisle of the store for the entrance.

The Opening

The doors came open at 9 a.m., the manager came out and gave a short speech, and the line began to go inside. We had been told that the inside-out view of the store was spectacular, and indeed it was. From the back of the store, the huge north front window becomes a framed, sunlit view of the opposite side of Chestnut Street, with its mix of architectures and colors [panorama #1 / #2]. The night view must provide an opposite but equally impressive view.

That reflected winter-time north light streams into the store, baths the front half of the store, and then is picked up by the stainless steel walls in the back half. The tall ceiling creates a huge expanse of steel above eye level, and its this part of the wall that picks up and reflects that incoming light.

Otherwise, the store interior is standard: two rows of three tables, then shelving, a kids table, side accessories and software shelving, and a rear Genius Bar. There are no camcorders or digital cameras (a nod to Fireside Camera next door?), and just a single Mac Pro on display.

There was one table set up for Express Shopping, stocking laptops, iPhones and iPods. Step up, place your order, swipe your credit card and get going.

While taking video of the interior, it seemed to me there was many more Easy Pay transactions going on than at other grand openings. Commerce seemed to be brisk, no doubt because it was Black Friday.

I left the store about 9:45 a.m., and the security team was metering the in-coming waiting line, 10 persons at a time. The line extended almost to the end of the block, and I counted 70 persons waiting to get inside. About 20 minutes later, the line was the same length, as new persons were added to the end of the line.

The store is definitely unique, combining individual features from various stores--or no stores at all. The façade lacks the usual stainless steel and uses white masonry like the Lincoln Road store. The ceiling is about 15 feet tall, unlike any other store. There are no window displays, which would obscure the view of the store interior. And the suspended Apple logo duplicates the Fifth Avenue store. It definitely establishes a presence for Apple in another neighborhood of San Francisco.