Green Apple Books

Richard Savoy founded Green Apple Books in 1967. He was 25 years old, had done a tour in the Army and worked as a radio technician for United Airlines, but he had little business experience. With a deep love of the written word, some savings, and a credit union loan, he got a lease in a pre-1906 Richmond district building near the corner of Clement Street and Sixth Avenue, next door to a shoe repair business. His stock of used books, comics, and National Geographic magazines attracted a following in the neighborhood, one that continued to grow over the next 53 years.

Today, the shop covers about 10 times its original 750 square feet and is perennially voted the best bookstore in the Bay Area by readers of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the SF Weekly, and various other papers, magazines, websites, etc. Over the years, as space became available, the store expanded, gradually doubling its width, adding a mezzanine and a second floor, and increasing the inventory of new books. In 1996, two storefronts became available a few doors down the street and Green Apple acquired Revolver Records, its neighbor for twenty years, thus adding new and used music to the mix. The store’s selling space went from 5,000 to its current 8,000 square feet, allowing the book selection to expand. A few years later, Green Apple further diversified their offerings to include a fine DVD selection.