Fog City Flea closes up Mission shop after 9 months

The Fog City Flea Trading Post's Mission location, which opened last year, is closing on Tuesday after 9 months in business. 

Businesses selling there were notified last week about the closure, via an email from owner James Morelos. Fog City will vacate its sprawling, two-story location at 150 Valencia St. by the end of July. 

“Despite all our efforts, the community hasn’t shown up as we hoped,” Morelos wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by Gazetteer SF.  “It’s disappointing, but we view this simply as a sign that it’s not what the community wants or needs.”

The Mission store opened last September at the former location of vintage market Stuff, which closed in February 2024. It is about 17,000 square feet across two floors, more than quadruple the size of the original Ferry Building location. At the time of its Mission opening, Morelos told Mission Local that the commitment to the space was “long.”

During a recent visit, most vendors still remained. But some, like the clothier Happy French Gang, had already moved out ahead of the store’s closure.

In the email to vendors, Morelos described the shop as “a great big test for a neighborhood store” that ultimately did not pan out. 

“This confirms that our focus must be wholly on locations that are an escape from the norm of people’s daily lives,” he added.

Fog City Flea’s flagship store, located at the Ferry Building, was originally scheduled for reopening sometime in May but will likely open in July. Vendors were also given limited notice of that location’s closure in March. Current and former vendors told Gazetteer around the time that they were given little notice, impacting their businesses’ bottom line, even resulting in some shutting down. They also alleged that Morelos mismanaged the shop, delayed payments, and created a culture of fear among vendors and store staff. 

The email did not say if vendors at the Mission location would have a spot to sell their wares at the Ferry Building location upon opening. Morelos did not respond to a request from Gazetteer.