This is very sad news indeed for many reasons. I remember Franciscan very well, my dad was a regular customer for many, many years. If I recall correctly my dad was a customer when Bill Gunther had his first shop as a concession in the Emporium (The Big E) on Market st.

I vividly remember the Ocean Avenue store, across the street from its present location. On Friday nights the store was open until 9pm and would be literally packed several deep all the way down the long counter. The place was amazing, stacked to the ceiling (and this store had a very high ceiling) with a tremendous amount of inventory, any item of which upon request could be located instantly and brought down for inspection and purchase. Model railroading, plastic models, RC planes, and model boats, and much more drew a large a loyal following. Bill Gunther Sr. was a great guy and I will always remember him wearing a green corduroy sport coat and tie, with that amazing tie-clip that was a combination train-plan-boat-submarine, anyone else remember that?

This was time when the Muni PCC cars rolled by on regular basis and I remember on occasion, customer's pointing out their favorite car had just past by. Great memories for about 50 years ago.

Very sad to see them go.