The day before I left for Costa Rica I headed to REI for “a quick stop” to pick up some bug spray and those silly pants the zip out into shorts. Two hours and $500 later I walked out a happy (if poorer man). If you haven’t seen the flagship REI in Seattle, you’re missing the pinnacle of gearhead shopping. Walk out of the parking garage and ascend the beautiful cement structure with a view of the waterfall and the planted trees. Enter through 20-foot doors to view the climbing wall. Then simply wander.
I get that not every business can pour millions and millions into the perfect structure, but it’s not just the building that they got right. The staff are knowledgeable without ever being condescending to veritable know-nothings such as myself. The layout of the store is a path of discovery. No massive racks of everything. You wander from place to place to find various experiences.
Then I spend 16 days in Costa Rica with a broken Mac, and I return straight away to the Apple Store. Seattle’s Apple store recently receive a sorely unneeded face lift, and it was brilliant. They focus is clearly around service, with a matte aluminum back wall featuring not oversized fruit, but the Genius Bar logo. Several kiosks are around for 1:1 training. The openness remains, where one can focus on the beauty that is a Mac. (Hey, how ’bout those new aluminum MacBooks? Not bad, eh?) I waiting for an hour while they fixed my mac, and I managed to buy a new keyboard, one of those laptop platform lifts, and a neoprene case for my alleged biking to work (forever forstalled until Seattle stops being freezing). Again, “geniuses” are knowledgable without being condescending. I wandered the store to discover my items, and enjoyed the open design. There’s a theme here.
