Shops & Merch >>

• Personal Best: The Masked Man
  Asa Boynton, Community Activist
  Asa Boynton is a one-man crime fighter, dope-den destroyer, letter writer, and critic of Hollywood City Hall. In fact, Boynton's tireless hell-raising with Hollywood's Police Department and politicians earned him our nod as this year's Best Gadfly. Since moving to the Diamond of the Gold Coast... More >>
• Best Record/CD Store
  CD Collector
  As the name suggests, CD Collector wants to unburden you of those extra discs piling up at the back of your music collection. If they're in good shape and not especially lame (e.g., Pat Boone's heavy metal album), bring 'em in for either cash or store credit. If your CDs are scratched-up or... More >>
• Best Vintage Store
  Vintage Diversity
  If you're not accustomed to the scavenger-like joys of second-hand shopping, here's rule number one: The difference between a vintage store and a thrift store is like the difference between Ralph Lauren and Target. That being said, Vintage Diversity has the type of hip, retro garb you'd... More >>
• Best Adult Video Store (2 Comments)
  Complete Adult Video
  Watching the wild thing doesn't get any easier than this. This spacious smut palace is just a few blocks off I-95 with easy and ample parking. Thousands of DVDs, featuring every form of bonking one could imagine, line the walls and racks, some for as little as $6. Complete Adult also rents DVDs... More >>
• Best Massage
  Las Olas Beauty
  As you walk through Las Olas Beauty, passing by shelves of skin creams and bath products, you can tell the store knows its cosmetics. But if you venture back into the massage room, you'll see that the store's concept of beauty runs more than just skin deep. The various massages available are... More >>
• Best Stuffed Fish
  Atlantic Taxidermy
  You love the feel of brine in your face and rod 'n' reel in your hands, pulling with all your might to land who-knows-what on that hook. But you also know that the once-plentiful fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean have been woefully overharvested, and the much sought-after billfish, like marlin and... More >>
• Best Seafarer's Guides
  Bluewater Books & Charts
  Arrrgh, maties, listen up to this tale. T'were back in Aught One, and I were takin' the clipper Mary Sue Matilda 'round the Horn. A mighty gale blew in from the west, and the Mary Sue were tossed like slab meat to a hound. Lost, we were. Me crew, good 'n' true, were a-fearin' fer their lives. So... More >>
• Best Dive Shop
  Divers Cove
  Here's a tip: After you buy that new snorkeling or scuba-diving mask, take it to your bathroom. Push out a sliver of toothpaste -- paste, young ocean explorer, not gel -- and rub the paste with your finger on the mask's inside glass. Rinse the mask, then do it once more. That little process will... More >>
• Best Pet Store (1 Comment)
  Underground Reptiles
  It's a little intimidating to walk into a store past tarantulas and scorpions situated right at the front door. But, after passing the creepy crawlies, you'll be dazed by the variety of creatures on display at Underground Reptiles. Poison dart frogs of the brightest blues and yellows, green... More >>
• Best Hair Salon
  The Strand
  The trendy stylists at the Strand can save you from yourself. Like, when you go to get yet another round of blond highlights, they can stop you. Talk some sense into you. Have a style intervention. With a cool razor-cut or a complementary all-over color, they can take you from 2001 straight into... More >>
• Best Baseball Shop
  Batter's Box
  Once upon a time, the only things you needed to get to the big leagues were hopes, dreams, maybe a homemade bat, raw ability, desire, and a father who forced you to switch-hit from the time you were in diapers. My, how the times they have a-changed! The five-tool player of tomorrow probably... More >>
• Best Motorcycle Shop
  Crotchrockets to Barhoppers
  The half-taunt on the front window says, "If you bought a bike here... you would have made that light," as if the indignity of sitting at the railroad crossing at Prospect and Powerline could be any worse. It's a funny jibe from a place that suggests by its very name that all bikers, from... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Used Rubber
  Friendly Tire Co.
  It can be expensive to buy rubber. And, no, we're not talking about variety packs of contraceptive measures. Tires, baby, tires. These days, a set of four brand-new, off-the-production-line radials can set you back close to $1,000. That's a lot of dough, especially if you don't want to sink a... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill in Broward
  Skinny-Dipping on Fort Lauderdale Beach
  There's something wonderfully mischievous about going swimming without so much as a millimeter of lycra between you and the water. There's something even better about doing it at night, and at a very public locale. A good place to disrobe and experience the all-American thrill of skinny-dipping... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill in Palm Beach
  The Bathrooms at Sloan's Ice Cream Parlor
  Sloan's is an amazing sensory experience, with its hot-pink walls, giant lollipops, miniature choo-choo train, 47 flavors of ice cream, and toys, toys, toys! But the most amazing part is the bathrooms -- which have clear glass doors that look right in to the throne. When you venture in and turn... More >>
• Best Not-So-Cheap Thrill
  East Coast Kiteboarding
  Six years ago, kiteboarding was in its infancy. There were no magazines about it, no DVDs, no lessons. Pioneers just went out to the beach, tried to harness the wind, and got slingshot hundreds of yards down the beach in the process. That's when East Coast Kiteboarding's owner, Damien Wright,... More >>
• Best Dollar Store
  Dollar Heaven
  Boom times have wreaked havoc at most dollar stores, where prices have crept up ten, 20, even 30 ticks above the promised 100 cents. Still, it's quality that really counts, even at around a sawbuck, and quality is where Dollar Heaven earns its halo. Four bits and change grants you access to... More >>
• Best Gift Shop
  Jezebel
  Jezebel isn't just for '40s sock-hoppers and vintage couture queens anymore. The venerable vintage clothing store, which in previous incarnations was also called the Stock Exchange, has kept Fort Lauderdale in funky duds for 15 years. But the managers couldn't keep their enthusiasm for quirky... More >>
• Best Place to Donate Your Clothes (1 Comment)
  Women in Distress Blooming Sales
  Dragging a haul of bell-bottoms and turtlenecks to the Women in Distress thrift store in Margate makes you feel like a saint and involves face time with some of the feistiest ladies in Broward County. The store, in a tired-looking strip mall, accepts donations of clothing, furniture, and... More >>
• Best Sex Toys Shop
  Catalog X
  It's been called the L.L. Bean store of gay sex toys, and for good reason -- Catalog X is the retail outlet for the vaunted gay sex-toy catalog of the same name and stocks the three-foot silicone cocks and gallon-sized vats of personal lubricant that the rest of the country can obtain only via... More >>
• Best Shoe Shop
  Strut
  Let's make this clear -- anybody can slap a "shoe store" sign on a strip mall and hawk Keds for a living, but it takes a special touch to sell honest-to-God stripper shoes, and Strut does it with panache. They have help -- Strut is connected at one end to the Fetish Factory, South Florida's... More >>
• Best Hole in the Wall
  Asian Market
  The Asian Market off Lantana Road, which is sandwiched between a hair salon and a Chinese takeout, is packed tighter than a spring roll (and yes, that's its entire name). The seven aisles are stacked to the ceiling with Asian goods ranging from Dragon Dude candy to Happy Tea. At the back of the... More >>
• Best Place to Rent a Scooter
  Fun Rentals
  A1A is one of the only roads that you can buzz down on a 49cc scooter without feeling embarrassed. The salty ocean breeze and endless single lanes of traffic make for miles of laughs while scooting along at 25 mph. Fun times, but you don't actually want a scooter in the garage, do you? They need... More >>
• Best Tattoo Parlor (2 Comments)
  Tattoo Paradise
  Seems like tattoo parlors are appearing and disappearing so fast, before your new skin design gets a chance to scab over, the place that inked it has been replaced with a Starbucks. So it says something that Tattoo Paradise has been on the same street for more than 15 years. Owner Louie Lombi... More >>
• Best Middle Eastern Grocery
  Sahara
  Arabic-language newspapers. Bulk curry. Cans of ghee. Dates. Falafel, fava beans, and filo dough. Hibiscus drinks, hookahs, and hummus. Jordan almonds. Malt beverages. Orange blossom water. Rose syrups. Sardine tins and sesame candies. Teas from every corner of the tea-drinking world, tobaccos... More >>
• Best Indian Market
  Bedessee East-West Indian Foods
  On the floor, a cluster of blue crabs crawl around in a plastic tub. A broken harmonium -- an old Indian pump-organ -- sits waiting to wheeze again. But to notice these details amid Bedessee's cramped aisles, crowded with customers, is far from easy, what with all the action at eye level. True... More >>
• Best Cigar Bar
  Smoke Café
  On a late weekday afternoon, all is as it should be at the Smoke Café. Several patrons are perched along the black marble-topped bar, where a phalanx of elaborate stainless-steel lighters stands. A retired gentleman is regaling a visitor with tales of a near-death experience, puffing... More >>
• Best Cigars
  Ultimate Cigars and Fine Wines
  You have to love a business small enough that you're dealing with the owner and big enough to be overwhelmed by selection. If you're a novice smoker or buying for a friend, you won't go wrong with the helpful recommendations of owner Moe Sohail, who's been running the place for eight years. But... More >>
• Best Liquor Store
  Hollywood Vine
  Wine snobbery, or at least wine appreciation, has finally trickled down to the masses: You no longer need 1,600 dusty bottles in the cellar of your baronial manse to enjoy quaffing a decent port. Getting to know good wine is supposed to be fun -- Bacchus is a party god, after all. That wicked... More >>
• Best Life-Sized Jesus
  Moroneys' Religious Art
  If there are two things no household should be without in these Republican, family-value-touting times we live in, it's an American flag and a full-sized reproduction of Jesus. For the latter, there's Moroneys', which is jam-packed with Christian symbols, artifacts, clothing, and jewelry. There,... More >>
• Best Splurge
  Water Fantaseas Yacht Charter
  Nothing says "I earn more in a year than you do in a lifetime" like a good, old-fashioned luxury yacht. Water Fantaseas employee "Arnold" (he's a bit cagey) is ready to help you choose your pimpin' boat ride from the widest selection of locally available luxury boats. They range from a 94-foot... More >>
• Best Skateboard Shop (1 Comment)
  BC Surf & Sport
  When New Times Broward-Palm Beach gave BC Surf & Sport this award two years ago, the store was at a different, much smaller location. With BC's move to a new storefront last November -- about a block to the north -- it's like going from a four-foot mini ramp to a vertical 14-footer (but much... More >>
• Best Toy Store
  RC Boca Hobbies
  Whose idea was it to exclude adults from the joys of things that go vroom? Certainly not the boys at RC Boca, who maintain their own private fiefdom of motor-powered testosterone toys in a tucked-away corner of Boca Raton's Mission Bay Plaza. Inside this remote-control-enthusiast shrine, all... More >>
• Best Mechanic
  Volvostop
  If you drive a Volvo in South Florida, you can expect plenty of jeers and obscene hand gestures from fellow motorists who don't understand the allure of boxy Swedish engineering. You can also expect to be screwed by a nitwit mechanic who's never heard of Sweden, let alone that country's... More >>
• Best Pawn Shop
  Davie Pawn and Jewelry
  It's a rare thing for a pawn shop to try to make its customers feel like anything other than the petty thieves, out-of-luck gamblers, and dumpster-diving opportunists that they are. But Davie Pawn and Jewelry has a different philosophy -- swaddle customers in an atmosphere of quality and... More >>
• Best Leather
  Leatherwerks
  Just as the name suggests, this ain't no Western buckskin outlet. Managed by Bear Man, a founder of Fort Lauderdale's Leather University, this store offers the rougher side of leather, from pants and boots to full bondage wear. Particularly eye-catching is the faux-police uniform by Interstate... More >>
• Best Hardware Store
  Executive Hardware
  After Hurricane Wilma kicked our asses back to the 19th Century, there was a store in Fort Lauderdale that still had supplies. It had tapcon screws, generators, and everything needed to slap your abode back to somewhat presentable condition. Executive Hardware, one of the last family-owned... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Castanets
  Guitar Center
  This well-endowed former grocery store contains the largest arsenal of musical instruments in South Florida. Naturally, the place is stocked with six-strings. Keyboards and drums and basses too. But the next time you pass through the glass doors into the sound-proofed drum room, hang your first... More >>
• Best Place to Game
  OffWorld Game Center
  Consider this place Arcade Version 2.0. Instead of playing against a computer, you can play against people inside OffWorld Game Center as well as on another continent. With about two dozen computers hooked up to a high-speed Internet connection in a strip mall in Lauderhill, OffWorld specializes... More >>
• Best Comic-Book Shop
  Tate's Comics
  We tried. We really tried. Surely, there had to be a challenger to knock Tate's Comics off its perpetual throne as best comic source in South Florida. But no. Not only has Tate's continued to be the gravitational center of the local graphic-novel universe but the mind-blowing manga seller has... More >>
• Best Used-Book Store
  Archives Book Café
  Like many of the shops inside the Gateway Plaza, Archives Book Café has the sort of quaint affability that's increasingly rare in a world of Wal-Marts and Starbucks. Its organic, old-library feel is decades removed from the impersonality of the big book sellers. But enough of that...... More >>
• Best Gym
  Sweat!
  Gyms are being subjected to an unfortunate trend in South Florida: They're getting biggie-sized. National chains have moved in and begun the McDonaldization of workout facilities, bringing us legions of soccer moms pumping away on elliptical machines and stair climbers. While bigger may be... More >>
• Best Health Food Store
  Freshly Organic
  While places like Whole Foods grow more like the supermarkets they once scorned, smaller, more traditional health-food outlets struggle. But it's not surprising that a small indie like Organically Fresh has a dedicated following of customers. Stuffed inside are a half-dozen tables covered in... More >>
• Best Place for Musicians
  George's Music
  If you're having trouble finding George's Music in the Palm Beach Mall's directory, there's no need to get your guitar cord in a bunch. Simply go out the Borders exit, walk to the edge of the sidewalk, and look to your right. Yep, that's the only entrance. And if it looks familiar, well, it... More >>