Earlier this month, the menswear brand John Varvatos took a step that has become all too common among major retailers: It shuttered its store at the San Francisco Centre, the mostly empty mall on Market Street.
But it turns out that the mall’s loss will be Union Square’s gain.
The luxury menswear retailer has leased 5,000 square feet at 58 Geary St., a space previously home to Alexander McQueen, which closed in 2023. For John Varvatos, the move is a bit of a homecoming. The company opened its first store at 152 Geary St. in 2008, moving over to the mall when that lease expired in 2018…