Golden Gate Xpress | The proprietor of one among San Francisco’s oldest deal with outlets doesn’t fish

Stephanie Ernst Scott would be the first to admit that she has never fished a day in her life – a unique position as the owner of a 62 year old tackle shop.

After 45 years at Gus’ Discount Tackle, an Outer Richmond fishing business, Ernst Scott said that her week off day is better spent playing with her grandchildren. In addition, Ernst Scott admitted that she hardly has the patience to fish anyway.

“I could never sit there,” said Ernst Scott, “you have to have the ability to sit, not my strength.”

Framed by over a thousand photos of customers and their fish, Ernst Scott sat smiling behind the counter of her tackle shop and waited restlessly for her next customer to come in. It was a slow, cold morning in a city where fog was often dictating the public’s retail habits.

The photos that adorn the walls and ceiling, some new, others faded and curled up from years in the sun, depict generations of anglers in San Francisco. The smiling customers who pose with their fish in these snapshots are doctors, teachers, hairdressers, and lawyers. Ernst Scott pointed out not one, but two photos of customers in full wedding regalia in the store. One was new – both the husband and wife wore masks.

The store, a mecca for fishermen in San Francisco, is a place where, according to Ernst Scott, customers can talk about anything – from fishing to family. And while Ernst Scott may not have an affinity for the sport itself, she stays because of the fulfillment she supposedly gets from the job.

“Goods are goods, but this is just a great place that has a very emotional bond with a lot of our customers,” said Ernst Scott.

The general store became a tackle shop

Ernst Scott inherited the shop from her father, Gus Ernst, an Austrian Jew who she said fled the Nazis on skis during the Holocaust before settling in San Francisco.

“He was driving across the Alps while the Gestapo was shooting at him,” said Ernst Scott. “He saved his life and knew how to ski.”

Like father and daughter, Ernst did not fish either. The store first appeared as a general store on Clement Street in 1959 before moving to its current location – a former upholstery factory – on Balboa Street in 1961. Ask Ernst Scott and she will point out the pipes that run across one of the walls and the spot in the background she suspects must have once housed a kettle.

“This store sold everything but hot stoves and pets,” she said of her father’s early days.

It wasn’t until Ernst began receiving more requests from his regulars for more fishing gear that the business became more specialized. It started slowly, said Scott. Ernst would be asked one day to bring more rods. The next would be lines or hooks. In order to meet the demands of its customers, Ernst’s general store eventually became Gus’ Discount Tackle.

Behind the register, Scott spends most of her day. From here, she can see the news, speak to customers, and control the store. (Avery Wilcox / Golden Gate Xpress)

Criminals to lawyers

Ernst Scott never thought she would run her father’s fishing business.

Ernst Scott was unemployed in 1974 and had a masters degree in communications from SF State which felt increasingly useless. He felt stuck. Her father hired her as an employee out of kindness, she said.

“Really useful in this world,” said Ernst Scott sarcastically of her degree, gesturing around the shop. “Teaching is the only application, there were no jobs.”

Forty-five years later, she said she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

While waiting for her first customers of the day, she joked that the people who come through the store are usually a lot more interesting.

“I’m sorry there can’t be more wackos for your story,” she said. “I have the best customers, 10 hours a day I have to deal with the most beautiful soup and nut customers in the world. They share their lives with you, come in for a coffee, it’s like an old general store. ”

Ernst Scott sums up her client base simply: she brings everyone from offenders to the lawyers they represent. She said that over the decades she has worked there, she has seen generations of customers attend to their discount needs.

One such customer is Chris Leong, a hairdresser whose father first brought her to the store about 30 years ago. She had stopped by Gus to drop off a gift certificate for Ernst Scott’s daughter from her salon (both she and her daughter have their hair cut by Leong) and they were about to show each other family photos. Leong was back at the store with her friend Karen Fong for the first time since the pandemic.

Leong said she hasn’t seen any major changes in Gus since childhood.

“She kept it where you can dig out of boxes,” she said.

“Is Chris telling you I’m a slut?” Ernst Scott said and cut him across the room.

“

It’s a family business. It’s not a franchise, it’s not a chain – it’s personable. “

– Chris Leong

Both women laughed before Ernst Scott took her on an impromptu tour of the store and showed her the old signage that was neatly hidden in the rafters. Leong said Ernst Scott was one of the main reasons she kept coming back after all these years.

“It’s a family business. It’s not a franchise, it’s not a chain – it’s personable, ”said Leong.

“Also for her personality,” said Fong, a non-fisherman, who said she would like to accompany Leong when she visits the store.

At the other end of the store, Chris Titus and his son Gage were rummaging through the store’s goods. Both were in town for the day from Sacramento and were drawn to the huge mural covering the shop front, showing a fisherman throwing his line over the door. Titus and his son, both fishermen, suspected that they had come across like-minded people.

“I like these little mom and pop shops,” said Titus. “I’d rather go somewhere like here than go to a big store like Bass Pro Shops.”

1,500 photos and counting

In the 10 years before his death, Ernst Scott worked with her husband Bill Scott on Gus’ Discount Tackle, where he primarily ran all books, handled advertising and managed the store’s website.

He and Ernst Scott met while studying at SF State and, like Ernst Scott, struggled to find work after completing his Masters in English.

Before helping Ernst Scott in the tackle shop, he served as the director of management information systems at See’s Candy Company and as a skylight designer.

One of his most important tasks, according to Ernst Scott, was a simple one – printing out customer photos and putting them on the wall. Before his death, Gus’s patrons could email their photos directly to the store to print and hang on the wall or ceiling, often the next day.

Nowadays, customers can still have their picture hung, all they have to do is bring the photo themselves. Unlike her late husband, Ernst Scott is admittedly not tech savvy. Not even a computer is in the store right now.

“I miss my husband for a lot of reasons,” she said, pointing to the photo wall.

When businesses around the world began to close at the beginning of the pandemic, things looked uncertain for the 62-year-old fishery. However, they were identified as an essential business and were allowed to remain open. Ernst Scott thought back to the beginning of the lockdown and said she didn’t know what it would have done if it had to close.

“My husband died a month before Covid started. This and my family saved me spiritually,” she said. “I would have gone mad as a hatter, we were together for 50 years, so you won’t get over it anytime soon.”

A changing neighborhood

Kevin Lorne, a 65-year-old construction manager from West Marin, said he has been coming back to Gus for the past 20 years. Over the past two decades, he said he noticed the neighborhood was getting fancier, but for him Gus’ hasn’t changed a bit.

“It’s small and has excellent service all the time,” Lorne said, indicating Ernst Scott. “And the prices are good.”

“

I will stay here as long as I want. I love it.”

– Ernst Scott

With COVID-19, Ernst Scott said many stores were closed in her beloved Richmond District. Despite the changing neighborhood, she said she will always call the Outer Richmond her home.

“I love to live here,” said Ernst Scott, “they will [have to] carry me out with your feet first. “

Regarding retirement, she said she has no intention of quitting anytime soon. Her daughter is a teacher, her son a cook, and only leaves her small grandchildren, or “geniuses” as she likes to call them, to take over the family business.

“I’ll stay here as long as I want,” said Ernst Scott. “I love it.”