With all the stores that come and go, it’s a wonder the number of retail establishments that have been around for ages, and that keep winning our Best of Buffalo polls year after year.

What’s the secret? Is it location? Ambience? Professionalism? Luck? Whatever it is (and the formula is probably either a very simple or a mindboggling equation) we are lucky to have the tried and true existing side by side with the new and unproven. Should keep everybody on their toes, right?

This year we mourn the closing of some of those tried and true, like best CD/record store nominee Home of the Hits and best thrift shop nominee Don Apparel. Both establishments shut their doors for good this past year, though certainly not due to lack of loyal customers. We did not take them off the list of finalists—they were among the best in Buffalo right up to the moment they closed, after all.

But the beat goes on, and that same block of Elmwood has now gained the recently relocated Allentown Music (which, like the Lexington Coop, saw no reason to change a perfectly good name along with its location), a nominee for best music store, and opened up some prime storefront space for other brave entrepreneurs.

Of course the Elmwood Strip boasts a majority of the nominees, but Allentown and the Hertel area are creeping up fast, and clothing stores, shoe stores, jewelry shops, tattoo parlors and hair salons from all over the city and the suburbs are represented in our poll.

A tour of the best produce nominees would take you from the farmer’s market at Elmwood at Bidwell to Grant Street’s Guercio & Sons to the Clinton-Bailey Market on the East Side.

Best butcher would take you all over the city with Federal Meats’ various locations, and even into the realm of the imagination with Charlie the Butcher’s disqualified nomination. (Charlie the Butcher is not a butcher, people—it’s a restaurant.)

Best antique store nominees can be found from Allentown’s the Antique Man to Clarence’s huge Antique World to the Southtowns’ Antique Mall, where you can find anything from kitsch to real home furnishings. Shops like CooCoo U and Sarah’s Vintage & Antique Jewelry also fit the bill, leading buyers to Hertel Avenue and Williamsville, respectively.

So go on a shopping tour of our Best of Buffalo categories and see practically the entire Western New York area while you’re at it. Only don’t bring your credit card. It probably wouldn’t be wise.

—k. o’day

Sweet and Dirty

best antique shop

Antique Man

Stock Exchange

Antique World

Antique Mall

CooCoo U

Sarah’s

best bookstore

Rust Belt Books

Old Editions

Oracle Junction

Talking Leaves

Secondhand Reader

best video store

DVD Dot (RIP)

Mondo Video

Video Liquidator

Great American Newstand

Audubon Library

best cd/record shop

Record Theater (Main Street, Buffalo)

Home of the Hits (RIP)

Sit and Spin

New World Record

Frisbees

best music store

Jackson Music

Allentown Music

UCrest

Twin Village

Drum Outlet

best liquor store

Gates Circle Liquor

Hodge Liquor

The Premier Group

Spirits of Allentown

Frontier Liquors

best head shop

Decades

Pavilion

Skunk Tail

Terrapin Station

Strange Brew

best sex shop

Video Liquidators

Pandora’s Boxxx

Kimberly’s Intimate Apparel

Hamburg Turnpike

Great American Newstand

best pet store

Steve’s Pets

Markheim Tropical Fish and Pets

Elmwood Pet Store

Animal Outfitters

Fish Place

best gift shop

Rotten Jack’s Creep Shack

Spoiled Rotten

Neo

Positively Main Street

Everything Elmwood

best flower shop

Maureen’s

Mother Nature

Graser’s

Michael’s

Floristry

best hair salon

Aimee and Amy

Chez Ann

Leon Studio

Studio 806

New Age

best manicure/pedicure

Chez Ann

Elite

Capello

Diva

Excuria

best day spa

Capello

Fallingwater

Excuria

Seasons

Elite

best tanning salon

Tanning Bed

Allen Tan

Sun Capsule

Tan Lines

Total Tan

best tattoo parlor

Hand of Doom

Redhouse

Art n Body

Rise Above

Cowpok

best piercing studio

Redhouse

Art n Body

Hand of Doom

Cowpok

Renaissance

best thrift shop

Amvets on Elmwood Avenue

Salvation Army on Niagara Falls Boulevard

Don Apparel (RIP)

Goodwill on Delaware Avenue

St Vincent DePaul shop

best shoe store

Shoe Fly

Shoe Biz

Sunday Skate

Sneaker Advantage

Buffalo Fleece & Outerwear

best sports/outdoor gear shop

Laux Sporting Goods

Sunday Skate

Campus Wheelworks

Buffalo Fleece & Outerwear

Fleet Feet

best bike shop

Bert’s

Rick’s

Handlebars

Shickluna

Campus Wheelworks

Stache

best men’s clothing shop

Stache

Krudmart

Riverside Men’s Shop

Urban

Art n Body

best women’s clothing store

Sweet and Dirty

Half and Half

Damsel in a Dress

Urban

Allen Street Dress Shop

best produce

Wegmans

Guercio & Sons

Lexington Coop

Clinton-Bailey Market

Elmwood-Bidwell farmers market

best fishmonger

Hayes

Wegmans

La Marina

Schneider’s

Broadway Market

best butcher

Scimes

Spars

Federal Meats

Johnny’s Meats

Wegmans

best natural foods

Globe Market

Washington Market

Lexington Coop

Feel Rite

Wegmans

best bakery

Sweet Tooth

DiCamillo’s

Dolci

Delish

Pumpernick