Comments (0) Best Quick-Stop Museum Gift Shop - 2012
Gracie at Santa Monica Museum of Art
Museum shops are pretty good places for last-minute gifts — you will find items quirky enough that the recipients probably will not have seen them and definitely will not have purchased for themselves. The Santa Monica Museum of Art has a tiny, super-focused version, called Gracie, its goods stacked neatly in the hallway between the entrance and the galleries. Some items you may have seen in other luxury-novelty stores, like a mug that looks like three espresso cups smushed together. Others are surprises, like the collection of plates stacked in the shape of a palace. No one needs these things. But you need to buy them for someone, and this museum shop makes it easy and pleasant to do so. Oh, and feel free to walk 10 steps more to see the actual museum, which has a $5 suggested donation ($3 for seniors, students and artists). Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., G1, Santa Monica. (310) 586-6488, smmoa.org.
—Zachary Pincus-Roth
