Steveo Postal Place in Downtown San Diego, California

This packaging and mailing shop with 4 Internet stations on G St between 2nd and 3rd Avenue (a block east of Ralph's and a block south of Horton Plaza) in the Marina District in downtown San Diego has changed hands quite a few times in the last couple of years. Luckily, though, it remains a friendly and decidedly locally owned business where the staff knows all the regular customers by name and actually help them save money rather than always pushing for the more expensive services they don't need.

The airy shop (not anywhere nearly as cluttered as the other postal shops in the downtown area) is sort of tugged away from the heavy foot-traffic of the Gaslamp Quarter and so you'd rarely have to wait long to be helped or pay for your stuff there. This place does practically everything you'd want a postal/shipping shop to do... except for the lack of public notary service.

The right side of the store houses the rental mail boxes. They give you a street address rather than a PO Box for very reasonable 3 months rate (minimum rental period). $42 for small box, $51 for mid size, and $72 large box for those of us bent on subsidizing the US Postal Service (who doesn't even sponsor Lance Armstrong's cycling team anymore). SteveoPP will even receive and hold a package for you for a fee ($10 per box and $5 per envelope) even if you don't have a mail box there.

In the middle of the area is a long table here with all the forms for those poor souls wishing to send or receive money via Western Union, too (I've used WU a few times to send oversea payment to a few idiots who haven't caught on to the Paypal concept yet... WU's rates are outrageous!).

The front and left side of the shop display neat arrays of stationary, shipping boxes, bubbles, mailers, and other mailing products (not a lot of brands to choose from, but the price is alright). They offers professional packing service if you don't feel like coping with how to fit unwieldy round things into a square box... or something like that... while keeping the package's weight down. Steveo is a FedEx station and ships via FedEx, UPS, and USPS (US Postal Service).

Also toward the back left of the store are the 4 high speed Internet stations (¢15 per minute. Cheaper than at Kinko/FedEx's!) with both black & white printer/copier and color one. The store being sort of out of the way of tourist traffic means that there's usually one or more free computer you can take over the second you waltz into this place rather than having to wait in a line.

Check out is at the counter at the back-center of the store. This is also the key duplication desk where forgetful dunces like me have our spare keys made ($2.78 per key) and where the many foreign exchange students in the area buy their phone cards and stamp or send/receive faxes to/from home ($1 per page to send for local numbers and more for long distant or international. Only $1 per page to receive). You can also order business cards and rubber stamps here. Those with sweet tooth among us should beware, though, like other businesses around town, they had taken to carrying selected candy bars and sweets at the counter as if we Californians are in any danger of dropping dead from hypoglycemia (it's no accident how big the business of dieting is around here).

There are two post offices serving downtown San Diego, but Steveo Postal Place offers competitive prices for stamps, mailing, and postal supplies plus all the extra services and hardly ever any line! The location just a block east of Ralph's sure doesn't hurt either (you can drop by on the way back from your weekly trip to the grocery store). Parking is off-the-street meters... and it is usually pretty easy to find a spot along this stretch of G St or 2nd Avenue. Definitely a good local business to take your business to!

Steveo's Postal Place:255 G Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), San Diego, CA 92101
Tel (619) 702-9403, Fax (619) 702-9384
Hours: Mon-Fri: 9AM-6PM, Sat: 10AM-2PM. Closed on Sundays