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Best Head Shop

We-B-Joys

Jerry Garcia may have turned in his tie-dyed T-shirt and electric guitar for a pair of white wings and a harp, but his spirit lives on at this popular hippie stop. In business for more than 13 years, this one-stop shop for countercultural paraphernalia features a back wall stocked with more than 250 water pipes, ranging in size from six inches to more than two feet (for those individuals with a third lung). If you're worried your pipe doesn't match the décor of your apartment, We-B's has pipes shaped like aliens, Frankenstein, and even Chef from South Park. Nostalgia buffs'll go for the ceramic statue of Popeye, which doubles as a hand-held pipe. For the more discreet types, pipes cleverly disguised as florescent highlighters, automobile cigarette lighters, and lipstick cases are available. The furry blue handcuffs in the adult-toys room serve as a nice accent for any headboard. The room also offers leather whips, body creams, body massagers, and a full line of Kamasutra products for fetishists. Sex and drugs. Who would have ever thought the two would make such a good mix?

Best Health Food Store

Wild Oats Community Market

If Adam and Eve were still around, this is where they'd do their weekly grocery shopping. You won't find any MSG, nitrates, or yellow dye number 5 in the aisles, but you will find environmentally friendly bleach and toilet paper and ayurvedic herbs. "Ayur-what?" you ask. Dr. George Love tells customers just how to use the Asian herbs to lose weight. He's one of the many guests who appear at Wild Oats for community events, which include stress-management seminars, live music on Wednesdays, and sample-tasting days. Speaking of taste, if you're one of those picky people who don't like fruits and vegetables bombarded by chemicals and pesticides, look for the section of organically grown produce, right next to the cooler of hormone-and-steroid-free beef and chicken. And if you're in the mood to eat out, an in-house eatery features a sushi bar, made-to-order sandwiches, and a 27-foot salad bar. It's usually packed at lunch with folks looking for an alternative to greasy fast food. Watch out, Burger King.

Best Mall

Town Center at Boca Raton

If you're like most people, you know one-stop shopping is the only way to go. You can find it all, from Saks Fifth Avenue to Sears, at Town Center mall in tony Boca Raton. Town Center offers a variety of shops and specialty stores, including the Polo Shop and Bruno Magli. And for a mere $3 (pretty cheap, especially for Boca), valet parking is available outside the mall's main entrance. Looking for the Princess Diana commemorative plate? Check out the Franklin Mint store. Need tickets to any sporting event or musical? Todd's Tickets is the ticket. Concerned about your safety while schlepping your purchases from store to store? Don't be. Town Center's got that problem licked: Real police officers on bikes patrol the mall courtesy of PBSO -- no rent-a-cops here. At the end of a long day of hard-core shopping, take a break at the food court, which provides some of the best people-watching; from blue-haired old ladies to blue-haired goth teenagers, all species of South Florida life are well represented.

Best Nursery

Living Color Garden Center

You want low prices? Go to Home Depot. But if you want selection, Living Color is the answer. The nursery has more perennials than just about anybody else, from hybrid hibiscuses to heliotropes to guara to argeratheums to ground orchids. Palms? Choose from spindle, triangle, bismarkia, bottle, royal, queen, Christmas, coconut, and Alexander, among others. Citrus? Well, you get the idea. If getting lost in flora appeals to you, Living Color is the place to do it. Bordered by a wide canal, the nursery also has dozens of statues (some hand-carved), a wide range of pottery, a few fountains, and a lot more stuff than you could possibly take in during one visit. But if you have the landscaping bug, you'll be back.

Best Picturesque PortraitStudio

Bougainvillea Place, Home of Stark Photography

Bougainvillea Place is like a Star Trek holodeck: Suggest a time and place, and photographer Butch Stark will transport you. He'll place you in a Victorian sitting room or on a Southern veranda, complete with white wicker swing. He'll turn your son into Boy Blue or Little Lord Fauntleroy, your daughters into fairies fluttering their wings atop magic mushrooms. Stark's back yard is landscaped with wildflowers, ponds, gazebos, a garden gate, tea table, and bird feeder. In his front yard is a tire swing, bougainvillea arbor, and 1932 Ford jalopy. Of course Stark also has smaller props: a '40s scooter, a miniature Chippendale settee, a porcelain bowl that doubles as a baby's bathtub, even a live pet rabbit, Freckles. Stark, whose family planted bougainvillea in Miami at the turn of the century, says he's "looking for a timeless quality" when he shoots portraits. In business since 1970, he's photographed three generations of clients' weddings and bar mitzvahs and done portraits for local newsmakers such as Miami Dolphin Kenny Mixon and Davie developer and rodeo rider Ronnie Bergeron. Whatever the subject or setting, each picture reflects Stark's love of people and photography, which no backdrop can replace.

Best Place To Brew Your Own Beer

Brewmasters South

Home-brewing is a sticky business. The pot of wort -- the stew of hops and barley malt that eventually becomes beer -- boils over at least once when a beginner's at the helm. That's why Brewmasters South is a good place to start. Tom Perlman, who owns the brew-it-yourself outlet with wife, Leslie, sets customers up at one of the gleaming copper kettles in the shop's front window, then helps them get started. First a beer -- anything from pale American-style lager to alcohol-heavy Belgian Double Triple ale -- is chosen, and then the brewer is handed a recipe sheet listing the ingredients. Fresh ground malt is put into a mesh bag and dropped into the water like an oversize tea bag. Syrupy malt extract is added for extra flavor, and after the malt has simmered for a while, hops are added, their tartness balancing the sweetness of the malt. Once the brew is cooked, the staff helps brewers put it in a barrel for fermentation. After two weeks a brewer returns to bottle the beer -- and sample it, of course. For about $100 (plus $50 for a set of 22-ounce, reusable bottles), he walks away with six cases of beer that -- if brewed correctly -- blows domestic brews out of the water and matches pricey imports.

Best Place To Buy A Barstool

Barstools to Go

We didn't know there were so many types of barstools. Tabasco maple. Natural oak. Pine. Leather. Animal prints. Vinyl. Chrome ultrasuede. Backless. Cushion swivel. "We carry something for everybody," says manager Roberta Dubonet, noting that there are more than 1000 stools from which to choose. "I even have a barstool named after me," she says. It's called the Dubonet, an elegant maple throne with vanilla-leather seating. It's for Glenlivet single malt scotch drinkers, and will set you back $550. At the other end of the spectrum is a backless maple stool that runs for $44.50. It's for the Pabst Blue Ribbon crowd. Low to the ground, it's a barstool you can fall off at the end of the night without the risk of serious injury.

Best Place To Buy Antiques

Dania Antiques District

After World War II when Port Everglades was dredged, Dania was drenched in salt water, and the land that made the city famous for its tomatoes went bad. Land values plummeted, and the main drag on Federal Highway emptied out. Then Genevieve Ely, a member of one of South Florida's pioneering families, opened up an antiques shop. Soon one antiques dealer after another began showing up in town, filling up the empty buildings. Dania was no longer synonymous with new fruit but with old furniture. After decades of gradual growth, more than 100 dealers and dozens of shops are crammed into a few blocks. Whether it's a 200-year-old silver set going for $10,000 or a kitschy old Coca-Cola sign for $100, there's a world of stuff to be found there. You can get a little medicine bottle from Colonial times or a really cool grandfather clock or even a ship's binnacle dating to the 1800s. The smart antiques shoppers set aside an entire day for the district and leave with a little piece of history.

Best Place To Buy Secondhand Chanel Suits And Beaded Ball Gowns

Déjà Vu

"Nobody in Palm Beach will buy used clothes, or sell them," locals told Maxie Barley when she opened the consignment shop Déjà Vu 12 years ago. But Barley suspected that residents of this exclusive isle shared her dual devotion to designer clothes and bargains. Indeed, one of her wealthiest big-name customers won't buy anything unless it's 50 percent off the already discounted price. Barley says she would go to jail before revealing a client's identity but claims her patrons include millionaires, movie stars, socialites, secretaries, police officers, and drag queens. She reserves the highest reverence for anyone selling Chanel -- almost a "sure thing" in the consignment business. The sacred suits, marked down to around $1400 from $4000 or $5000, hang in a shrine of sorts at the store's center, shielded by a locked glass door. Out on the floor are racks packed with such finds as an $1825 bubble gum-colored fox coat embroidered with the signature "Marilyn," a $115 creamy Valentino blouse with satin weave and sheer sleeves, and a $715 Egyptian-style Mary McFadden gown that flows from a beaded bodice into a crinkled-silk column. These gems, which Barley euphemistically calls "gently worn," may not even have been worn at all -- hard-core high society women would be horrified to show up at a function in last season's designs.

Best Place To Buy Vinyl

Larry's Records

Because DJs need vinyl, they depend on specialty stores that offer the hottest dance music and 12-inch-single remixes. But what about the record collector who never gave up on vinyl in the first place, who's still looking for yesterday's, and some of today's, releases? "There is no type of music we don't sell," claims Larry Paul, owner of Larry's Records, and he's not exaggerating. Fans of the Zombies, for example, who stuck with founder Rod Argent after he left the band in '69 will find Argent's stuff in the "Rock" aisle. A-ha, Icicle Works, and Wang Chung LPs from the '80s are in the "Progressive" music section. Replacements for worn-out copies of the Grease soundtrack can be found in the "Soundtracks" bin. Amid the rows of Bananarama, Men Without Hats, and Ultravox records under the "Rock Pop Retro" sign lurk plenty of 12-inch singles and EPs. And for vinyl junkies whose history goes back a ways, Nat King Cole and Paul Anka records are in the "Vocals" aisle, as are hits and obscurities in the two racks full of 45s. Separate sections are also set aside for picture disks, soul and R&B, jazz, oldies, calypso/soca, disco, and comedy. Larry even employs DJs who catalog and price the new dance stuff, the selection of which is large enough to give those specialty shops a run for their money.

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