Best store anywhere on Colfax Avenue

Colfax Avenue is a five-lane study in contradiction. At points, stately Victorian mansions sit just a cobblestone sidewalk away from folks who call the bus stop home; elsewhere, business folks and city legislators mingle with the drunk, the down-on-their-luck, the intermittent desolation of this particular row. The schizo, serpentine street is a fitting location, then, for Temple of Being/ Bound by Design, a store whose combination of elements is nothing short of brilliant. Let's face it: Anyone who says that getting tattooed isn't even slightly painful is probably lying. The human body has certain built-in responses to unnatural stimuli -- like, for example, the repeated penetration of the skin by an ink-filled needle. Yet the experience is likely to be more tolerable here because the tattoo parlor is adjoined by a Zen-like space that's equal parts tattoo and piercing parlor and metaphysical bookstore, gift shop and cafe. What better time to shop for that much-needed quartz-crystal amulet or tarot-card set than while you're waiting for the ink to dry? Temple of Being is a fitting addition to the Colfax landscape, a place to read while you bleed.

Readers' choice: Kitty's