Emile Verdier quickly returned to France and loaded the ship bound for San Francisco arriving in 1851, where he opened a small waterfront store at 152 Kearney Street called the City of Paris.

The store's Latin motto (Fluctuat nec mergitur, "It floats and never sinks") was borrowed from the city seal of Paris.

The store's final and best-known location was a Beaux-Arts building designed by architect Clinton Day, built in 1896 on the corner of Geary and Stockton streets across from Union Square.

[4] The San Diego branch of the City of Paris opened in 1886 in the Bancroft Building on the southeast corner of Fifth and G Streets in what is now the Gaslamp Quarter.

The building was one of the few in the neighborhood to survive the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and ensuing firestorm, although the interior was badly damaged by fire.

The bookseller Brentano's opened a branch within the City of Paris store; it became the largest bookstore west of Denver.

Liberty House built a new store at Stockton and O’Farrell streets closing the City of Paris building in 1974 and selling the site to Neiman Marcus.

The new building, designed by postmodernist architect Philip Johnson, was often disparaged by architecture critics,[1] but over time has become popular with tourists and locals.