Written By Erica Stevens
For all you thrift lovers out there, I felt like it was time to put together a guide to the best thrift stores in San Francisco (I did a video about it with my friend Abby here - check out her Instagram, she has an amazing sense of style!). As you guys know, San Francisco is where I call home, so I’ve had plenty of time to figure out the best, the worst (yes, there genuinely are some not so great places), and the hidden gems you need to know about. I’ll rate each store on a scale of 1 to 5 based on:
Vintage selection (how much there is, the quality of it).
Prices (how good they are, do they make sense for the product).
Ambiance (is the store clean, how organized is it, what are the dressing rooms like, are the employees nice).
And since the holidays are right around the corner, this guide can help you score some amazing gifts for all your friends and loved ones. Without further ado, here are the thrift stores you NEED to know about in San Francisco!
Where to Go Thrifting in San Francisco
Goodwill on Filmore
Store Ratings
Vintage Selection: I give it a 3. It mostly has newer items, but I found some really good vintage gems in there, too. You’ll have a harder time finding vintage dresses or shoes (most of the dresses and shoes are modern brands). I found more vintage options in the sweaters and shirts section. And like I already mentioned, I found an AMAZING vintage pants set. **Want to know how to spot vintage pieces when you’re thrifting? I have a blog post all about how to identify vintage clothing!
Pricing: This also gets a 3. It has a decent amount of expensive items, but overall pricing for the store is in the $6 to $10 range per item. With the pieces I ended up choosing, I thought I was going to spend $100 but was pleasantly surprised when my total was only around $75!
Ambiance: Okay, this gets a 5. I was very impressed. It’s not super touristy and the store is very clean and organized.
Overall Score - 11
**Watch a breakdown of my experience at the Filmore Goodwill below**
Salvation Army Geary St.
Store Ratings
**I recently updated my ratings for this store, so ignore the ratings from my video. Below is my updated review:
Vintage selection: 4. There are a lot of great vintage pieces throughout the store. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a separate section dedicated to vintage, but you’ll still have a lot of luck.
Prices: 3. The pricing used to be inconsistent, but they recently switched to standard pricing across the board for short sleeves, sweaters, etc., which makes the shopping experience a lot easier. However, they price their coats at $19.99 which I feel is an inaccessible price for most people who are on a budget. It was a bit disappointing to see such a high price at a thrift store.
Ambiance: 5. It’s decently organized, not dirty, and you don’t have to dig. All the clothes are upstairs and the housewares are downstairs - it’s nice that it’s separated because you don’t have as many people going through things around you.
Overall Score - 12
**Final Thoughts: Go here for home goods and decor - it has a ton of housewares and furniture. You’ll also get some good clothes.
Goodwill on Haight Street
Store Ratings
Vintage:5. It has a lot of vintage, and it's merchandised in its own section, so it makes vintage clothing easy to find.
Prices:2. Because it’s so touristy and popular, everything isa little bit overpriced,but there ARE some good deals, you just have to look for them. I snagged a perfect ‘70s leather coat with a fur collar for only $50. Expensive for a thrift store? Maybe, but a fantastic deal for such a unique vintage coat which would probably go for upwards of $150 at any of the other vintage stores on the same street.
Ambiance:3. The store is decently organized, not dirty, butthey only have two dressing rooms(which can be frustrating and the lines can get long), and there are a lot of tourists there, so it’s common for it to be pretty packed.
Overall Score - 10
**Final Thoughts: Good for vintage that’s a bit cheaper than a vintage store.
Community Thrift on Valencia
Store Rating
Vintage:1. It’s hard to find cute vintage pieces. They have signs for men's and women’s vintage, but there are barely any pieces on the racks, which is kind of sad.
Prices:3. Their prices aren’t bad, but not amazing.
Ambiance:1. It’s not very organized (can be hard to find things), and it’s kind of dirty. And they don’t have dressing rooms.
Overall Score - 5
**Final Thoughts: Go here for furniture - it has a lot of good furniture and home stuff. It also has a lot of records (great for the retro music lover), but it’s not great for clothing.
Salvation Army on Valencia
Store Ratings
Vintage:3. There’s no vintage section, but you’ll find some hidden gems mixed in with everything.
Pricing:4. It has decent pricing. Not super cheap, but probably some of the best pricing out of all of the other stores. One thing I like is that they don’t overprice vintage items just because they’re vintage; instead, vintage items are priced like everything else in the store.
Ambiance:3.I gave this a 4 inmy videobut have changed it to a 3.It’s really big - very roomy with a lot of space, so you’re not running into people and digging through piles. And it was really clean. But they only have one tiny, full-length mirror in the whole clothing area.
**The major downsideis that they close down their dressing rooms an hour before the store closes(it’s super inconvenient and doesn’t make sense). One time I went with a friend, and they had three dressing rooms, but two of them were blocked off and closed with tape. There was a huge line, and I had to pretty much beg an employee to open another door. At the start of COVID, employees would yell at people over the intercom for trying on items over their clothes.Basically, the store has rude employees and weird dressing room rules.
Overall Score - 10
**Final Thoughts: Good for clothing.
Goodwill on Irving
Store Ratings
1.Vintage:1. I hardly ever find any vintage here.
2.Pricing:3. It has very typical Goodwill pricing (around$6-$10 per item).
3.Ambiance:2. I would score higher, but some of the employees at this location aren’t the nicest. They only have two dressing rooms, and the employees aren’t friendly. The store is clean, though.
Overall Score - 6
**It’s temporarily closed because of COVID.
In Conclusion…
Final Scores:
Salvation Army on Valencia: 10
Community Thrift on Valencia: 5
I hope this guide helps you the next time you go thrift shopping in San Francisco! For my TINY ACORN GUIDE TO SF THRIFT SHOPS showing all the locations I’ve mentioned, click on the Google map below. Have fun thrifting in SF!
**All store photos in this post are from Google maps
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Erica Stevens
