San Francisco’s Mission district is known for its vibrant culture, good food, and most importantly, its vast array of thrift stores. Last weekend, I took the liberty of exploring two of these gems: Community Thrift Store and Thrift Town.
Thrift Town was my first stop. I went on a saturday morning, and the store was rather empty, which was a plus. I love Thrift Town for its vast selection. They have endless aisles of t-shirts, dresses, and vintage attire. They also have frequent sales—similar to the ones that occur at Goodwill. The store itself is huge, it consists of two floors with one dedicated to clothes and another to knick knacks.
The store had mirrors conveniently located in every few aisles.
Overall the store was very well organized. Clothes were placed in racks based on their brand, style, and size.
The upstairs of the store held electronics, books, children’s’ clothes, and other miscellaneous home items.
After spending time at Thrift Town, my sister and I decided to head over to Community Thrift. Neither of us had been there, so this ended up being an adventure for us. At first we were unable to find the store, but it turned out that we had passed by it a few times!
The store was a little smaller than what I expected. It was situated right next to Clarion Alley in a bright pink building.
The selection of clothes was rather sparse compared to Thrift Town, where the racks were overflowing with clothes, but the racks here had plenty of space to spare.
What I did love was the atmosphere of the store. There were a lot of old school items: records, rocking chairs, and even those ancient chunky HP computers.
I ended up purchasing a graphic tee from Thrift Town and a men’s flannel from Community Thrift.
Graphic tees are a closet staple. Especially since I’ll be heading for college soon, I’ve been trying to stock up in closet tees for all those lazy days in class. This particular one is more so on the plain side. It has a small detailed image emblem on the pocket, but the shirt itself is incredibly comfortable.
Another flannel for my closet! Flannels are absolutely perfect for throwing over any outfit to add some edge. Personally, I prefer wearing them as is, or tying them around my waist, but to each their own. I always have a hard time finding flannel patterns that I like, but this one’s muted color scheme drew my attention.
I can’t stress this enough: there are countless thrift stores in the mission! I only wish that I had time to visit them all. You can visit the large chain stores, such as Thrift Town, Goodwill, and Crossroads, but there also smaller local stores such as Community Thrift, and Painted Bird. All have their merits and hold amazing things.
Images by Laura Tran and Riley Kubota.
