Thrift Town — Local services in Albuquerque

This is still a great place to shop with great prices. But I have to downgrade from 4 stars to 3 because of this experience.... I have been working very diligently on being more "minimal" for the past few years so I often "declutter". I'd gone through most of my home and rounded up purses, shoes, blankets, glass food storage containers, books, etc. I had been looking for a place to donate it and remembered this place. I happened to be driving by so I stopped in to find out when they accepted donations(some places only do specific days or times) I was greeted by an employee. I asked the employee about donations and he just started blurting out they didn't want any clothes. I had none but I asked if that included shoes. He said they would take shoes and then he asked if he should go get them from my car. I told him they weren't with me at the time, they were at my home and I asked him what days they took donations (I was going to drop them off) He then got snotty again and was like "we DONT pick up" I clarified that I was asking if there was a certain day/time I could bring them.

I just got home from Savers this morning. Where I donated everything I had been planning on donating here. The deciding factor was my interaction with this man. It's ok if you don't take clothes or pick up but he had no tact. He was very rude and acted like he was begrudgingly doing ME a favor. I"ll probably be back to shop but I don't plan on trying to donate here again. I have a rule when it comes to giving things away, I don't donate or give away things I wouldn't want if I were on the receiving end so I was not donating things that were not...

Two stars for today’s visit as it has been at least three weeks for one of my fave Abq thrift stores to HAVE NO BAGS. And, today there’s a huge cloudburst as I scramble to my car with two armloads of ‘stuff’. GET some BAGS.

September ‘24 UPDATE: Thrifttown #4 not locally owned, has had a Grande Re-Opening for what many probably will enjoy. I have shopped Thrifttown since the eighties in two different store locations, and it has always been my favorite Abq thrift store. I am disappointed that it has lost all the ‘fun’ of searching for treasures oddities, and gone over to a factory box store ‘look’ with new paint, new cashier space, Men’s items at far northern end, and for me what is most not an improvement is the new layout. Straight row after long row, just like SAVERS and every other big box like thrift store completely loosing its former uniquely Albuquerque feel. It is now definitely ‘new’, and also very flavorless and less FUN. It seems like ‘work’ walking the endless aisles vs the old perhaps more friendly layout.

A small fixable thing: please add back the ‘color sale’ signs through out the store not just the entry area.

9/16/24 UPDATE…They now have bags and THEY COST TEN CENTS! Bought some nice stuffed animal dog toys and left the store for some odd inexplicable reason, short of breath. Just can’t ‘get used to’ this New Thriftown.

4/16/2025 UPDATE: Bottomline for me is Thrifttown has gone ‘soul less’. No more fun for me. Who cares they still charge for bags and have only one ‘color coded sale’ banner…just has this big EMPTY...

I recall when I could walk into a thrift store and expect to find some sort of treasure every time I dug through the piles of other people's rubbish... but I fear that those days are a thing of the past. Perhaps people today are less inclined to toss their high quality goods to the masses but it has been a long time since I've found a thrift store that delivers the way I remember.

Thrift Town is no different. I'll concede that the layout is slightly more appealing than Goodwill or Salvation Army but there is very little difference in the quality or amount of stuff you'll find here. You think you're going to find a nice used Hugo Boss blazer buried beneath the other polyester rags? Dream on. I wouldn't have such a problem with this if prices were reflective of the quality of stuff you are finding. However, how do you justify paying $9 for a button-down dress shirt when you can go to Kohls and find the exact same one brand new for only a dollar or two more? To me this doesn't add up. There is no thrift to be found in thrift stores any more.

Of the areas I perused, only the picture frames section had more than you'd find in other stores and those weren't especially cheap or good quality. The men's clothing was expensive and in poor condition, but the saddest section was the books which may have had a decent selection but wasn't organized at all so it made searching for a good read nearly impossible. Book prices were fair but you'd have to spend 2 hours straining your eyes to find something that...