Peace by Piece Thrift Store and Community Center — Local services in New York

Response To Reply: Shame on you.

Your staff is clueless on events. They claim there are no events when calling on the phone, and when arriving the back is closed because of a class. This would be okay, but you have many items for sale in the back and that is the main reason for my visit. The items are inaccessible to customers and that is not acceptable.

Your event leaders are very rude. It is not appropriate to be nasty at customers and yell at them to clear the space when I was there first. Your activities are not inclusive.

Even when there are no holidays, your store is a mess. Everything is thrown around and not sorted, and I have to waste time sorting everything. Ripped books, broken CD trays. It's a dump. I will never come here again. This business does not respect their customers.

They are more than happy to accept all your donations for free, and in exchange they over price the majority of their items. The previous reviews about price mark up are accurate. Worse than that, the entire store is very messy. The space is cramped with items thrown all around, especially on the floor. Not a good place if you suffer from claustrophobia. The space does not accommodate for many people at one time, which is usually the case. This problem could be solved if the management bothered to clean and organize the store at all, but it seems this is not a priority.

After all this, this store is also a community center. It has a space in the back where they hold their meetings and activities. While this is seemingly nice, the store also has items for sale in this area, and if you want to look through the items it is impossible. The organizers for these events are very nasty and demand you must leave the space, even if you were occupying it before they arrived. They have no posters for scheduled events so it is impossible to know when they begin so you cannot anticipate when one of these organizers will come and kick you out of the back.

This is especially insulting to customers that come a long way to stop here. Parking is atrocious at best. After taking time out of your day to come here, the back of the store is already off limits and whatever is left is on the floor and overpriced. Not to mention some members of staff are oblivious and unhelpful. You also can't call in advance to ask if they are holding events because they will say there aren't any and when you walk in, the back is closed with a curtain.

They will only be somewhat accommodating and polite when they have a vote in the local news. When you're at the register they'll say "You should really vote for us in the paper, you know. Please support." It's laughable to ask this when the service and and quality are poor.

I cannot support coming here any longer. It really leaves a sour taste donating what I did just for them to over price and cheat their loyal customers out of a quality...

The manager with the blue hair isn't professional, price changed at the counter and told me the pricer was at fault and he would be fired and it would be on my conscience if I made it a issue about them honoring the real first price instead of the new one she told me. Basically told me to kick rocks instead of taking the loss and honoring their policy/listed price. This happened in December of 2021. Ever since I have had tensions with this manager. In addition this thrift has gotten the idea that they can charge 100+ on donated Wilson's leather jackets and nike sneakers because they look up everything and I mean everything on eBay first to see the going resale value and base it off that. A thrift should go by retail prices not random resale prices online. They think anything vintage is a diamond/gem collectible worth top dollar. This would be cool if they paid the donator a percentage but they don't they get their items for free. They claim they are a nonprofit and that the profits they make go to various programs but where do they draw the line between its for charity and pure greed charging $120-200 for some Nike Jordan Retros. Their additional excuse is that we buyers/shoppers can sell it for a profit online so why shouldnt they mark it up? They missed the whole point of a thrift store being a place to find older, left behind, unique gems for a cheap price. They are here to milk the affluent Bay Ridge residents with the better stuff and the poorer sometimes immigrant residents with the garbage they sell at overpriced markups as well. In general their prices are out of order like why are plain blank white tees $4.97 starting price? They are a spit in the face of the thrifting culture. Gave it 2 instead of 1 stars because occasionally they will slip up and a gem will fall through their grubby paws for a cheap affordable price. Do not shop here unless you are a dedicated...

EDIT JAN'24 : They have since replaced the velvet hangers for the pants and skirts with a single hanger hook with a clip that swivels. This is WORSE than the velvet hangers. All the bottoms now hang by a single corner in a messy clump. I refuse to pick up stuff off the floor if the hangers fail. Honestly, I wish they would get row racks and metal hangers. The rounders are still a mess and the space between them all is extremely tight. It does not appear to be accessible to anyone with a mobility device due to the spacing. Also, everything is definitely overpriced, especially the outerwear. The staff is still really helpful and nice, but I wish they would turn the music down. Not everyone is a Swiftie.

This is currently the only thrift store in Bay Ridge. It gets quite busy on the weekends, and the rounder racks make navigating a crowded store a bit of a pain. When they have a lot of inventory they pack the round racks which is not ideal because the internal circumference of the rounder is smaller than the outside, which makes them very tight and difficult to look through. They also use cheap lightweight velvet flocked hangers which aren't strong enough to hold pants on. The result is that it can be very messy and chaotic at times. Having said that, the staff is super nice and I've found some very nice things there from time to time. They don't seem to have a section for athletic wear or men's jackets, but I love that they separate the formal wear out from the regular dresses. It's a smallish shop, so it's easy to look through everything you might be interested in without taking...