Crawling

I had two choices on Wednesday this week:  clean the house or go on a thrift store crawl with a girlfriend of mine, in search of an elusive soup tureen I need for a project.

Let me tell you, in case you are thinking "cleanliness is next to Godliness":  when you discover that the end and sides of your nose are covered in cold sores due to stress or sugar or wine or some combination of all of those things?  It's time to let the dust bunnies have a convention and take the damn day off.

I left the house in semi-shambles and did the logical thing:  Googled "thrift stores in Dallas" and wrote down about 15 possibilities for the day.

I have to tell you that Dallas is adrift with tons of stores that make you wonder "why did I pay full price when I could have been doing THIS all along?"

So, for ease of grading these shops for you, I'm going to use a scale from 0 to 10:
Wow factor is the selection/variety of items being offered for sale.  The higher the number, the cooler the place.
Price is a comparison against the rest of the thrift stores and what you'd expect to pay if you went to a regular retail store.  The higher the number, the better the bargains.
Purellish is the skeevy factor.  If I felt like I needed a shower after leaving the place, the number will be high. 

We started with a resale shop on Belt Line (southeast corner of BL/Preston--sorry, no name) we'd both been eying for a long time, one we pass by on a relatively regular basis but that just never seemed to be convenient for either of us to stop at.  It is really an estate sale paradise with plenty of silver things and furniture, but some little bargain type things, too.  We also found several mink coats, though I have to admit that they were still in the pricey range.

Even though there were employees working the register, talking with other customers, we were ignored.  But, typing that, it might seem this was a sore point;  it was not.  We were able to take our sweet time looking through the store without feeling any pressure at all.

Purchases:  zero.  Wow factor:  6.  Prices:  2.  Purellish:  0.  Great light from banks of glass on 2/3 of the store.

Next stop:  Recovery Resale Shop off Spring Valley at Coit.  This was the find of the morning.  Their mission is "to provide job skills and vocational training to individuals with mental illness so they can develop the ability to become productive members of society."

We weren't two feet in the door before we were greeted by very friendly staff members.  They were marking items down 50%, including one of my finds of the day, two cheery birds that now grace the large cabinet in our living room.  About ten feet from that discovery was a perfect steamer basket, all of $2, to replace the one I received years ago from a friend. 

My shopping buddy found a little girl figurine for her daughter, complete with a birthday cake with her soon-to-be new age on it.  $2 for that find.

The Jewish gentleman from New York behind the counter was one of two employees who made our list of people we want to go revisit.  Sweet man!

Purchases:  4.  Wow factor:  6.  Prices:  A perfect 10!  Purellish:  2--a dark old space that, clearly, the employees are proud to do their best with.

We continued on to Value World Thrift (2223 S. Buckner), one of the top rated thrifts in the city according to those who are thrifty and do lots of thrift shopping.

Let's just say that this shop did not disappoint.  It was HUGE.  And, if you had the time to really sort through the clothing, you would find that designer jeans could be found for pennies.  Lots of clothing to be had. And, tons of housewares.  Dozen of glass items, small appliances and such.

You might have to do a little digging in this store to find what you are looking for because it is a bit overwhelming.  And, the employee throwing broken glass into a large plastic garbage bin?  Kinda set my nerves on fire.

Friend almost pulled the trigger on a set of really cute, glass stars, but ran out of creative juices at the eleventh hour, so we left with nothing.

Sidenote:  By this time, our child-birth-weakened bladders both needed a good bathroom.  Let's just say that Value World would rank as one of the worst places to ask if a bathroom is available.  Sign on the door indicated bathroom "NO working" and we should have taken that as hint number one.  But, our bladders weren't backing down, so we checked to be sure the toilets would flush and were happy to find they did.


But, no toilet paper (found an alternative in the adult wet wipes on the shelf, thank goodness).  Hand towels, other than old-fashioned cloth ones that had been heaven-knows-where, also weren't around.  So, we used our pants to dry off.  And then, after exiting the restroom, copious amounts of Purell (what else?)



Purchases:  zip.  Wow factor:  9.  Prices:  A perfect 10!  Purellish:  7 (the bathroom drove this number up dramatically)

As we were walking to the car, a cute little shop with a big Valentine on the top caught our eye.  Since it was directly across Buckner we added it to our list. 

Turns out (no name again, sorry), this is a store to benefit a homeless shelter for dogs/cats.  GREAT store, but not really thrift.  They have tons of yummy-smelling candles, a mix of donated and purchased goods for sale, and a great cause (did I mention the dogs/cats?)

This would be a fun place to shop for the pet lover in your life and include a card from the store so s/he could visit and purchase something for THEIR friends.

Purchases:  nada.  Wow factor:  9.  Prices:  2 (if you are TRULY thrift shopping)  Purellish:  0.  Bonus:  they offered a cup of cold water and animal crackers (kind of ironic, if you ask me) to all their shoppers.

That's when we realized we were hungry and, conveniently, were right next door to Sali's Italian.  And here is your restaurant review tucked in the middle of your thrift store review!!!

Sali's is a clean, decently decorated restaurant that seems to have a following of folks for their $6.50 lunch specials.  Friend and I decided to order off the regular menu and both had a salad with the Caesar dressing.  Word on that:  if you are looking for the "regular", creamy-white version of that dressing?  You ain't going to find it here.  This was more like a strange Italian-hybrid, but it was really good.

I ordered the spinach and cheese calzone.  When I saw it sitting on the counter, I said to my friend "That looks to be the size of a small dog."  And, up close?  It WAS.  And packed full of fresh spinach and ricotta/mozzarella cheeses.  My biggest complaint was that I was pretty full of salad and I couldn't finish the whole thing!  Truly, two could make a good meal of that and a plate of salad.  Friend enjoyed a piece of pizza the size of a large textbook with sausage.  Said every bite was delicious.

Our server was very attentive, on top of our drinks when they needed to be refilled, and offered to split our lunch ticket.  Bravo!

Way to go Sali's!  We hope to see you again on a future crawl!

Next to Sali's was another thrift shop.  Pretty large space (again, sorry, no name) that seemed to have everything but the kitchen sink to offer.  Housewares seemed to occupy most of the floor space on one side and a few pieces of furniture and clothing the other.

Purchases:  nothing.  Wow factor:  4.  Prices:  6.  Purellish:  3 (just an old space)

I hadn't been to the Garland Road Thrift Store since a friend of mine, back in the 90's, used to drag me there to see a fortune teller with a lazy, cloudy eye who was remarkably accurate about my friend's ridiculous love life.  So, that was our next stop.

What a disappointment.  Where the place used to be set up in "booths", by seller, as a consignment place, it was now one big gigantic store.  Tons of clothing, lots of electronics, some housewares.

Overall, though, just yuck.

Purchases:  zilch.  Wow factor:  2.  Prices:  8.  Purellish:  8.

At this point, we realized we had to start heading home but had time for one stop on the way:  ReSell It! on Ferndale and Northwest Highway.

FIND OF THE DAY!!  Loved everything about this shop, including the owner, who had a wicked-good sense of humor about funerals (yes, we got to talking about funerals).

Great selection of everything BUT clothing, which was refreshing.  Lots of furniture, knick-knacks, costume jewelry.

Purchases:  1.  Wow Factor:  10.  Prices:  10.  Purellish:  0.

Huge bonus:  The music was all old-school Frank Sinatra like (and after listening to the Khloe Kardashian show in the Garland Road Thrift Store (no, I'm NOT kidding), this was a WONDERFUL surprise.) 

And, that, as they say, was all she wrote.

Did you notice:  no soup tureen?  Oh well, there are still five more thrift stores we weren't able to visit on our list.  Expect future reviews and a picture of the finished product in future posts!!