Surplus Sids

This is one of my favorite spots! It’s owned and run by amazing people! So much history and culture that seems to be overlooked in the mainstream.
Thus spot is filled with military and cultural history. Costumes and collectibles in abundance surround a shop that most people would drive past, as a detriment to their existence.
Gary, one of the owners, has the biggest personalities that you will ever encounter… Ever… Anywhere.
And boredom cannot exist in this space.
I highly recommend a visit. You will not be disappointed!

My friend got a switchblade pulled on him by a loss prevention guy for looking through a vintage Playboy.
²⁄₁₀ would not recommend

Don’t forget to negotiate. As the son of a car dealer, negotiation is an art that I am accustomed to. However so many people have never been exposed to this practice and simply pay sticker price as suckers. The prices at Sid’s, unlike Belk’s or Best Buy, or Wal-​Mart, ARE NOT set in stone. You can negotiate with the seller about his price. I bought a 1970s flak jacket from here, listed at $ 120, for $ 80, simply because I offered that amount. Don’t be a sucker. Negotiate.

A wide variety of military surplus, costumes, previously owned furniture, weapons, and other ornamental decorative items. I consistently surprises me how much more expensive thrift and surplus stores charge here in NC, versus the in the Northeast. I think its because more people shop these stores than they do in the Northeast. It provides and option for this college adjacent town.
Walked in and extended a friendly hello, adding how are you doing? A grisly man went on about the world’s troubles and criticized the current president, adding he was doing ok. I replied you have a lot on your shoulders. haha! He seemed like someone who would work in a place like Sid’s.
It’s a mixed bag.

The best way to benefit from Surplus Sids is: !) Know exactly what you want before you go in, and ask Sid or his employees if they have anything like what you want, 2) go back OFTEN, as the inventory changes all the time, and/​or 3) Set aside about 3 hours to explore the over-​packed shelves and many layers of items. You could literally outfit an entire apartment, sans bed, at this place. I just got a great table and desk there, and some excellent conversation to boot. I love this place. You should totally shop here.

I like it. I’m generally a fan of military surplus stores, and while Sid’s is a smaller one, it’s a decent one nonetheless. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here, and they usually have a good sense of what they have, which is nice.

I only gave this place three stars because it seemed to be more junk than anything else. It wasn’t really antiques, and there wasn’t a whole lot in the way of surplus, and the «retro» stuff wasn’t really old enough to be retro chic, but rather looked like someone emptied their parents’ basement from 1989. There’s some interesting collectibles, I guess, but not enough that I’d go out of my way to come here. Even if I was driving by again, I’d probably just keep on driving.

This place is one of the last remnants of a nearly dead type of surplus store. I grew up going to these places, and I can confidently state that Sid’s is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
There’s a wide variety of merchandise in here aside from the costumes (which are amazing). There’s camping gear, rare military uniforms, random movie collectibles, weird toys… the list of neat stuff is endless.
Sid himself is a great guy. He knows lots of interesting stuff if you can pull him into a conversation!
Be aware though, a lot of the plastic things in here are very old and can be brittle. Make sure you check items over thoroughly before purchasing, especially if any of the functional parts are plastic.

To be honest, after 2 visits, I still haven’t completely grasped the strong affection people seem to have for Sids.
My first impression was JUNK. Lots and lots of junk… and if you look behind it, under it, over it, and on top of it, you’ll discover even more junk. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not looking down my nose at junk. I like junk, I have a lot of junk, and my car would have a garage to park in if not for all of my junk.
But, to me, a lot of this seemed like cheap, useless junk and I found it difficult to imagine who would buy it or what they would do with it. I would even be hard pressed to accessorize a Halloween costume with it. My guess is that once Sid owns something, he keeps it in the shop forever so a lot of the stock is stuff people have not bought for many, many years.
What Sids does have is surplus clothes. Lo-​o-​o-​ong racks of industrial /​service /​military issue clothes. So if you’re looking for that, here is a place to find it. I didn’t explore exhaustively, but the items that caught my eye either seemed to be all ‘small’ or ‘medium’ sizes, or be priced higher than I expected for a ‘surplus’ item.
The one exception are the coats, I think there are a number of nice coat options there, which is the sole reason I give Sids 3-​stars instead of 2.

Gotta love this place. Firstly, the people there are super friendly. All of them. The guys hanging out in the front, the ladies in the back, the ones running around, Sid of course at the cash register. Nice. Also, it is an military surplus store. Authentic beautiful navy peacoats to cameos of every kind, gas masks, firemen helmets, whatever random stuff you are searching for! They had some cheesy used Halloween costumes in the back. I didn’t have enough time to be creative, but this would definitely be the treasure trove for that. Fun stuff

This is a great store! They have tons of stuff and very reasonable prices. I bought a kick ass Russian coat there and will be back again next year. The owners are very friendly and were very helpful.
My only regret is that I didn’t have more time to explore his awesome store.

Originally, I went there for a Haloween costume. I needed a top hat. And they had it at Sids. But there was ever-​so-​much more…
Good googly moogly, this is an interesting little spot. It’s not that you can find anything you would ever possibly want here, it’s that you find things you never knew you could live without here. Overseas military outfits are merely the beginning. Before long there are chests, flags, and… well…junk…beautiful, beautiful pieces of junk that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to shake the feeling that I absolutely have to have.
My wife hates this store for that reason.

As an avid collector of useless old junk, I really enjoy thrift and surplus stores. Sid’s Surplus seems to me to be a pretty exceptional member of that category. It’s got a great location in central Carrboro, though finding a parking space can be difficult at times.
There’s a ton of military surplus, of course, including some foreign uniforms. Prices are higher than usual, but if you really search you can find some great deals. There’s also a selection of Halloween costumes you can rent, but I don’t really recommend them because they’re old and it’s more fun to get creative, anyway. The staff is always very nice and helpful. They can definitely lead you in the right direction if you’re having a problem finding what you want.

This is my second favorite place to go for obscure Halloween costume ideas besides Time After Time. You can find almost anything military/​fighting related in this hodge podge of a store. If you don’t see what you need, you can ask, and they probably have it somewhere in the heaps of junk. Prices are slightly high, so you better have a great costume idea (or need for lots of random stuff) but I can’t say anything but good things about Surplus Sids.

If you want to buy something but can’t imagine where to find it, this should be your first stop. Probably before even E-​Bay. It’s insane.
Surplus Sid’s gets my vote for «Place in the Triangle that I’d Most Like to See as the Set for a Fight Scene in a Jackie Chan Movie.» The terrain is fantastic. You can tell Sid’s coming from around the corner by the giant, almost unnavigable pile of junk sitting out front. Then you walk in, and it gets even better. This is the only place I’ve ever seen where it is possible to buy jewelry, swords, and full-​replica Predator costumes. When I was shopping here for props for a movie I was shooting and asked for a vial of fake blood, Sid asked me in all seriousness, «What kind do you need?» Not because he was concerned, mind you, but because he had several to choose from. Seriously, go nuts here.

This place is full of all kinds of stuff, if you want a pink flamingo, they just might have one for you. Really, Sids is the place to go for all kinds of military gear, jeans, shirts, boots and even old glass paned windows. You’ll see all sorts of items sitting on display outside, and Barry, «Sid» will help you find any specific items you might need for dressing up as different types of characters. So, stop in at Surplus Sids, they just might have what you need.