Unique Thrift Store

Over priced and over rated. Bad management overall.

I would argue that the reviewers from the suburbs (especially the one who calls the pricer a crack smoker), are probably looking for a vintage clothing store and not a thrift. Best Unique in the city. Just make sure you can go on a sale day.
I also would wonder how familiar the reviewer below is with the CPD? If you called the police to a Southwest Side thrift store the perps would be in Memphis by the time a cop showed up.

I think Unilocalers should give this location more credit, at least better than 2.5 star-​rating. Don’t be that harsh.
This one has dressing rooms, by the registers. I didn’t actually see anyone use them, but I had to assume those are there for customers’ convenience. I’ve not seen any other Unique locations that provide dressing rooms onsite.
This Unique is very spacious. I wouldn’t say this one has the best inventory, but what I saw was not shabby. I saw some Chicago Cubs scarves that I always wanted (who would pay $ 40 for a scarf at a souvenir shop? You tell me), but the stitches were coming undone. My principle for thrift shopping: if it’s not in a «ready-​to-​wear» condition, forget about it. In other words, I’m not going to spend extra time to fix it, strengthen it, or alter it.
I found a genuine-​leather Dennis Basso jacket for $ 15 with the half-​Monday deal. He sells his faux-​fur/​faux-​leather line on QVC. I did some research before purchasing it, and I concluded that it was a good deal to get this at $ 15. I know I usually stick to under $ 5 for one (1) garment, but I think I would splurge a little tonight.
My friend who joined my thrift-​shopping trip found the Twlight book, another book she likes, and a limited-​edition antique plate. She went on Google and eBay to find out the market price for the antique place. She paid $ 4 for a plate that can potentially be sold for $ 80! That plate was cute, and the painting was well-​done. We found no chips or scratches.
Here’s another rule of thrift-​shopping: inspect EVERYTHING and generate a thorough evaluation to see if the deal is worth it. If not, put it down and move on!
This one is located north of CTA Kedzie Orange line station, in the Gage Park neighborhood. Technically, it’s at the same shopping plaza with T.J. Maxx, but you won’t be able to see it coming from the south, just FYI. There’s a plenty of parking spots available. Nevertheless, there was a construction with a partial road closure. We couldn’t come to Kedzie from the 47^th St., so we parked on the vehicle at the plaza where the pregnancy testing center is located and walked north for five (5) minutes on Kedzie.
Hopefully the construction will finish quickly enough so that it doesn’t deter your opportunity for coming to this Unique.

I still go here, but the last time I was here there was a pick pocketer on the loose. Someone has their purse stolen. No one called the police. They just made an announcement that there was a pick pocketer in the store… thank you for the heads up, but what about that poor person who had their purse stolen? Idk, I wouldn’t come here and leave my bag in the cart without supervision. I actually have a special way I carry my money with me at thrift stores for this reason. I wear a coat and it has an interior pocket. I just put my wallet in there… that way there is no way it could get stolen. Besides that, I notice a lot of the employee’s are less than delightful and swear in front of customers. I don’t get offended by swearing or foul language, but I do think there is absolutely no place for that while at work. Talk like that in your personal time… god knows I do Lol

I like this store, it’s huge and I always find something good here. The best part is the nice older women behind the counter. They actually show you things! You don’t have to stand there and wait forever for someone to wander over.
There are tons of clothes, shoes and toys. I’ve got some great stuff here.

I have been to this location several times and every time I never leave feeling disappointed. The selection is pretty great, from jackets to blouses to skirts, etc. My favorite item to stock up on here is their pajama pants (I work from home and live in them!). The prices are pretty fair, much less expensive than Goodwill or other consignment shops in my area. The clothes are well organized by color, though if things were organized by size it would be much easier to get in and out of this store in a decent amount of time. It’s wise to come here without the expectation that you can find exactly what you’re looking for because in truth it’s much more of a hunt and search than a pinpointed search and find.
Every time I have been in the store, someone is around sweeping away all the garbage on the ground. Despite that, the store is still dusty (my allergies act up if I’m in the store too long), but for the most part things are relatively clean. However, I rarely see clothes lying around on the floor. The staff come around pretty often to keep everything in order, which I appreciate.
Above each aisle/​rack of clothes are random household items like frames, puzzles, candle holders, etc. This is another nod to the hunt and peck sort of searching I mentioned above.
The books are well stocked and organized, and as you can imagine, very reasonably priced ($.039 for paperback books!). I appreciate the care the put in to making sure cruddy, old, torn apart books aren’t in circulation here. In fact, this trip I came out with an assortment of about 6 – 7 books all in excellent condition, some that even look almost brand new!
The only bummer about my most recent trip in is that they would not honor the $ 10 off $ 25 without a printed coupon (I had it on my phone, but the manager wouldn’t allow that form of redemption).
The big bonus is that they have a fair amount of sale days and I believe on Mondays you can get 50% everything in the store!
I will be back!

I totally went back here despite the bad experience, and ~lo and behold~, the tank top I mentioned in my previous review? I told the manager then that it was worth $ 3 at best. And there it is, on the rack, two weeks later, and priced at $ 2.99.
I bought it, but seriously, is the manager that much of a sexist to wait until I leave to price it fairly? Who did that benefit? Certainly not the store! It sat there for two weeks! Surprise, surprise, I’m the only customer who was even remotely interested in the top, and if I hadn’t come back, dude would have lost that money forever. At least I ended up paying what it was worth, not the generous $ 8 manager special.

I called 4 Unique Thrift Stores, asking them which Unique is the largest. 3 out of 4 replied with ’ the one on Kedzie.’ The 4^th one said she didn’t know, and didn’t have any one to ask.
This is a huge place! Everything was organized by dept, but SO disappointing in the clothes department; NOTHING is organized by SIZE. I mean come on… they could sell a whole lot more, if they put it by size. I was lucky, because they did have a Plus size section-​so then I only had to go thru about 4 sizes (1x-​4x), rather than 12 sizes (0 – 14).
I had a $ 10 off of $ 25 coupon (that had been given out at all stores the week before).
Pros:
1) shopping mall parking lot– lots of available spots
2) LARGE store-​the biggest apparently
3) clean building with pleasant workers
4) prices were great– I got a LS pretty shirt for $ 2.99
5) Coupons/​Daily deals
Cons:
1) NO Sizing on baby/kids/mens/women’s/shoes –how can anyone shop this way? How time consuming!
2) not many household items for sale
3) Dressing rooms (4) had no hooks to hang your clothes on

I’m a regular thrifter; I’ll toddle into a store maybe once or twice a week and check out the wares. I rarely go to this one because despite its size, it is perennially disappointing. It’s well organized, I’ll give them that, but well-​organized crap is still, well, crap. I never find anything well-​made here, just a bunch of schmatty, dated polyester clothing. One upside is that they have a relatively large section of children’s clothing, so if you’re in the market for that you may find something decent. But like all Uniques their pricing is uppity.

I went on a Monday when it was 50% off. It is big, but pretty messy. Quite a few items on the floor and it had a weird smell in there.

Never ever shop here unless someone has pointed a gun to your head. This store has a big sign that now deems the Unique as ‘Your department thrift store.’ Um, that is a contradiction in terms.
The prices now reflect the fact they deem themselves a ‘department’ store. The prices made me more than once scream out, ‘are you crazy?’ and ‘stop smoking crack.’ I think most of the other shoppers in the store thought I was a little bonkers but… the only thing that was crazy was expecting me to pay 25 bucks for a decade old suit that had orange stains on it.
I would not even waste my time on this store for the famous half-​off Mondays. If you enjoy paying real department store prices for thrift store crap then please shop here. Otherwise, avoid like it has the swine flu.

I’ve found many great shirts here. Good brands like ae old nav amer outt hm wet seal and you might stumble upon a shirt still with the tag even. But I agree that the store gets crazy with ppl and their kids on mondays but it is half price and you gotta be there early to get good stuff.

This Unique is easily twice the size of the one on archer, but on half-​off monday please expect it to be twice as crazy with twice as many children jumping out of twice as many clothing racks as they play twice as many games of hide ‘n’ seek while riding twice as many bicycles in the store. Accordingly, the employees make four times as many announcements chastizing the parents to watch their children. But damn cuz… the parents are busy with all these deals! Huge selection of clothing, shoes and bric-​à-​brac. Jewely counter is somewhat better attending to than most and I’ve never had to wait more than five minutes to get a checked bag returned (okay, that should be unacceptable, but I’ve waited damn near 10 minutes at other thrift stores).
I used to believe that the bicycle selection was substantially better at this unique. If I still felt this way I would add a star, but I don’t. Lately they still have more bikes, but they’re usually strictly huffy or department store brand which are a pain to repair. Otherwise, it’s three stars all the way — - four for fellow thrift fanatics.