The Salvation Army Thrift Shop

I am a thrift store junky and I have been to all kinds of thrift stores including SAs before. This by far is the worst thrift store I have ever been to. It’s a massive store, which is great, but almost half of the items I looked at didn’t have tags. I found a woman that worked there to ask about a price for a dingy old wooden chair that was falling apart– I just wanted the legs
Of the chair anyway. She had to find another girl to come translate to english and told me the chair is $ 8, so I said no thanks. Then I asked her about an unmarked bed frame. She told me she didn’t know what size it was or the price either. She helped me put it together to try to see what size it was, then said she still didn’t know, and walked away leaving me to take the frame apart and put it back while she watched videos ok her phone. Many items are overpriced for a thrift store, especially the shoes. I found dozens of shirts I wanted to get, only to find that they were $ 6+ and had stains/​holes in them. Nothing is organized by size, just by color. If you’re looking for a little more organization with more sales, go across the street to B Thrifty, at least their staff is friendly.

This store is huge! It’s at least 3 times as large as your average Salvation Army. Men’s section is big and has a decent amount of high-​fashion clothes. But the women’s section takes up nearly half the store. It took me a long time to look through everything which isn’t always great because they had a lot of junk on the racks.
Service was nice everyone seems to always be working but all you have to do is ring the bell up front when you’re ready to check out and someone will come to assist you. One of the employees gives me student discount on Mondays so that’s super cool. I think my favorite part about Salvation Army are their sales. They have a sale color weekly so they can cycle through donations and usually the sale is half off.
Thrift stores are a hit or miss, but this one is definitely worth checking out.

This review is mainly from a donation perspective. If the store is unwilling to accept certain items, then a sign needs to be posted telling people! I have tried to donate books, games, and toys but was told they don’t accept these items. Nowhere did I see anything telling me what was not accepted. The workers make you feel almost guilty for trying to donate those items. I’ve had workers pick
through donations and question me about what I was donating when I am very careful about what I give away. I would never give anything that was dirty, torn, or not usable. I will no longer be donating to this location as I don’t want to have to go through an inquisition every time I donate. Nor will I patronize this location.

the salvation army has things on average that are priced more then other thrift stores
when i went into the bathroom it had no toilet paper, gang graffiti’ and fecal mater on the walls

This review regards only donations to this shop. I’ve routinely taken hundreds of items here to donate. Each time, I make sure each item is clean, in working order, and packaged together if there are multiple parts — no junk. Making the donation in the past has always been easy — just drop off the boxes and bags, and get a receipt. A few weeks ago I packed a van with 11 boxes and 3 large bags of more stuff — again, no junk — and went here. As usual, someone met me to help unload, but first stated that he’d need to open and go through every box to «make sure they wanted it.» He rejected the first box (I think it had several decorative metal containers in like-​new condition) — «we don’t want those.» I immediately decided that I didn’t have time or inclination for him to pick and choose through everything, deciding what they wanted. I thanked him, closed up the van and left. Amvets was happy to pick up all the remaining items at my home.
I’m sure SalArmy gets given lots of junk along with good items. But that’s part of the cost of their venture. Picking through donor’s items like the TSA has lost them one very good donor.

I have shopped here off and on over the years, and I would say this place has the largest selection of used stuff in Gurnee but that’s about all it has going for it, except for the crazy low prices.
You can find a lot of clothes here, but the selection is spotty and you have to look through a LOT of stuff to find anything because they have so much inventory. It’s dim inside and smells mildewy. I shop here for specialty costume items for parties, for stuff for relatives in a nursing home and that’s about it. Last time I was there, I couldn’t find any men’s shorts or hats. I asked the person working behind the desk, and she really couldn’t be bothered to help me or ask someone else to help me. OK. I don’t expect to be treated like Nordstrom, but how hard is it to care about your customers? I followed another person in the store to ask if they had any hats and she said, «come back tomorrow,» as if Friday is their special hat shipment day. It was clear that she just wanted to brush me off.
Selection of stuff other than clothes is very iffy as well. This is the kind of store to go to where you know you need a specific item of clothing and you don’t want to pay more than $ 3, because for prices, it’s good. You could try the place across the street, however, which is a bit more (like $ 1) but it’s more organized with a better selection.

I must give an update since my last review. I visited over the weekend and this place has done a total 180. The place is much more brighter and not as dingy. More organized than usual, so I was able to browse more efficiently. There is so much to dig through (like most thrift stores) so be patient, because I’m sure you’ll be able to find some great things!

This place is gross, right in the middle of the ghetto so you can’t expect the fine folks of Waukegan to donate nice stuff! Such sleezy people walking around, in front, and behind the store. The clothes were old, out dated, and stained. The bar holding up dresses was falling to the ground, hello safety hazard! Lights flicker, prices are stapled directly to the clothes (hello holes!) None of the workers even speak english. It’s a mixture of ghetto or hillbilly haven, you decide! Yuck!

First of all — perhaps the posters discussing the sketchiness of the area are not familiar, but while the Gurnee/​Waukegan area is economically disadvantaged, it is not dangerous in any way, especially during daylight hours in this store…
This is one my favorite thrifts around mainly because of it’s size. It is ENORMOUS. Give yourself the time to look around especially if you are looking at clothes. Again, not sure what the previous poster meant by disorganization — all the clothes are sorted by gender, type, plus-​size/​regular, and even by color. I will say that the quantity is overwhelming, so plan on spending a lot of time rifling through crap to find gems.
Another drawback is the lack of dressing room, but the prices are so low that I feel okay taking a chance and guessing. There are full-​length mirrors at least.
I can’t attest to the electronics, and I will say there is not much furniture as well if that is something you’re interested in. I do remember seeing a pretty nice leather couch there for $ 25, which seemed pretty reasonable to me.
Across the street is Community Thrift, a smaller store where I have found some GREAT stuff — would highly recommend going there!

So I must agree that this Salvation Army isn’t the most organized, but if you think this place is scary, then you must lead a very sheltered and likely overprivileged lifestyle. This SA is huge, and yes, it is perhaps a bit dingy, but I have never been to one that wasn’t. This is a not-​for-​profit thrift store, so you can’t expect it to be the nicest and most organized place in the world.
As for the clothing selection, there is more than I ever want to look through. Very little of what I did rifle through was my style, but there are plenty of costume ideas lurking about as well as plenty of conversation pieces (a.k.a. the most horribly hilarious fashion imaginable). I didn’t really check the prices of the furniture as I am currently not in the market, but the trinkets were all very low priced and I ended up leaving with a very cool German tasting glass from my fiancé’s beer glass collection. It was 94 cents.
All in all, this is a pretty disorganized shop with hidden gems littered about if you’re willing to look. It’s not overpriced and it’s certainly not dangerous.

Ok, this store is in an old grocery store or KMart or something. The lighting is not amazing. But the clothes! Oh, the clothes. I understand why another reviewer avoided clothes because the place is dingy, but honestly, all thrift shops feel dingy to me. The smell of old clothes is pretty consistent even if they’re in a clean store. So yes, I thoroughly wash anything I get at a thrift store. But it doesn’t matter where it comes from, to me it’s all dirty.
The prices on the clothes were higher than the prices I see at the other SA stores in the city. However, it costs me $ 10-​$ 20 to get to the city. So unless I’m buying huge volumes of clothes, going here is a better deal. The prices on furniture were more than at other SA or Goodwill stores and the furniture was kind of crappy. I didn’t explore much beyond furniture and clothes so I can’t speak to other areas as far as pricing or selection.
Also, I didn’t feel unsafe in this store like some other posters. There was one customer who did seem a little shady but that’s hardly a trend. Finally, someone did post that they were improperly charged on their credit card. I’ll check and follow up if that happens to me.
**Update: I did check my credit card statement after two different trips to this store and the charges were correct.

Under new management recently and furniture prices have skyrocketed! I used to shop there — cute chairs for $ 15, coffee tables for $ 12. Needed a table and there was a cute and clean white one for $ 30 (thought I’d wait, it was too much)… 3 weeks later it was still there, scratched up and now marked at $ 40! Don’t know what this manager is thinking. Sells broken electronics and junky sectionals with broken legs. I have never bought clothes here but it is incredibly dirty and wouldn’t even want to touch that stuff. My 3 yr old had to use the potty and the employee next to us did not wash her hands. Niiiice. NOT coming here again.

oh lord — sketchy, sketchy, sketchy. I have been in some questionable thrift stores in my day but this one easily takes the cake.
What I assume was once a grocery store or home improvement store was taken over by SA. Problem is, everything is a complete disaster inside, with barely operating overhead lights, zero organization, and was blisteringly hot and stifling even though it was only 75 degrees outside.
Furniture selection was extremely poor, and what was there was cheap and filthy. I saw one semi-​decent chair, but it was so dirty I would never have bought it for fear of contracting some kind of terrible communicable disease.
If you like thrifting, trust me and take a pass on this location!

Ugh. This place is dirty. Icky pie. The lights barely work in the back of the store. You could get mugged in there.
Try Community Thrift across the street. MUCH better.

Another reason not to like this place is that they call periodically with a recorded message looking for donation drop-​offs or to infom when all of the clothes are $ 1 each.