More Athens Thrift Stores...

The third and final installment of Athens thrift stores include the two local stores on Columbus Road, Re Use Thrift Store and New-To-You Thrift Shoppe.

These two being only 50 yards apart I will review both as one thrifting experience instead of two separate stores. If you are going to go to one, then there is a good chance that you will go to both.

Before I start, I will encourage the thrifter not to walk from Athens. It's generally too far away for legs. I would encourage to go by automobile.

I walked there. It took forever and there's a good chance people thought I was some sort of drifter as I hugged close to the hill on the side of the road. On the good side though, I got some good exercise and the landscape was "perdy."

First, New-To-You Thrift Shoppe (NTYTS) is a good standard thrift store. It's not the cleanest place nor the most organized. By my book, that's fine. After going to Athens Underground, this place really felt like a good thrift store.

NTYTS (sounds like n'tits) had a small amount of disorganized clothing, some random shoes, but a decent amount of bric'n'brac. The clothes were thrown in somewhat of an organizational pattern with standard women's, men's, and children's section. Unlike the large chains, the clothes were not organized by size or by color.

The store had a decent bric'n'brac section with movies, cups, chairs, toys, books, statuary...blah,blah, blah, you know...the usual stuff. It wasn't an overwhelming selection but again, decent.

In fact, I made purchase there, a movie called BLAST: The Final Comedown, and no, it's not a porno you sick weirdos. It stars Billy Dee Williams and explores rascism, like Crash, except with Lando Calirissian as a martial arts master named Johnny Johnson. A great thing about this thrift store is that all purchases at NTYTS help foster children, so you can't really go wrong if you buy anything (unless you hate foster children). So altogether NTYTS gets a pretty standard 3 out of 5 for being an average-sized store with average selection that happens to give money to foster children. Also because I found a movie with Billy Dee Williams there...oh yeah...



Re-Use Thrift Store is one of three Re-Uses in the area. The others are located in Wellston and Albany, towns relatively close to ole' Athens town.

Re Use greatly lacks in the clothes department. Random racks are set up and are hard to maneuver around. I didn't really see anything that caught my eye at the clothing section.

Re Use does have a great amount of bric'n'brac and rare random finds. For example, it has one of the best book selections I have ever seen in a thrift store. It also has VHS tapes there. Re Use has a lot of VHS tapes. This is great for the three people in college who still use a VCR. I personally would advise everyone to look at the books behind the counter. These oldish leather bound books are very classy looking and any selection there would add character to any bookshelf.

Re-Use also has tons of furniture and some of it is naturally not in the best shape. If you need a new toilet, look in the back. I don't personally, but I'm sure someone out there is clapping in happiness after reading about cheap toilets...perhaps. Anyway, for a good bric'n'brac selection, tons of furniture, a kick-arse book library, but lackluster clothes, another standard 3 out of 5.

To sum it up.

New-To-You Thrift Shoppe: 3 out of 5

Re Use Thrift Store: 3 out of 5

Columbus Road Thrift Experience: 3 out of 5 (two standard thrift stores make for a standard experience)

Side note: People should be paying attention to this. You've got til the 17th to input ideas...