Goodwill Industries of Denver

Not a typical Goodwill retail store, kinda like the outlet stores I guess. This is not my cup of tea, regular goodwill stores are bad enough on the grunge factor for me. I can’t sift through piles of garbage laden with dirty underwater and crusty pans without gagging just a bit. Some people wear gloves which seems like the bare minimum in maintaining personal safety, but for me it’s like being in a park port-​a-​potty, I don’t even want to breath it in! Cheap though if that’s what your looking for, dirt cheap. I’m sure there are treasures to be found but I would bring your hazmat suit.

All I can say is surreal. I felt like I was in some weird postapocalyptic crackhead garbage heap with people hoarding their found treasures. There were guys with shopping carts full of scrap metal and people looking for ebayable collectables. I was looking for things I could dismantle for the fabric, so it wasn’t a big deal if it they partially damaged. If you’re not in the mood to sift through random piles of crap definitely pay the few extra dollars to go elsewhere.

My whole life is different, because this place has changed, and is no longer the 99 cent thrift store, but a thrift pallet clearinghouse.
I can’t even begin to explain how dearly I loved this store. I was a CU Boulder student, living in Denver, and took Federal as a detour one day, to avoid traffic. I saw this giant thrift warehouse and got curious. Over the next two years, I outfitted myself with lovely furniture and clothes at this Goodwill. I used to stop at least once a week, and because other people were scared of the sketchy location, and viewed it as a «substandard» store, I only ever went there alone. My own sister made fun of me unmercifully, and with that amount of peer pressure, I surely would have succumbed and gone back to the more «respectable» thrift stores — but this place was so amazing that I was willing to undergo any amount of criticism, for a few hours of «Goodwill Warehouse» shopping bliss.
It certainly also helped that this store had obviously been some sort of old department store, before the era of escalators and cookie-​cutter similar «uniformity standards» from store to store. It had some weird throwback elegance to it, and even the ground-​floor bargain furniture and shoes area felt old and somehow dignified, though the whole place was seriously sorta sketchy. It attracted old things, I think. It was a weird little ghetto gem that ‘regular’ thrifters thought of as dirty and disheveled, but it was my secret thrift paradise.
These are just some of the amazing things I got at the «goodwill warehouse», as I used to call it, over the years:
A pair of white pine heywood wakefield step tables, bought for 2.99 a table;
a couple of really awesome vintage 50s lamps, the kind you see at «Mod Livin» selling for a hundred bucks a piece, but which I got for less than 5 bucks each;
A piece of vintage magenta upholstery fabric, which I used to reupholster my hideously-​plaid printed 1950’s danish lowline sleeper couch, 99 cents;
I have bought numerous pairs of unworn designer shoes here, from Blahnik, to Ferragamo, to Nina, all beautiful, and all less than 5 bucks a pair;
Lots and lots of beautiful clothes and purses, always 99 cents an item.
Now, Goodwill has replaced the warehouse with the terrible «Outlet World» bin system, which is thrift horror at its very worst. It makes digging through other people’s garbage on trash day look pretty awesome in comparison.
My life is infinitely sadder for having lost the Goodwill Warehouse.
Please, for the love of God, if you read this review and know of a similar type of thrift store, please send me a response with the info. My life is a much more impoverished place for having lost my favorite super-​cheap thrift store, and I’d do anything to find another that’s anything like it.