Whenever I step into the Goodwill Retail Center on South Circle, I feel like I’m walking into JCPenney. Seriously. If you’re new to thrift store shopping, this is where I’d recommend you start. It’s clean, it’s loaded with merchandise, there’s a great little teenage boutique called Threads inside – what more could you ask for?!
How about free coffee? The book area at this Goodwill resembles something like Barnes and Noble. Lots of little cafe tables to sit and read, and yep, free coffee (help yourself). Maybe it’s even better than Barnes and Noble – you can take your kids and not have to worry about keeping them quiet like you do in a bookstore.
About the clothing…
Women’s shirts and sweaters ranged from about $3.99-4.99, some tees and tanks were around $1.99. Women’s jeans and pants were $3.99, regardless of the brand – and this is what I love about Goodwill. I am totally OK with paying “full price” for thrift store jeans if they are $3.99. Dear Goodwill, please don’t even begin pricing by brand like the other stores!
Kids’ clothes are anywhere from 99¢ to $3.99. I think those prices are fair, but the drawback is that their kids clothing doesn’t really seem to be organized by size, except maybe “newborn” and “child”. That’s not a big deal to me in the adult clothing, since you basically only have sizes XS to XL, but if you’re looking at clothing in sizes 3T to Boys Large, that’s a lot of size variations to look through!
OK, now for the most awesome part of the store: I love the Threads boutique! It’s a 900 square foot area devoted to great name brands for the teenage set, and it’s staffed by teens from New Horizons High School.
I’d been to this store before, but hadn’t ever had time to explore it fully, so I checked out Threads a little more closely than I ever have before. The clothing inside Threads is geared towards teenagers, but definitely worth a stop for anyone. It seemed like the prices were the same as the rest of the store, but it was a great concentration of brands like American Eagle, Express, Gap, Old Navy, and the like.
It really had a vibe of a mall store, too. If you have teenagers that want to wear name brands but neither you nor they can shell out the money, you totally need to take them here.
Is it obvious that Goodwill is one of my favorite thrift spots? :) You can see some more pictures of this Goodwill store on Flickr.
Carrie’s Take
What was good:
- This store is awesome – tons of clothing, a great book section, and free coffee.
- Feels the most like a “real” store of any thrift store I’ve ever been in. Start here if you’re new to thrifting.
- The Threads boutique is great place to head if you don’t have the patience to weed through the other racks of clothing, and just want to find the name brands.
And not as good:
- Not a large furniture section.
- The circular clothes racks aren’t my fave for browsing. This store has a ton of clothes, and for whatever reason, I personally don’t care for looking through lots of circular racks.
South Circle Goodwill Retail Center Information
You can donate your used goods to Goodwill – here’s a list of donation dropoffs.
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9 AM to 9 PM; Sunday 9AM to 6 PM
Phone: 719.635.1215
Address: 2007 S. Circle Dr, Colorado Springs
Website: Goodwill-ColoSprings.org
Parking: Parking Lot
Credit Cards: Yes
Here are the promotions they run – all specials exclude green and “current” tags
Military Discount: 15% off with military ID on Tuesdays
Senior Discount: 15% off for ages 55+ on Wednesdays
Color Tag Discount: certain color tags are marked 30 and 50% off each week – here’s more info
What’s Your Take?
What do you think of this Goodwill store? Is it one of your faves, or not even close? Please share in the comments! And, don’t forget to check out the other thrift store reviews!
We were just there last week! Love this particular Goodwill, because it’s so clean and well-organized. About the circular racks – I guess the alternative would be the long straight racks, which I don’t like when the store is especially busy, because someone might be in the aisle you want to look in, but you can’t get to it. I think the circular racks help with customer flow through the store. Anyway, this is definitely the nicest Goodwill I have ever seen.
Ah, now that’s a good point. I think I figured out why I’m not fond of them my kids always seem to disappear in the circular racks. :) However, I’d agree with you – they’re probably better for traffic flow. Now I remember that when I was in the Arc store, it was hard to navigate the aisles if someone else was already down one since we had a cart.
When I lived in Alabama in ’93-94, I was in a Goody’s Store with my then 2 and 4 year old kids. My 2 year old climbed inside of a circular rack and up on a bar inside of it so that I couldn’t even see her feet. I didn’t know where she was and to make matters worse, she didn’t answer when I called. The store ended up locking the front doors and calling the police thinking that an abduction had taken place… I was frantic until she finally let out a noise and we found her. So needless to say, I am still not a big fan of circular racks!!
LOL – YES, Kathy – that’s *exactly* what I picture happening. :)