Champaign/Urbana thrifting help sought!

[ILuvDon]

A while back someone offered to fill me in on the Champaign / Urbana thrifting hot spots.  I hope to plan a thrift trip soon so any help or advice would be great. 
Thanks in advance!!!

[Tammy]

It wasn't me but we were over there 1 time in May.  In Urbana there were 3 stores across the street from each other.  Don't remember the name of the street but there was a huge costume store on the corner.  The best thrift place  was the Habitat House - highly recommended and I don't remember the names of the others, but they were across the street.  One was a vintage clothing store that was packed to the rafters.  Husband found a leather pair of mocs there (he does mountainman reinactments) for $10 which was a bargain.  The other store is next to or 1 down from that one and was small.  It had some furniture and a few knick knacks but I thought the prices were a little high. 

We were there that day getting 2 of our dogs spayed and as we were 1-1/2 hrs from home thought we could get in some good thrifting, but was very disappointed to find nothing.  We ended up sitting in our car at a park reading books we'd bought from the Habitat store. 

Tammy

[Scott]

It was probably me -- that's my home turf.

First I'll get the hard part out of the way ... thrifting here in C-U is rough. Not much good, especially this time of year. With that aside, there are three thrifts in town ... all of which are on the Champaign side:

1) Habitat for Humanity Re-Store (40 E. University Ave.) - Probably the best for decorative arts, and definitely tops for furniture. No clothes at all.
2) Goodwill (1102 N. Prospect Ave.) - This is a sad, sad little store, but there are lots of clothes so you may luck out with that.
3) Salvation Army (2212 N. Market St.) - Again lots of clothes. Maybe not quite as sad as the Goodwill.

Depending on what other stuff you're looking for, you could check out Dandelion (9 E Taylor St) for a good selection of hip vintage clothes but not at thrift shop prices (although not terrible). You might also like the Furniture Lounge (9 E University Ave) if you are into mid-20th century design. They've got clothes, furniture, dec. arts, etc. A great store, but they know what they have (for the most part) and charge you for it.

About a 15 minute drive north is also A Second Choice (100 E Sangamon Ave, Rantoul), which is a thrifty-style consignment shop. It is a for-profit thrift and consignment shop, so it isn't listed in the directory here at The Thrift Shopper.

What kind of stuff are you looking for? Ask away -- I'm all ears!

[Tammy]

I wish I'd know about all them when we were there for the day waiting for the dogs to get done.  The Urbana shops were the only ones we could find.  It's funny as I would thought that college towns would have tons of 2nd hand shops.

Scott, do you ever get up to Peoria way?

[Scott]

We haven't gotten up to Peoria since we moved down to C-U from Minneapolis, but I did a thrifting road trip with a friend back in the mid-1990s and we made a stop there. My wife and I often will take a day trip to thrift/antique, and I'm sure one of these days we'll make it up to your neck of the woods.

[Mission Mart]

We've been scouting towns to locate a new MM store in, and we didn't find much in Champaign, I think they had one, a Goodwill I think. Decatur has six or seven, we're planning to try and open a Mission Mart thrift there in the next 6 months. Springfield has some major thrift stores- more and bigger stores breeds healthy competition which is better for the customer.

[Scott]

We do have three not-for-profit thrift stores in Champaign: Goodwill, Salvation Army, and a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I'd love to see a Mission Mart in town, though. I think it'd be good to have another high quality thrift store in the C-U area.