7443 S Racine, Chicago, 60636

Welcome to my second review! And continuing with the Village Discount, here we go :)
So, the first thing I noticed about this thrift store is the PARKING LOT, it's great! It's one of the bigger lots I've seen for a thrift store, it's great. So, I walked inside very optomistic with this place. I promptly walked around the store to get the "feel" of the store, snapped a few pictures, mumbled to myself, and dashed from aisle to aisle, and caused a few people to look at me in curiousity.

Pros:
Again, the parking lot-I can't say enough how nice it is to not worry about parking.
I loved the size of the women's section, it was definitely on par with what you would want to see in terms of selection, brands, colors, and arrangement. They really used the space in the women's department well. I saw Ann Taylor, Aeropostale, Forever 21, Merona, and a few other mentionable brands that would cause a fight if 2 ladies saw the same top at the same time, he he. The clothes for the Women's, Men's, and children's department were of good quality, and I happened to pick up an Ann Taylor Crisp, white button down summery shirt that I loved. (Stay tuned to see if I bought). Here's a pic of an aisle in the women's section, color coded!


Also, when I looked at the jewelry counter I was pleased with some of the movies and music that they had for sale. There wasn't alot of movies, but the ones they had were somewhat modern and in modern format(DVD's and Cd's). I was dissapointed that there weren't any "buns of steel" tapes, but you know, I survivied...and besides I could always go to another thrift store for that.
The formal dresses they had were also of good quality and I am sure that the right girl could find her prom dress here without a problem (sadly, I was too big for the sizes available :/ but they were in good shape).
The appliances/knick knacks were average, here's a pic of one of the shelves, which was very well stocked.


Cons
Well, I'm afraid the cons section is going to be larger for this store. First of all, the size of the store, eh. It was only a fair sized store, I felt that if the store was a little larger it would have alleviated many of my "cons", but alas it isn't. The arrangement of the store was only ok. The aisles and the departments meshed together. This isn't a make or break for me, but I feel cheated if I'm searching for something in the store and am about to leave only to discover I've missed an entire aisle. Not a good feeling! Also, speaking of clothing the men's and children's sections are smaller than other thrift stores. I wouldn't make this my destination store for strictly men's or children's clothing, but as I said the selection is a good quality.
Another plus for this store is that they accept Visa and Mastercard. I'm sure most of the thrift stores do at this point, but it's still helpful to know prior to loading up your cart :)
I was very dissappointed with the jewelry counter as a whole, as there was alot of open space. The selection was only ok to begin with, and the gaps didn't entice me to buy. They had alot of shoes and purses stacked behind the counter, but without a good display it wasn't easy to see what was available and I had some difficulty locating a clerk to even help me with these items. This is a pic of one of the counters

Although this counter is neatly arranged, but the gaps are what bothered me.
One glaring ommision that I was sad about, no furniture. Furniture can be such a treasure at the thrift store, and there wasn't even anything to browse over. Furniture is an important part of my thrifting experience and this definitely dissappointed.
When I went online to get the address and hours, the store is open til 9 Mon-Fri. However, at 7:55 it was announced that the store was closing in 5 minutes! When I approached the clerk he said that they are only open til 9 on fridays. Hmph! I didn't really have all the time I had wanted to browse the store and check out every department like I had planned. I felt totally betrayed by the website! Also, another problem was they had ALL of the carts in front of one of the walls which had women's skirts and clothing. Argh!

The average departments in my opinion were the linens, books, and shoes. They weren't terribly small, but they didn't overwhelm me either.
So, for that Ann Taylor blouse, I did not buy it sadly because I picked it up shortly before it was announced that the store was closing and I had more perusing to do. I feel I could have bought that shirt if it wasn't for the store closing :(
All in All, I don't think I would go to this store too frequently, since there are others that are alot closer and it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.