I was blown away by this store when I visited Visalia a few weeks back from Los Angeles. It's…read morefantastic! The best shop I found on Main Street (and I went into every one).
The front of the store is vintage and MCM home goods, ranging from furniture to quirky knick-knacks to needlepoint and crochet art and paintings. The second half of the store is a massive array of vintage clothing, ranging in decades and styles -- from the 50s to funky 70s to boxy 80s to classic 90s to y2K. Very broad array of sizes which I loved and I spent at least two hours there. I ended up buying an amaaaazing black and faux fur collar jacket that apparently was used by police trainees at West Point for a very reasonable price.
The prices are all really fair -- at least coming from someone with knowledge of the world beyond the town of Visalia. I'm honestly so shocked there are one-star reviews for this store. None of the prices were crazy. Personally, I don't think $20 for a lovely, excellent condition long-sleeved blouse or maxi skirt of high quality material is unreasonable.
When I was there, I chatted with the mom and the daughter. Both were kind and very compassionate, particularly in terms of helping the planet through second-hand consumption (and also in regards to rescuing dogs and cats; we got off topic). They were charming and gentle women.
The quality of items here is DEFINITELY curated. You are not sifting through junk or cr*p. This is NOT a thrift store, but in terms of it being a vintage store, the prices are one million times cheaper than you'll find in: Los Angeles, Ventura, Ojai, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, San Diego, San Francisco, or anywhere else nearby. Trust me on this: I'm a shopaholic and I literally road trip to shop.
Anyhoo, I think the one-star reviews might be from older, less fashion-forward, small-minded local Visalians who really have no comparison to any other cities. Also, Visalia is going through a change. It is totally clear that the downtown is experiencing a revival -- look at the confluence of new breweries, the hip coffee shops, the bougie Italian cafe, even the Darling Hotel. Perhaps these one-star review people are holding onto a past image of Visalia and rather than being open-minded and glad that their town is becoming more polished, they just spew negativity.
As I leave this review, I'm mentally scrolling through some of the items I decided not to buy and kicking myself. There was a long bench with storage under it that had an impeccable green and pink crochet seat that I really should have bought! And quite a few pieces of wall art and paintings too! And I would have left with more clothing except that I was 20 weeks pregnant and nothing fits me, so I couldn't get a proper idea of how things looked.
Also just wanted to say that while I was here, a mother from the nearby town of Hanford was there with her 3 daughters, ages 14-22, and I thought it was so cute watching them shop. One of the daughters is very into 80s stuff and the mom comedically did NOT understand her affinity to that decade. But I just thought, "How adorable to have such a compendious vintage store to take your daughters to, expose them to the history of fashion and help them better hone their personalities and identities through."