Thrifty Beaches is opening its first store outside SLO. Here’s where
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- Thrifty Beaches selects Santa Barbara for second store following Instagram poll.
- New 9,000-square-foot location on State Street to feature vintage goods, vehicles.
- Owner Adam Kemp eyes national growth while delegating local store management.
One of San Luis Obispo’s most popular new businesses is already expanding — and the next city calling for it is Santa Barbara.
On May 30, Thrifty Beaches owner Adam Kemp sent out an Instagram poll asking followers where he should open a second store.
The query came a little bit more than half a year after Kemp boldly opened his 26,350-square-foot headquarters store in downtown San Luis Obispo, and only just over a year since the business was first founded.
In the months since it opened, the Higuera Street store has become something of a Mecca for local vintage shoppers, with lines of shoppers routinely stretching down the block during special promotions.
Now, Kemp is going to expand that energy to our southern neighbors.
From the responses to his poll, Kemp said Santa Barbara was the overwhelming winner.
“I came down here and checked it out, and I think that they’re right,” Kemp told The Tribune in a recent interview. “Santa Barbara needs a spark. It needs something unique, and that’s what my business has to offer.”
Kemp signed a lease for 710 State St. on Friday, and on the same day, he announced the upcoming store of 9,000 square feet of curated goods in an Instagram post.
The location is right across the street from the Paseo Nuevo shopping mall in the heart of Santa Barbara, an area that has struggled in recent years, in part due to the loss of major retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Forever 21.
State Street has also faced challenges from high rents and persistent smaller storefront vacancies. A stretch of the street was closed to cars during the pandemic and has yet to rebound to its previous vitality from years past.
What are the plans for new Thrifty Beaches spot?
The new Thrifty Beaches spot was previously occupied by Restoration Hardware, before it moved to Montecito, Kemp said.
The space features hardwood floors and high ceilings with pillars and arches.
Kemp said the build-out of the new store will be a surprise, but he plans to honor what’s already been done to the space.
“Definitely want to add some of our flair — we plan on parking some old Porsches on there, old bikes, some cool cars,” Kemp said. “These doors are bigger so we can fit all types of vehicles in there.”
Finding another spot for Thrifty Beaches was easy, Kemp said. The hard part was now finding someone to oversee the Santa Barbara store, since Kemp plans to continue running the flagship in SLO.
“That’s the most nerve-racking part because I do believe that I’ll have these all over the country eventually, but there’s only one of me, so I’m going to have to trust people to honor what I started,” he said.
The shop will have all sorts of secondhand clothing as well.
Kemp recently washed 300 Carhartt jackets to bring down to the new brick-and-mortar, he said, and he expects “hundreds” of pieces of designer clothing to fill the art gallery space.
“Everyone loves Louis Vuitton and a lot of really rare collabs,” he said. “We have people flying from New York, Washington, all over the U.S. to come to our grand opening here in Santa Barbara.”
Kemp said the grand opening of the Santa Barbara Thrifty Beaches will be in the next two weeks, and he is planning for regular hours every day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Beyond the Santa Barbara and SLO locations, Kemp told The Tribune that he is considering signing an additional lease in another nearby city, but is shy on the details.
“I think this is the future of retail, so I do want to put that out there,” he said. “Resale has changed my life, so I hope that it can help other people.”
