It’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon in June, and the place to be is a San Francisco thrift store at happy hour. The clang-clang of passing cable cars rings out as throngs of people file in to sift through racks of clothing, tchotchkes and assorted housewares, and a serpentine line is already wrapping around the cash register. A teenager is piling everything he possibly can into a Rasputin Records tote bag; another customer slings a fur coat over her shoulder, humming along to Selena Gomez’s “Love You Like a Love Song” as it plays from a crackling speaker. 

The 40% off sale is underway from 3-7 p.m. — each customer was alerted to it via text message the day before. The strategy is one of many ways the Polk Street outpost of Out of the Closet, a Los Angeles-founded thrift store chain with 26 stores across the U.S., is adapting to the modern landscape of secondhand shopping and a younger demographic of customers that seems to be growing every day.

“It’s hectic,” admits Chantal Smith, a district manager who oversees all four Bay Area stores: this one, the Folsom Street location, and two others in Oakland and Berkeley. “But it goes by quick.” 

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And the impact is staggering. General manager Jonathan Kreuyer told SFGATE that after a text alert goes out, sales can rise from $3,500 to $9,000 in a single day. “We found something that works for us,” he said, standing in the donation drop-off area behind the store.

The 4,000-square-foot store in the shell of a former Gap has been around for over 20 years. It was nearly razed during the early pandemic, but is now considered the most successful location Out of the Closet has in the Bay Area, making approximately $30,000 more per year than its sister store in SoMa. Part of that has to do with its location, which is within walking distance of a handful of hotels.

Customers look at clothing at the Out of the Closet store on Polk Street in San Francisco on June 10, 2026.

Customers hold goods they’ve selected at the Out of the Closet store on Polk Street in San Francisco on June 10, 2026.

Customers look at clothing at the Out of the Closet store on Polk Street in San Francisco on June 10, 2026.

“We see a lot of flight attendants come through here,” Kreuyer said. “People that are just coming to the city for a vacation. I would say probably 50% of our customers are tourists.”  

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The rest are, for the most part, regulars, ranging from students to district attorneys to blue-collar workers who linger for a few minutes to decompress after they’re done with their shift. “We have shoppers that come in every single day,” Smith said. “We know them by name, they know what’s new. We’re here for all of them.”

The first Out of the Closet store opened in October 1990 in Los Angeles’ Atwater Village, as a scrappy fundraising location for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The name of the store was coined by founder Michael Weinstein, signaling that it was a place that embraced the queer community and offered a wide selection of donated goods. It didn’t have the organized clothing racks and mannequin-filled window displays the chain is known for today. Instead, customers shopped from massive bins, filled bags of clothes for $5, and everything was run by volunteers, according to Kreuyer. 

He found his way to the thrift store chain’s Laurel Canyon location in 1995, when he had just moved from Michigan to Los Angeles and was looking for a job. 

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The exterior of one of the first Out of the Closet thrift stores.

Inside one of the first Out of the Closet thrift stores.

“Back then, you would go to the gay and lesbian center in LA and do an aptitude test, and then they would find you a job, and a coach would come in and check on........

© SFGate