The River North Arts District (RiNo) is home to jazz bars, art galleries, and other creative businesses that give the neighborhood industrial, urban charm. Similarly, Broadway has many vibrant, sustainable stores that draw the eye as you walk by. Together, both districts are home to some of the best Colorado thrift stores.
Among them lie notable thrift shops, Heart of Vintage, The Ten Penny Store, Goldmine Vintage, Big Sky Supply, and Fever Dream Vintage & Modern.
303 Magazine spoke with the store owners to discuss the ventures that led them to become staples in the community.
Heart of Vintage
Bella Conte, the visionary behind Heart of Vintage, established her store at the Source Hotel nearly three years ago. After a successful stint, she relocated to Larimer St. and welcomed her boyfriend, Daniel Page, as a business partner in October. Since the move, they have thrived in the vibrant RiNo neighborhood, attracting a steady stream of local and tourist foot traffic.
READ: Sustainable Online Storefront Heart of Vintage Builds Timeless Pieces
Conte has astutely observed that Denver shoppers favor local areas, contributing to the store’s continuous growth. The store’s carefully curated vintage pieces and the personal stories behind each item have captivated the hearts of many. Conte explained that vintage items carry a piece of history waiting to be discovered by the discerning shopper. The stories behind the items, from the previous owners to the historical context of the era they belong to — add a personal touch to each transaction.
As Heart of Vintage approaches its first anniversary at its new location, exciting developments are on the horizon. Conte is gearing up to launch its online platform in September, offering various handpicked pieces for fashion enthusiasts worldwide.
Additionally, starting next month, she’ll use her experiences vending at ThriftPop to host and attend events featuring vintage selections. These highly anticipated events and the launch of the online platform will bring a new wave of excitement to the RiNo community and beyond.
READ: ThriftCon, The #1 Vintage Clothing and Collectible Convention, Hosts ThriftPop
For Conte, community and sustainability are not just buzzwords but guiding pillars for her shop.
“Community outreach is important to us. We’re gearing towards hosting more events outside our space and engaging more community. Additionally, we keep things in circulation and emphasize the importance of not over-consuming,” she said, underlining Heart of Vintage’s sustainability impact.
Those values extend to newcomers in the vintage world, even those guilty of shopping fast-fashion.
“I always emphasize that I would never shame anyone for buying fast-fashion, especially from the thrift store,” Conte said. “When people consider shopping for fast fashion, I encourage them to invest in long-lasting pieces and shop secondhand to emphasize the circular nature fashion should have.”
Conte’s meticulous curation process, honed over the years, ensures that every item at Heart of Vintage is of the highest quality. Her ability to identify the era of leather and denim items, coupled with her keen eye for details and nuances, often leads her to garments from the 1970s, 1980s, and 90s.
When Page joined forces with Conte, he brought menswear to life with his brand Macabre Decorum, which now lives alongside Heart of Vintage inside Empire Collective. As a musician and vintage lover, Page was excited to bring chic, classic looks to his brand. He noted musicians are often responsible for setting trends and establishing new forms of self-expression.
His eye for capitalizing on curated style, especially within punk rock and alternative spaces, manifested into mixing pieces like sports coats, leather, denim, and band tees. Moving beyond the punk subcultures, Page has started experimenting with work and Western wear.
The dynamic duo brings styles reminiscent of icons like Ringo Starr and Barabara Bach to those in the RiNo area.
The Ten Penny Store
The Ten Penny Store, owned by Matt and Kelley Vogel, stands out with its exceptional collection of vintage items and strong connection to the local music scene.
Their journey with vintage and each other began on a memorable Halloween in 2015 at The Regal Vintage Shop on Antique Row. Kelley, dressed in a black cat costume, was working her shift at Regal while Matt, a frequent customer, struck up a conversation for the first time. This serendipitous meeting set the stage for their shared love of vintage and future ventures.
READ: Meet Matt and Kelley Vogel, Founders of The Ten Penny Store, a Vintage Boutique
Two years after meeting, the couple opened The Ten Penny Store, only a few blocks north of Regal Vintage. The couple took notes from Regal while adding their inflection and flare, and four years ago, moved their store to Broadway.
Matt said one of his favorite parts of being in the community is the music crowd it attracts. As a Denver musician, he’s played drums for several local bands and takes great joy in preserving older items and giving them new value, especially music-related items.
“Some bands are now enjoying a second heyday after their one hit in the 90s, so it’s cool to see their shirts are now selling for infinitely more than they were initially,” he said.
Beyond the store’s legendary collection of records, cassettes, and eight tracks, the Vogels have also enjoyed shopping with Charlie Crockett and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard members. They’ve even had the chance to sell stage-worthy items like a 70s bright floral dress to musician Erin Rae.
Suppose you haven’t visited The Ten Penny Shop.
In that case, you may recognize the shop if you’ve seen the Broncos’ 1977 throwback uniform announcement featuring All-Pro Quarterback Pat Surtain II and Hall of Famer Randy Gradishar. Or perhaps you’ve spotted the store in Jansport’s YouTube advertisement or the music video for ‘DENIM,’ a song from the local band Wheelchair Sports Camp.
These collaborations transformed the store into a creative studio, showcasing the art, media, and community that can emerge from local retail spaces.
Kelley does the majority of the buying for The Ten Penny Store, filtering out what calls to her organically from friends, collectors, wholesalers, and pickers. Matt explained that curating clothing comes naturally as they buy from almost anyone to garner a full spectrum of styles.
Matt said one of his favorite friends to buy from is ’90s professional skater Marissa Del Santo, who now plays bass for Colorado rock band Blood Oath. Del Santo’s collection has served as a treasure trove for The Ten Penny Store, providing them with a range of rock and roll-tinged band T-shirts, denim, and even heavy patina garms.
While The Ten Penny Store specializes in vintage from before the 1980s, more recent trends from the 1990s have kept certain items in high demand. As a ’90s kid, Matt never expected oversized, baggy pants to return in style, “We can’t keep a pair of JNCOs on our racks for more than 24 hours.”
The shop owners look forward to continually tapping into these trends while building an even larger community of vintage lovers.
Goldmine Vintage
Friends of the Vogel’s, Goldmine Vintage, opened in 2007 by couple Tom Bottenberg and Joan Jones. Their brightly decorated shop has been a long standing example for other vintage stores.
Goldmine Vintage offers shoes, band ephemera, vinyl albums, and traditional vintage clothing. The store’s ethereal western undertone coincides with its superb selection of cowboy boots, denim, flannel, and leather.
Jones previously shared with 303 Magazine the importance of trying clothes on when shopping vintage,
“Something might look interesting on the hanger and then amazing on your body,” she said, “Avoid looking at the sizing info on a vintage label —modern sizing is completely different than vintage sizing.”
READ: Goldmine Vintage Celebrates 10 Years and New Denver Location
She also explained the importance of sustainability as fast fashion continues to head for landfills, “There are so many amazing pieces of clothing that are waiting for a new life, we refer to them as “previously loved.”
Since moving from their Boulder location in 2017, they’ve been delighted with Broadway’s neighboring local businesses, which help drive walk-in shoppers and allow community immersion.
Big Sky Supply
In 2015, Jason Farr started making leather wallets, key fobs, and other everyday items from his garage. He said he didn’t expect to start a business at that point; it was just something fun he liked to do for his friends, but it set the foundation for his shop, Big Sky Supply.
Farr’s custom leatherwork soon led to selling at small merchandise tables, fulfilling orders regularly for Denver stores and eventually opening a store on Larimer Street specializing in clothing from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Farr grew up in Pennsylvania and spent time helping his grandfather with tailoring and design or in vintage stores. These experiences taught him the importance of valuing your clothing.
“Getting to own those one-of-a-kind, staple pieces allows individuality through thrift shopping,” he said.
He also attributes the success of his 500-square-foot shop to his connection to the punk rock scene in the 1990s, which gave him the confidence to pursue opening his business without any funding. Additionally, he noted that his sense of community growing up in Pennsylvania laid the groundwork for his store.
READ: 25 Vintage Brands to Check Out in Denver
The other main contributor to Farr’s storefront development was an inspirational trip to Japan, where he learned about sashiko denim repair and Japanese brick-and-mortar stores. After Japan, Farr began to move away from leather work and step into reworking and repairing. The handmade items he creates breathe new life into pieces.
Farr said that whether it’s a minor repair or a complete redesign, he enjoys “figuring out the puzzle.”
The small shop owner said starting his business was also a bit like solving a puzzle, but he’s glad to have reached the point where he can work on personal projects while connecting with customers in his store. For example, Farr said he recently worked on a patchwork kimono that took him over 100 hours just because he wanted the challenge.
While working on such extreme undertakings, he’s also found joy in the day-to-day moments at his store, “I like to see how different people connect with different items, whether it’s due to a trend or it’s just nostalgic for them,” he said.
Fever Dream
Veronica Desangles grew up thrifting, reselling, and going to flea markets, which quickly laid the foundation for her love of fashion and vintage. An Academy of Art San Francisco graduate, Desangles moved to Denver in 2016 and began working as a visual manager for H&M.
When the pandemic hit, she was selling vintage online on the side and the forced hiatus from work led Desangles to reconsider her goals. She quickly found a building on Fillmore Street and turned her virtual shop into a brick-and-mortar.
Desangles loves vintage clothing but has a special knack for finding perennial items. The owner knows what draws the RiNo community to her store — from brightly colorful designer pieces to clothes that tell a story.
READ: Fever Dream Vintage & Modern Offers a Colorful Curation of Contemporary and Classic Designs
“I love researching the history of clothes,” the owner said. “I’ve found coats from the 50s or 60s with embroidered names or faded tags and discovering that connection to clothes makes you appreciate them more.”
Desangles said she keeps her inventory fresh by moving in-store stock to her Etsy storefront or taking items to events outside the shop. Desangles often hosts pop-ups and also vends at ThriftCon. She also uses this vetting process to give great discounts to people new to vintage.
“The words vintage and thrift have become so distorted nowadays; they used just to mean cheap deals, but it’s not just charity organizations anymore,” she said. Many stores and vendors sell higher-end items, so I try explaining to people outside the community that vintage means more curated pieces.”
Shop vintage selections from these shops in-store or at markets like Old School Cool Vintage Market every First Friday of the month.
Editors note: Ten Penny information changed to reflect a more accurate location