The Interfaith Furniture Store is a large warehouse style thrift shop in Calgary's North East that offers an immense variety and selection of used furniture and antiques. The store will provide you with their mission statement.
Location:
635 - 35 Ave. NE
Phone: 403.276.3173
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Closed Tuesdays after a Monday statutory holiday.)
Prices: Outrageous. Prices for older furniture and antiques tend to be exhorbitantly high, often in excess of what you would expect to pay at an upmarket antique dealers. They seem to calculate their prices by doing searches through donated antique catelogues, finding the highest priced example (eg: a Louis IV armoire for $10, 000) that comes close to what they have, then adding 20% to account for inflation, and another 20% finders fee. Never mind that the Armoire they have is actually a depression era 1940's oak wardrobe and missing a door ...
Apparently this policy is done to discourage "Dealers" from picking up bargains and reselling them, unfortunately it also discourages customers. On the good side they do run a Dutch Auction, wherein larger goods are tagged with the date they came into the store, then marked down 25% after a week, and 50% after a month. Even with these markdowns the prices still tend to be very high.
Chance of finding a bargain: Slender to none.
Chance of finding a treasure: Excellent.
Merchandise: Mostly furniture, some antiques, housewares, toys, some clothing and books.
Overall: Worth popping into, but generally not worth purchasing anything. Check the other thrift shops in Calgary first.