Habitat for Humanity ReStore San Jose

Staff is mostly great. I love Habitat & the Oakland store is wonderful. BUT this one... pretty boring & pricey. No unique or interesting finds. So it makes sense that a couple of times I brought very fun items (vintage & antique piece of furniture, art & decor items) to donate and the guy on the door accepting donations gave me a teenage girl "really?" look & said that they didn't "take stuff like that" it was too unusual & no one would want it. So I took it up to Oakland... They were thrilled and someone wanted to buy one of the items before they had even written the donation receipt. I hated the fact that to donate & find unusual, vintage, fun items at good prices... I had to go to Oakland when I live in San Jose. Thank goodness the Found San Jose Rummage & Reuse Hub opened in downtown. I am clearing out a ton of stuff I have collected over the years to make my life simpler as I age and can now take my stuff there. They know what I am giving them and usually say stuff like "OHHH come & look at this" to their coworkers. The only downside is their limited hours and not getting to check out what is on offer in Oakland but it is a long drive for someone my age.

I was really disappointed in this habitat restore. The ones I have been to in the past (all in San Diego or Riverside county) all are huge, have lots of good stuff, and outdoor supplies. This one… had very little. I was looking for a dresser and they only had one very old and unattractive dresser and they wanted $100 for it. They had no outdoor materials or furniture at all. They hardly had anything besides doors and couches. Maybe i was just spoiled with the ones down south but darn, this one was terrible.

DO NOT DONATE OR USE RESUPPLY SERVICES. It sounds good. You want to help someone give good reusable pieces of furniture. You start off getting a reasonable estimate. Because you've already uploaded your photos. Then, the actual mover shows up, and he triples the quote. A better bet is to just call vets move junk. Unfortunately the way they move the items, they end up damaged even if they were in perfect condition. Their truck is not large enough. And the young men they employ are definitely not furniture movers. They scratch the walls, even though we removed doors. Their Dolly scratched the wooden floors. I think they created more damage in an hour and a half then we did living here as renters, over twenty years.

Restore used to have interesting collections of picture frames and furniture. The last few times we were there, the selections were very limited. The quality of the pieces weren't as good. The prices for many items are almost like new products. I understand the store sells items that had been donated to Habitat for Humanity. All I can say is that the donations in the last few years have not been as good as before.