ThriftyCat, at 2070 Martin Luther King Jr. Way (at Addison), closed on Feb. 15 after about a year in business. Credit: Nathan Dalton for Berkeleyside

After just a year in business, ThriftyCat, the secondhand shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, has closed. The reason for the closure centers around the small parking lot outside the shop, which owner Bryce Kalousek-Maritano wanted to use for both retail and storage.

According to Kalousek-Maritano, before signing a lease in April 2024, he met in person with an assistant city planner and was told he’d be able to use the parking lot for retail and storage. 

Believing he had the city’s informal permission, he then signed a two-year lease that did not include mention of the outdoor space. He said he also talked after signing with another city planner, who confirmed what the first planner had told him. (Kalousek-Maritano applied for a business license during this second meeting.)

But after he purchased 40 tons of secondhand clothing, which he stored in large boxes in the parking lot, the city informed him that he was using the space illegally and his landlord was sent a notice from code enforcement due to “accumulation of trash and debris,” “rodent harborage” and illegal outdoor uses. The city also informed him that he could not use the parking lot for retail. 

A camera mounted on a Google Street View vehicle captured this photo of the the parking lot in July 2024.

Berkeley spokesperson Seung Lee wrote in an email that the city “was unable to verify ThriftyCat owner’s claims that the City OK’d a use permit for the parking lot for retail and storage.” Lee said such approvals are not possible under Berkeley’s municipal law. The two planners who spoke with Kalousek-Maritano did not respond to requests for comment. Kalousek-Maritano’s landlord also did not respond.

Kalousek-Maritano’s has argued that Flora Arte, the flower and gift shop that occupied the space prior to ThriftyCat, used the outdoor space for retail and as a plant nursery.

When asked about Flora Arte’s use of the outdoor space, Lee wrote that the flower shop’s permit was for “continuing non-confirming legal use of the retail space, which states the outdoor space on the parcel was to be used as a parking lot. Flora Arte, like Thrifty Cat, was only allowed to use the indoor space for commerce.”

But ThriftyCat’s 40 tons of old clothes appear to have drawn more notice from the city than Flora Arte’s rows of plants. 

Lee shared an email from Russell Roe, an associate planner and code enforcement officer, sent to Olivia Ramos, who co-managed Thrifty Cat, which stated, “If Flora Arte later moved some of their retail activities into the parking lot, it was in violation of their permit. They only got away with it because they never got caught.”

Kalousek-Maritano blamed any trash outside his store on a woman who camped in front of the building for a couple days and said the city should have contacted him directly about any issues instead of informing his landlord, who lives in Maryland.

Kalousek-Maritano, who has opened businesses in 15 other jurisdictions and also owns Curiosity Shop, home of 100,000 things you don’t need, just a few blocks down from the thrift store, called his dealings with the city “one of the worst experiences with a government bureaucracy in my life.” 

Even though its use of the parking lot was limited, ThriftyCat opened in January 2025. 

Instead of using the parking lot for storage, Kalousek-Maritano said he had to rent a separate warehouse to store his clothing stock, which made running the business unsustainable. Especially given the fact that ThriftyCat was created with low prices in mind. 

 “We’re just trying to give clothes to the community at good prices,” Ramos told Berkeleyside around the time the store opened. “We have the dollar bins and the $5 jackets outside and that’s our priority.”

The last full day ThriftyCat was in business was Feb. 15 but the store did $1 sales and giveaways for a couple more weeks, according to Kalousek-Maritano. The store donated most of its clothes and racks to Dorothy Day House, which runs a thrift store that benefits Berkeley’s homeless community.

Kalousek-Maritano, who said he lost a significant amount of money on the thrift store, vowed that this is not the end of ThriftyCat.

“It was a successful little business,” he said. “And it will reopen. But not in Berkeley.” 

In the past two years, several other second hand clothing stores have shuttered in Berkeley, including Mars Mercantile, Indigo Vintage Cooperative, and 2nd Street on Telegraph, as well as Paisley Vintage on Bancroft Way.

ThriftyCat, 2070 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley. Connect via Instagram.

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