How Soda City Thrifts became a model for blending thrifting, campus life

Gray Thomas was a senior advertising major at USC when COVID-19 made its appearance. 

Thomas wanted to feed his creativity and saw the opportunity to help his fellow students with their clothing needs. Thus, Soda City Thrifts was born. 

The online thrift store was begun to provide University of South Carolina students with vintage and eco-friendly clothing at an affordable price.

The shop becomes a pop-up store, taking its merchandise directly to students, when the school hosts its occasional vintage market on Greene Street.

That kind of access to students is important. But so is affordability.

“What we see is all these vintage people are selling shirts for $60 from the same stores that we get ours from,” said the current owner, Logan Gryzlo.

 “I’ve always had a passion for thrifting, and my friends saw that and asked me if I wanted to take it to the next level,” Gryzlo said.

Inventory for the business is steadily changing due to new and exciting finds in the community.

From camouflage jeans to Tide snapback hats, there is quality clothing for everybody, which is something that Gryzlo prides himself on.

“I want to show my style and show what I found for people and put it on them,” Gryzlo said. “I have this dream of styling people and this is one step closer to that.”

Clothes for the business come from all over the Carolinas, including Columbia, Charleston and Charlotte.

Soda City Thrifts participated in USC’s vintage pop-up market Thursday, attracting new students wanting to find a thrifting deal.

“They just have so much variety for me and other students to choose from,” sophomore hospitality and management major Caleb Hyman said.

“When I come to this business, I know it’s going to be clothes that I am actually interested in and am going to like,” Hyman said.

The community has shown love for the thrift store, having won best student-run business for the second consecutive year in a campus poll. 

The business’ continuing at USC wouldn’t exist if not for Thomas’ early work, Gryzlo said.

“His vision was to take the thrifting community and combine it with the college life community,” Gryzlo said. “I say he’s done pretty well with that. We’ve grown so much out of what he thought we would be.”

Gryzlo still has frequent conversations with Thomas about the business, asking him for advice on what the business’ next steps should be, including new stores to thrift at as well as participating in pop-up markets in other locations.

“We run this business with the mission to serve the students of USC, and the goal is to only keep going,” Gryzlo said.

Soda City Thrifts is active on Instagram and uses that as its storefront. It regularly posts its new inventory and hosts online sales.