There Once Was a SHOP ON NANTUCKET

The most heated battles on the island aren't over real estate or beach access. Instead, it’s the secondhand stores that have residents seeing—you guessed it—red.

- TODD PLUMMER

If the Met Gala owns the first Monday in May, the season opening of Nantucket’s Hospital Thrift Shop owns the second.

Like clockwork, as they have for nearly a century, the doors to 17 India Street open at 10 a.m. sharp. A line of thrifty shoppers forms well before dawn, and by 7 a.m. India Street resembles a civilized tailgate. The queue stretches down the block and spills onto Centre Street. In recent years the crowds have become so large that volunteers now issue “golden tickets” to control the crush—40 or 50 shoppers at a time.

Securing one of the earliest admissions is competitive, though you would never hear anyone admit it. Once the doors open, rental property owners make a beeline for the linens, snatching armfuls of sheets and towels to outfit houses before summer guests arrive, and the decorators and realtors hunt for silver trays and rattan furniture for last-minute stagings. Jockeying for the best items is a contact sport. If you see something good, you do not deliberate or circle back—you sling it over your arm and keep moving. Hesitate over a cake stand and it will vanish.

Thrifting on the island is orderly, polite, and, in a very Nantucket way, vaguely ruthless. And lately that ruthlessness feels sharper.

The lure of WASPy, old money treasures has turned Nantucket’s thrifting scene into catnip for a certain subset of TikTokers and Instagrammers. The lines are longer. There are phones out. There are whispers about which racks have been refreshed and when. A worn Nantucket Lightship bag elicits more praise than a Birkin. Getting a nod of approval from one of the shop’s volunteers, some of whom have worked there for 40 years, is a badge of honor.