“It has been fabulous; it has been a total joy putting in 27 years of my life doing what I love,” said Cynthia Frega, owner of Cream of the Crop.
For more than two decades, locals and tourists have been successfully treasure hunting at the resale shop at 4683 Cass St. in Pacific Beach. Now it’s time for the final countdown, because in three months, Frega is retiring.
“It’s a good time for people to shop, for sure, to take advantage of the bargains in the store, because there’s plenty of them,” Frega notes.
Frega recalls when she first opened her store; things got busy right from the beginning. Thirty days after she opened, she was in need of help. She recalls standing in the shop with clothes up to her knees, the phone ringing and many people wandering around the store.
“This lady looked at me and said, ‘Honey, don’t you have some help here?’ I thought I was going to have this little store, but it started growing. Eight months later, I tripled the size of the space,” Frega said.
Three years after that, she opened a second store, and she opened the third store in 1996. They were all on Cass Street, and people remember those really fun, exciting, challenging times.
The stores were doing really well; meanwhile, Frega got married. She started to streamline her life a bit by closing one of the stores. For many years, she had a men’s store across the street.
Now, she is happy with just the one store. She says resale in general has become more popular because media have talked about going green and making recycling a socially acceptable thing to do. Frega got into the resale business because of the love of treasure hunting. She never expected to grow to the point that it did. It has been a really good run, and she has no complaints. “God has blessed me. It’s by His grace that I have stayed in business,” she notes.
When she retires this summer, she will have time to breathe and give back, to be of help to somebody else. For those who are interested in having a resale store, she says: “Go for it!” There’s always room for another resale shop, she says, no matter what. “There was one that closed in La Jolla recently, and my store will be closing after so many years, so I think it’s a good time for young people to get up, take the baton and run with it,” she said. Cream of the Crop – Cynthia Frega has owned three resale shops in Pacific Beach. – The store, at 4683 Cass St., is having a 50 percent off sale and will be closing May 31. – Hours are Tuesdays to Saturdays from noon to 5.30 p.m.