Afterwards has been reselling luxury goods on Menlo Park’s El Camino Real since 1990, a run long enough that the shop now markets itself around its own 35th anniversary rather than around any single season’s inventory. That longevity is worth noting in a resale category where many shops open and close within a few years; a consignment business that has operated continuously on the Peninsula for three and a half decades has had to earn repeat trust from generations of local consignors and shoppers rather than relying on novelty alone.
The shop splits its floor between two distinct categories that do not always overlap at other consignment stores: designer womens clothing, shoes, handbags, and accessories on one side, and higher end home furnishings on the other, including rugs, lighting, decorative objects, and artwork. On the furniture side, the business highlights pieces from recognizable names such as Design Within Reach, Lee Industries, Herman Miller, and Hickory, brands associated with contemporary and mid century influenced design rather than traditional antiques, which signals a shop tuned to Silicon Valley’s particular taste for clean lined, design forward furniture alongside its fashion consignment.
Location matters here: Menlo Park sits at the center of the Peninsula’s tech corridor, adjacent to Palo Alto, Atherton, and Stanford, an area with an unusually high concentration of households refreshing both wardrobes and home interiors on a regular cycle. That turnover feeds directly into a consignment shop’s supply, since the same households that buy new designer pieces and new furniture tend to also be the ones consigning what they are replacing, giving Afterwards a steady stream of higher end stock to sell at a discount to shoppers who want the label or the design pedigree without the full retail price tag.
The business describes its resale model explicitly as an eco conscious one, framing every consigned handbag or reupholstered sofa as one fewer new item manufactured and one less item sent to a landfill, a sustainability argument that has become increasingly common across the resale industry but is backed here by decades of actual practice rather than recent rebranding. The shop has also expanded beyond its physical Menlo Park storefront to offer nationwide shipping, letting shoppers outside the Bay Area buy into its inventory of designer fashion and furniture online.
Afterwards keeps regular retail hours, open Monday through Saturday from 10 in the morning to 5 in the evening, and can be reached by phone at 650 324 2377 for questions about consigning or current inventory. The address at 1159 El Camino Real puts it along one of the Peninsula’s main commercial corridors, making it an easy stop for anyone already running errands between Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Redwood City.
In short, Afterwards is a Menlo Park consignment shop, open since 1990, that pairs designer womens fashion with upscale home furnishings from brands like Design Within Reach and Herman Miller, giving Peninsula shoppers a sustainable, budget conscious way to buy luxury goods with decades of local history behind it.
