Lauren Domonchuk opened Nice Try Vintage in 2019 out of a cute and tiny storefront in Galt, the historic downtown core that merged with Preston and Hespeler in 1973 to form the city of Cambridge, Ontario. The shop built its reputation on a narrow, well executed specialty: vintage denim, graphic tees, and crewnecks, most of it sourced directly from across Southern Ontario rather than shipped in from overseas warehouses. That regional sourcing approach means the racks change constantly, and it gives the shop a distinctly local flavour that separates it from the mass produced vintage reproductions sold by big box retailers.
Independently owned and operated from day one, Nice Try Vintage frames its business around sustainability as much as style. Every piece on the racks is a garment that already existed somewhere else, whether in a closet, an estate sale, or a bin destined for landfill, and giving it a second life is central to how the shop describes its own mission. The category list reflects that thrifted, one of a kind approach: tops, tees, crewnecks, fleece, plaid button ups, dresses, bottoms, jackets, and a rotating selection of accessories that includes standout finds like graffiti print shoulder bags and structured designer totes alongside everyday secondhand basics. Shoppers who want a specific era or silhouette will find the shop leans into recognizable vintage codes, favouring pieces with visible age, wear, and character over anything that reads as new.
Nice Try Vintage has expanded its reach well past its physical footprint in Galt. The business runs a full online storefront that ships across the country, with free shipping offered on orders over one hundred dollars, and it maintains a wholesale program aimed at buyers looking to stock vintage inventory of their own. A newsletter keeps regular customers looped in on new arrivals, which matters in a shop like this one, where popular pieces sell out quickly given the one of a kind nature of secondhand denim and graphic tees. That combination of a small physical shop with an active, sustainability minded online presence is part of what differentiates Nice Try Vintage from either a purely local consignment store or a purely digital vintage reseller. It operates as both at once, giving Cambridge area shoppers a walk in option while still reaching a much wider vintage buying audience online.
For anyone in Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, or the wider Southern Ontario region looking for genuine vintage clothing rather than fast fashion reproductions, Nice Try Vintage offers a curated, sustainability focused alternative built on real secondhand sourcing rather than manufactured nostalgia. The shop’s small footprint in Galt belies the scale of its inventory turnover, since Southern Ontario sourcing keeps fresh denim, tees, and accessories arriving on a rolling basis rather than in occasional large batches. Visitors get the tactile experience of digging through a compact, carefully edited vintage shop, while online shoppers get the same curated eye applied to a storefront that ships nationally and serves wholesale buyers looking to build their own vintage inventory. Founded by Lauren Domonchuk in 2019 and still independently run, the shop has stayed true to its original niche rather than diversifying into unrelated categories, which keeps its denim, graphic tee, and crewneck selection consistently strong.
Nice Try Vintage in Cambridge’s Galt neighbourhood is a Southern Ontario sourced vintage clothing shop, founded in 2019 by Lauren Domonchuk, specializing in secondhand denim, graphic tees, crewnecks, and accessories sold both in store and through a nationally shipping online storefront with a dedicated wholesale program.
