REVIEW: DII aka Deals & Discounts

(photo: Gowanus Lounge)

I finally checked out DII: Deals and Discounts, the new low-end closeout shop on the corner of 9th Street and 5th Avenue.

Overall, I'd give it a strong meh.

I'd say that this is def a place you should check out if you are in the market for one of the following items:

*socks
*underwear
*toys
*tights/leggings
*Christmas wrap

Otherwise, its pretty missable.

Having said that, we went with a v. specific purpose: finding Chanukah and Bday gifts for our 5 nieces and nephews. We needed Chanukah pressies for all 5 kids and Bday presents for the oldest (6 yr old boy) and the youngest (1 yr old triplets).

On that front, we totally reached mission accomplished: found crap toys for everyone with the most expensive item (a fake electronic cell phone) ringing in at $13.99.

We bought: Elmo's, Cookie Monsters, Big Birds, Kidz Card Games, a Diego helicopter, books, puzzles, Baby rattle-y stuff, 2 backpacks, a gone fishin set, some weird ninja game, stackable trucks, these cool dolls that you're *supposed* to draw on, a few packs of socks, scotch tape, and a hat all for $126.23.

Here it is (excuse the crappy iphone pic):

They didn't have much in the way of toiletries (though they did have some stuff) and their candy/food dept. was also pretty small. There were clothes sections for both Men and Women and each had one or two interesting items amidst a sea of crap (for women they had these pretty cool dancer tight-like leggings and for guys lined Woolrich sweatshirts). The linens all looked scary scratchy, though I guess if you are looking for some sheets for your air mattress, it might be an option.

They had a metric ton of Christmas crap, which does a Jew like me no good but might be worth checking out if you need wrapping paper or other Christmas supplies. The store was so Christ-mafied, in fact, I could not find a single solitary roll of non Jesus loving wrapping paper in the whole place (*slightly frustrating).

All the cashiers were pretty darn chipper, esp. considering all of the annoying shoppers like me who were milling around.

Ok, so I guess on a scale of 1 - 10 I'd give DII a: 5.5

If you need socks, def check it out.