Ali Acevedo on Vintage & Community

Ali Acevedo is the founder and owner of All Goods, Milwaukee’s premier location for vintage t-shirts and a variety of other retro goods and ephemera. Opening the store in 2019, Acevedo has built the store from the ground up completely independently, and has overseen the store’s growth from an independent passion project started on eBay into a thriving business that has become a pillar of Milwaukee’s community. In this conversation, we explore how All Goods came to be, where the passion for it all began, and the heights Acevedo believes the store is only beginning to reach.

Ryan: You’ve lived in Milwaukee your entire life. From growing up here to starting up a successful business here, what has the city meant to you on your own path of personal growth?

Ali: Growing up in Milwaukee, because we’re such a hard-working town, I feel like a lot of that work ethic I put into what I’m doing by trying to help bring the cultures of streetwear and fashion to Milwaukee. I felt like it was important to knock some doors down, as there were people in this [vintage] market in Milwaukee that came before us, but it was more of an underground market, nowhere near what it is now, and I wanted to show that this was possible. I also want to continue for the other people who might look up to me in the community, who might want to do their own thing in Milwaukee someday too.

Ryan: What was it that first got you into vintage clothing?

Ali: I always liked wearing something and someone complimenting me on what I was wearing, and the more you get into fashion, the more you want to stick out and be as unique as possible as a way to show your personality, and I think a lot of that comes back to vintage. The clothes can be more unique, there’s better manufacturing quality, and it just didn’t have that “fast fashion” vibe. If you go into any thrift store, the biggest section they have is always clothing, so from a sustainability perspective, it just makes sense when you’re making items go through the cycle a bunch of times rather than being thrown out.

Ryan: You started All Goods after selling vintage online for five years, what was it that made you want to transition that into a physical location?

Ali: I started doing events, and I noticed that I was having a lot of success at these events because my product selection and prices were both good, which made me stand out in regards to the other vendors. Eventually, people wanted to start shopping at my house, and wanting to avoid that, I started looking for an office space. I always had a dream of having a store, so I found a spot that was affordable, took a shot on it, and started building out of the store right away.

Ryan: What was it about Milwaukee that made it the right place for a store?

Ali: Having a store in the greater Milwaukee area was important to me because, at the time, outside of a few women’s vintage stores, there wasn’t a store that specialized in vintage graphic t-shirts, so I felt like I was able to fill a void in that market.

Ryan: Harley-Davidson’s a brand that’s massively popular in the vintage industry, and with that level of impact and influence coming from Milwaukee, what do you think makes the city’s vintage community unique?

Ali: The Goodwills of Southeastern Wisconsin and Northwestern Illinois are one of the biggest Goodwill organizations in the world, and when I was growing up, thrift stores were just somewhere we would go, we could find anything there, from clothes to stuff for your house. So I feel like in this area, a lot of people are already accustomed to the culture of going to thrift stores, and that coincides with the abundance of thrift stores in general. Harley in particular is very important to us, because being from Milwaukee, there’s a lot of it out here, and with so many different designs across eras of their vintage t-shirts, I do think it gives us in particular a bit of an advantage.

Ryan: In the years since you’ve opened, All Goods has collaborated with institutions integral to the soul of Milwaukee like the Milwaukee Brewers and Marquette University, just to name a couple. What does it mean to you to have the AllGoods name alongside those or some of the city’s most important organizations?

Ali: Well going back to me being a role model / representative for my culture, I’m Puerto Rican, I’m from the South Side of Milwaukee, inner city, where a lot of people didn’t make it out, either dying or being sent to jail, ultimately being born into bad scenarios that limited their ability to be successful. So for me, to stay focused and driven and create these collaborations with Marquette and the Brewers, I think it’s important to see people like me in those places without a suit on, because at the end of the day, I’m just an everyday guy, I’m not a politician or a corporate business owner. I’m a small business regular dude, and to have people see us doing stuff with the Admirals and these other hometown institutions that have national recognition, it’s still important to have that authentic, local connection, and it’s important to be able to bridge that gap.

Ryan: You’ve started All Goods with the help of a select few, engineering the success of the store completely independently, even weathering COVID just a year after opening. How do you feel reflecting on how far the store has come in just 6 years?

Ali: When I started the store, I had no investors, I put every last dollar I had into it. We had Walmart racks and IKEA shelves, and when we opened in November 2019, every dollar we made was saved, and that was what helped push us through COVID. Like all businesses, we had to shut down during COVID, but I didn’t know when we would be open again, so I “opened” while we were closed. I would do curbside pickups, I would post on Instagram and eBay, and when we officially reopened, there were more people than ever before. It’s like a full circle moment for me right now because while we’re back to where we started, we also have a lot of cool things happening this year. I’m really excited about this website and getting back online because that’s what my roots were.

Ryan: All Goods has helped bring the vintage community of Milwaukee, both vendors and scavengers alike, through events like your Vintage Fests and late night events. From once being a part of the buying community in Milwaukee to now one of its premier vendors, how has this community shaped your journey to where you are now?

Ali: Right away when we opened, we started partnering with local businesses, and I’ve partnered up with as many local businesses as I possibly can over the past five years. This has allowed us to platform a lot of vintage vendors over the years, and my main thing that I love to see is other people in the vintage community making money. But I also want us to have fun, because I remember working in the corporate world, where, even though I was making money, I wasn’t having fun. And so I decided, “No, I want to have fun AND make money”, and while it has taken some fine tuning and ultimately a lot of days that were not “fun”, that has always been my goal.

Interview of Ali Acevedo by Ryan Lynch, 2025