Berkeley Outlet

mom just phoned Berkeley Outlet to ask which delivery services they recommend and contact info, not realizing they would not open for amother 10 minutes. (she had a very good experience transacting with them years before.)
the man she spoke with answered right away, was friendly, helpful, had immediate info, and did not rush the call.
superb, and refreshing!

Great price on a small conference table in excellent condition. Great service: — they brought out all the laminates for me to see the options, installed my choice of pedestal, and loaded it into my SUV. This place is a treasure trove for chairs and desks, too.

I was in the market for a vintage Steelcase desk for my home office. After searching around at consignment stores and at the Alameda Point Antiques Fair, I finally stumbled across this place. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot! They had an entire warehouse row of Steelcase desks. Different sizes, different configurations. All in great condition and all had working locks with keys, etc. The prices were so good, I ended up buying two desks… one for me and one for my son. I couldn’t take the desks home myself, so they recommended a delivery service who, not only delivered the desks, but moved them upstairs into my office. So easy! I cannot say enough good things about Berkeley Outlet.

To call Berkeley Outlet an office store is like calling Ikea a furniture store. Perfectly true and perfectly useless. The truth is, you can find almost anything while prowling up and down the aisles — school supplies, odd bits of computer hardware and software, store display fixtures, medical and laboratory items (once got an autoclave, a microscope and some really nice lab glass for my daughter), collectibles, amazing surprises, you name it. Paul and Kirsten and their crew are knowledgeable and helpful, and the whole experience is an adventure. I’ve been going there forever, and poking my nose in once every week or two since I started my theater group in the early 90s. If you also like browsing around a warehouse searching for whatever jumps out at you, you’re gonna’ love this place — and good prices, too!

If you’ve struggled to meet your office needs at Urban Ore or on Craigslist, you need to check this place out. Brand new fancy office chairs and ergo desks? Yup. Retro desks and emeco-​style chairs? Yup. Crazy old brushed aluminum science cabinet I wish I could fit in my house? Yes. Go past the Metropolitan Baking sign to the giant warehouse. Admire the Vizlas.
As with all used furniture places, selection will vary, but this is one of the few places where I’ve found both quality and duplicates, for when you want things to match.

I’ve been to Berkeley Outlet a couple of times now, but this is the first time I’ve bought anything. They have an interesting selection of used office furniture; everything from ten cents a piece hanging files (not apparently used, but not boxed either) to a modern walnut credenza, to hard-​to-​come-​by flat files/​map cases, and a bank of cobalt blue lockers that might have made charming storage in a tween boy’s room. There was even a nice vintage microscope (which I’m pretty certain was from UC Berkeley; it was marked with a library name.) Once I saw some large thick glass lab doohickeys which looked like they’d have made really interesting terrariums!
I found exactly what I was looking for, a small two-​drawer black file cabinet on casters. It was $ 90, less than I’d have paid for a new one. They helped me load it into my car.
One great thing, the stuff is all scrubbed when it comes in, so you know what you’re getting is clean. Also, they can make keys on the premises, so can provide you with multiple keys for your file cabinet if needed.
Only giving four stars because it’s a little tricky to find, and parking is very limited, with several of the parking spaces marked «only» for other business that share the lot. There are three resident dogs, one of whom barked as I approached the shop; I found this a little off-​putting since I’m slightly canine-​phobic. But once in, it actually took me a while to realize that there were three of them, they are so unobtrusive.

Pssst. This has a sweet ‘secret’ location Heinz avenue. Look through the tall windows in the back and you can see across the bay to the City. We love to ride our bikes down the Bike BLVD, down toward the Bay… Travel down to the end of Heinz Avenue past the colorful Aquatic Park development and take the last right past Cal Shakes to Berkeley Outlet. Browse around the office furniture, filing cabinets, lockers, tables, chairs, book cases, clocks… and even look through the miscelleneous stuff like DVD movies and CD music for dirt cheap. Spoke with the friendly folk who work there, interesting old building has had movie sets and other activities in it. We bought stainless steel pieces here, locking steel case drawers and other neat stuff. Have nice wooden chairs and comfy office chairs as well. We came back with our vehicle and picked up our treasures later… Nice way to spend some time in Berkeley.

This place was so weird. Very used furniture. Like Urban Ore for office spaces. If you want to save money on the odd bits and pieces of an office, like staplers and coffee carafes this place could be useful. I wanted to buy an ergonomic office chair– this was not the place. Better to come here to find many old fashioned Naugahyde waiting room chairs.

This place is a gem.
They have good quality used office furniture at good prices and excellent service. We have bought 5 or so lateral filing cabinets there, as well a nice wood etagere (or whatever you’d call it) that we use for holding some plants and fruit basket (5 feet tall, 2’x2’ shelves, several of them).
They don’t do delivery themselves, but have a list of people they recommend, and we had a good experience with that. They will hold furniture until your delivery person can pick it up.
Definitely the first place I’d try, and it’s a nice local business I feel good about buying from.

Spouse and I had an excellent experience here. We needed to look at filing cabinets, and right away found 2 matching filing cabinets that would normally sell new for a few hundred dollars each, and we purchased for just under $ 100 each. There are so many office supplies at Berkeley Outlet, from pen holders and reams of paper to chairs and laptop trays, it’s worth going here to get a great deal on office suppliers before going to Office Depot.

The Berkeley Outlet is where old and still usable office furniture goes to die, and then to revive to live another day. I bought a nice solid wood desk here years ago, and it’s still with me for 5 AM teleconferences, computer work, writing, and as a place to stuff possessions within the multiple solid wood drawers. The only thing that could ever separate us would be my Father’s Roll Top.
Berkeley Outlet is not the easiest place to find down on this end of Heinz Avenue. If you’re not careful, you might end up at the Cal Shakes Compound (practically next door) and get a part to go along with your prop. But once you’re here, wandering around and imagining your relatively inexpensive office opportunities is worth the journey, the «price» of admission, and learning the history of what is contained within.

After buying a great chair for a great price at Berkeley Outlet I felt the need to testify! Incredible selection and great prices! I can’t imagine ever going to another Office Depot type store again for any office furniture! The people are incredible friendly, fun and so down to earth. Look for Melissa… she is the best! I kinda wanted to just stay and hang out there. It feels like a such a cool secret find… wish I needed a conference table.

After years of sitting at the computer in a bad chair, I finally decided to get a real chair. So I looked at Office Depot and found garbage. Then I remembered that years ago my mother had gotten some furniture at «that place on Heinz,» so I googled used office furniture in Berkeley and found the Berkeley Outlet.
On their website they say they have Herman Miller and Steelcase chairs for $ 60 to $ 150, so I looked at their respective websites and found fancy but expensive office chairs. I looked on Craigslist and found that most similar chairs are listed at higher prices, so I decided to check out Berkeley Outlet.
I stopped by just before closing to look at chairs. They had a whole bunch of Herman Miller chairs with fixed arms for $ 60, and they had a number of Steelcase chairs for $ 95 to $ 130. I tried them all. When I sat down in a Steelcase with a high back and adjusted it a little bit, it felt great. I immediately decided to buy it. I also decided to buy a used 46″ x 60″ chair mat for $ 15 after the guy who was working there (the owner?) showed me office depot’s offerings for five times the price on his computer. I asked if the chair was returnable. He said I could return it in the same condition within 30 days. That shows a true understanding of how long it might take for someone to find out if a chair is right for him or her.
I brought it home, set it up, adjusted the chair and looked for it online. I found that my chair is the «Criterion» model, it’s adjustable in eight ways, the high back model goes for $ 749 and they’ve sold over six million of ‘em! Pleased with my purchase, I settled back into it, only to start to smell a perfume like fragrance. I sniffed the chair a little and realized that the arm rests smelled of perfume — gross!
I tried getting it out with soap and water, then baking soda and water, and finally an orange based oxy cleaner, but the smell wouldn’t go away. Since my favorite scent is «unscented,» and my elbows smelled like perfume, I returned the chair in hopes of exchanging it for an identical chair.
When I got there to return it, I looked around a little and was somewhat distressed to see that the other similar chairs had been sold. The owner (?) sniffed the armrests and was surprised to smell the perfume. He then pulled out two spare armrests for my approval and apologized for some superficial scratches on them, but they were hardly noticeable and didn’t bother me a bit. Then he put the chair on a workbench, removed the smelly ones and replaced them.
It was a bit of a pain to return the chair, but I didn’t smell the perfume in the shop, so I’m sure the owner (?) didn’t either. I’m sure he wouldn’t have sold it with the smelly armrests if he had known about them.
I am now a happy customer, sitting in my wonderful new (to me) chair typing this review without pain! I’m also pleased to be reusing something which has much life left in it, and I’m glad I purchased it somewhere other than a big box retailer, so the money (only $ 130, but still…) is more likely to stay in the community I love and have lived in all of my life — Berkeley!!!
Sorry for the long chair story. Here’s why you should shop here: you need high quality used office furniture — which is better and priced cheaper than the crap they sell at office depot — along with good customer service.
They’ve been around for years and I imagine business is just fine for the Berkeley Outlet, but I can’t help wondering if they might do even better if they had «office furniture» in their name. I found them easily on google, but they didn’t come up on Unilocal under a search for «used office furniture.» Perhaps they will now. :-)
Now, I’m going to get up from my wonderful new chair, put the computer to sleep and get a life! Have a nice day! :-)

Found this great vintage Steelcase filing cabinet for $ 120. ¼ as much as some new Office Depot thing made of tin. Things here are cleaned and repaired before being sold. The nicest people and the absolutely best kept office furniture secret out there.