Toa brings back the Beat

A new flag will soon be on the horizon in Taos with the word “thrift,” calling customers to a new business some locals have already dubbed a “bazaar.” Others might call it an “alternative library.”

Ras Jiro, the founder of Toa Thrift, calls it “more of a reminder of our good days. Taos cultural days, you know?” Visitors will find a maximalist yet cohesive space, bombarded with local references and cultural motifs that blend together and feed the idea of Toa. Shelves decked with books, graphic novels and manga parallel a wall where local artisans sell their wares.

The main room of Toa features not only literature and local art, but also a tea corner. The tea comes from White Lotus, a Tibetan store that used to be open in Taos. According to Jiro, the owner of the store gave him the remaining stock before relocating to Santa Fe. He added that Toa almost always has tea readily available, and guests are welcome to drink it, an homage to Wabi Sabi, a Japanese store also formerly open in Taos which, Jiro recalled, would serve complimentary tea to customers.

The main room also features a music corner, where guests can sit and play a record or a cassette. Next to the entrance is a rack of T-shirts designed by Jiro and his coworkers, which are available for sale. On the other side is a plant corner, where Jiro hopes to stock “cool little plants that do stuff,” such as Venus flytraps. For now, the plant shelf is stocked with placeholders.

While many items in the “flea market garage” are for sale, most items at Toa — such as the books, music and movies — are not. Instead, the goal of Toa is for people to come in and share the space. Ultimately, he hopes people will use it to explore the many books, tunes and flicks on the shelves while enjoying a nice cup of tea.

“These books, I’m not really selling them,” Jiro said. “People have bought some, but I really just want to share them. They’ve been sitting in storage, and there

are some great books down there, so I’m getting a couple more tables. I’m gonna make it a little more [like a] café, so people can come in, have a cup of tea, sit and flip through a great art book. Someone’ll be playing music — live or records. A good vibe.”

Jiro pulled a lot of inspiration from café culture novelist Jack Kerouac and the Beat culture, movement of the mid-20th century when building his store. Drawing from the freedom expressed by writers like Kerouac, Jiro envisions the future of Toa to be ambiguous yet liberated.

“This place right here is called Toa Thrift,” Jiro said. “But I’m also learning that the shop isn’t bound — the idea [that] nothing is bound to the physical place. This is something I wanna build for the rest of my life. I can travel and pop up a Toa, or other friends involved can open up a Toa anywhere they want. Even if it’s a little table somewhere or a pop-up thrift store.”

Toa began as an idea, which mingled with Jiro’s desire to bring his collection out of storage.

“My plan was to open up a little shop in the summer downtown and just have a cool thrift store/ yard sale thing going on, and serve tea and show movies,” Jiro said. “I was working [at Gutiz], and on my smoke break, I would notice this place for rent and just stare at the window, and I was like, ‘How cool would it be to just get this little shop?’”

When deciding on a name, Jiro used to use “Taos Warriors,” but that was faced with slight backlash. Not wanting the name to evoke conflict, he found “Toa,” a synonym for “warrior” but also a word for “shop.”

However, Toa isn’t just Jiro’s. The collection he has in Toa is a culmination of items from a variety of sources. On the walls are the old signs of former Taos businesses, like White Lotus and Taos Book

Store. The shelf where the comics and books are displayed was once in a popular local coffee shop called Wired, which was located a block away from Albertsons. Recently, Jiro has been purchasing shelves and media from Video Casa, which recently underwent a liquidation sale and is set to close after 30 years in business.

Other items were given to him by friends and locals, some items even coming from moving jobs, in which, he added, people would give him free stuff. Being a traveler of the U.S. and beyond, Jiro accumulated items from various shops he would visit in small towns. All of it has been kept in storage units around the nation until now.

“This is really everybody’s store,” Jiro said. “I’m just a curator for it. I’m not a businessman; that’s not my deal. I’m putting it like a film, you know, directing a film, everybody plays a role, and it’s going really well.”

In the future, Jiro aims to make Toa into a comprehensive cultural center, bringing in local musicians, starting an open mic, hosting film viewings on a projector and even providing an arcade. When the weather is warmer, he added, he plans on opening the garage door and setting up tables for exterior vending. For now, it’s a sort of symposium where locals can gather and exchange ideas while paying homage to the old, niche stores of Taos.

“A lot of the locals treated these places like they were theirs,” Jiro said. “The line between employee and customer was blurred if you were a regular local. Locals took out the trash, and they all felt like it was their place. Where I come from in New York, it’s not like that very much, so this is my give-back shoutout to those days.”

Toa Thrift is located at 814 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, right next door to Video Casa. It’s open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekly.