On the corner of a tiny street in Downtown Los Angeles, there’s a non-descript storefront with no signage, no posted hours and no marker on Google Maps. The store itself is new, just a few months old, but it may not appear so at first glance; the inside is filled with repurposed wood shelves stocked with vintage denim and worn flannels, film cameras and classic records.

For owner Carlos Fernandez, More Thanne thrift shop on Winston and Main has been a leap of faith, a labor of love and a family undertaking. 

Fernandez, an intellectual property specialist by day, had no retail experience prior to opening Morethanne this summer with the help of his two children. What he did have was a familiarity with and fondness for the area, and a drive to share that with his son, 16, who helped design the shop, and his daughter, 8, a budding fashion designer who contributes some items for sale.

“I always had a heart for what Downtown was, and the potential it has,” says Fernandez. “There was really no place to look other than Downtown.”

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More Thanne is located at 104 Winston Street, a street just two blocks long that begins with the swanky sushi restaurants and upscale hotels of Main Street and ends abruptly at San Pedro Street, the outer edges of L.A.’s Skid Row. The street itself serves as something of a metaphor for the gulf that exists between Downtown Los Angeles’ gentrification and its homeless population, the fate of which is constantly in question.

The street also runs perpendicular to Indian Alley, officially known as Werdin Place, which once held great significance to L.A.’s Native American community in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and is today home to murals reflecting the area’s history.

Dorian Dudley, More Thanne’s store manager, has lived and worked in Downtown Los Angeles for the past 13 years, and has known Fernandez since they were kids. Dudley previously worked at the Vietnamese restaurant adjacent to the More Thanne, and prior to that at a mini mart just down the street.

“What used to be my customers then are once again my customers now,” says Dudley. “There’s a small sense of community around here.”

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Even on a quiet Sunday afternoon during which the area around More Thanne has relatively little foot traffic, patrons still rotate in and out of the shop, greeting Dudley by name.

“I love this area," Dudley says. "I’ve worked on this same block for 10 years. With Winston Street, along with Main Street, Broadway and Los Angeles, I’ve literally just watched the succession of the gentrification happening.”

This sense of community was an important factor in Fernandez's choice of location for the store, and its name, using the old spelling of the word “than,” to embody the concept of the establishment being more than just a vintage clothing shop.

“It’s a social thing, it’s an encouragement for everybody—you are more than, we are more than,” Fernandez says of his store's name. “We should be a little more conscious about everything that makes us more than.”

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This principle, Fernandez says, is what drives him to offer a unique inventory of clothing and wares reflective of Downtown L.A.’s diverse and eclectic residents.

“We’re more than just a skater, we’re more than just a lawyer. My lawyer friends, they wear a suit, but at the end of the day they come home and put on a t-shirt,” says Fernandez. “And why not have a have a store where you can come in and buy a vintage t-shirt, a nice pair of Japanese denim and a vintage Rolex?”

The shop’s inventory rotates seasonally, with Fernandez personally curating each item, adding to the collection through “treasure hunting” trips with his children around the U.S. and Mexico. Opening a store has created many teachable moments for Fernandez’s children, from learning work ethic to how to reuse, recycle and repurpose items to create something new.

Fernandez’s unique vision and dedication to detail has allowed More Thanne to be met with enthusiasm from locals, and the store's rather unusual hours (open until midnight most weeknights) creates a cross-section of customers that is distinctly L.A. 

“The locals have been amazing. They love that we’re here,” says Fernandez, who emphasizes the importance of getting to know clientele within the community. “Knowing your size, knowing your name, it’s worked out. Some of the people across the street from us sometimes go, ‘Oh your lights were on, we had to come down.’”

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Even during the day, More Thanne has been successful at drawing a diverse clientele that other L.A. thrift shops might not normally attract.

“Yesterday, someone who was 15 came in and bought a couple of ties and a skate hat, and then a couple of 70-year-old women who were having brunch across the street came in and bought furniture from us,” says Fernandez, who grew up watching the thrift shop boom along Melrose and La Brea avenues in the ‘80s and wanted to create his own vintage store that was inclusive, accessible and educational for customers.

“We want to give people the chance to own a unique item for a decent price,” Fernandez says, noting that his son does a lot of research to help set the pricing. “We educate ourselves on what we have in the store, and we pass on that knowledge.”

Alhough Fernandez hopes that Morethanne will be a part of Downtown's gentrification efforts and bring new life to the area, he is conscious of the fact that he and other new business owners must not overlook the area's current residents, or challenges. 

“I hope that business owners don’t close their eyes to social issues that are occurring, and connect with the people that were there before we were," Feranandez says. "If you show them a little respect, hopefully they’ll show it back and they’ll take care of your business and be a part of it.”

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For store manager Dudley, who has more than a decade of experience working in Downtown L.A., he sees gentrification on the whole as a positive process, but has mixed feelings about how politicians and law enforcement have gone about it, in particular through what he sees as targeting and bullying of the homeless population.  

“If it’s done correctly, where everyone’s treated fairly, then yeah, totally for it,” says Dudley of gentrification. “There’s nothing wrong with economic improvement for an area. But if it’s at the sake of putting people out, I’m against that.”

Dudley says that local politicians and law enforcement should be more quickly adapting to the changing needs of Downtown, while continuing to act fairly toward both its new and its old residents.

“If these local elected officials really cared about their constituents, then they would figure out a way of how to relocate them rather than gentrifying a whole area and then pretty much leaving them high and dry,” says Dudley. “We have such a large homeless population as is, and I see that gentrification is contributing greatly to it, so I just feel that there’s better way that they could be doing this.”

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As a longtime Downtown local, Dudley believes that the rapid expansion of gentrification he's now seeing is concerning, as the ammount of land and resources available to the sizable homeless population is shrinking faster than ever before. 

“The weird thing that’s happening now, I’ve never seen it happen down here before, is that gentrification is actually happening to Skid Row now,” Dudley says. “You got Little Tokyo pushing west, and Historic Core pushing east, so I’ve never seen a situation before where people were getting pushed toward the river and now they’re getting pushed back.”

Although there is no simple solution to ensuring that gentrification is in the best interest of all those involved, Dudley believes that the first step to integrating with the community starts with respect. 

“We get a whole mix of people here, we never turn anybody away,” Dudley says, noting that this is a policy he’s held since his days working at the mini mart. “My rule was, even though you’re new to the neighborhood, there were already people here before you, and you’ve got to respect them like they were your next door neighbor. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t shop here.”

More Thanne operates Wednesdays through Fridays, 3 pm-midnight, and 12-10 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, so if you ever happen to stumble upon the little shop on Winston Street with no name out front, stop in and say hello to Dudley, Fernandez and a diverse cast of locals who are bringing Downtown Los Angeles back to life one sale at a time.  

“It’s definitely not dull," Fernandez said of Downtown. "It’s definitely not the same every day, and we’re glad to be a part of it.” 

Reach Staff Reporter Olivia Niland here. Follow Olivia Niland on Twitter @olivianiland.