Pros
Working at REI has lots of obvious perks from the great deals on equipment to the fantastic sense of community. I helped open a new store location several years ago while I was in college and enjoyed every minute of the following two years I spent with the company. As an avid adventurer I loved the discounts on gear and access to special product training directly with the manufacturers. The company does a good job hiring people that have diverse backgrounds in sports/travel to cater to a broad range of customers while also providing extensive product training; you can learn a lot while working for REI.
Cons
If you are working part time as a student or have another job, REI is great. But I would never recommend going career with the company on the store level. I saw several cases where upper management strung employees along for DECADES without offering any form of job security or realistic expectation of promotion or raise. From what I saw, some of it comes directly from management, but the rest comes from shear fact that turnover in low-mid level management is extremely low while turnover with sales staff is extremely high. The company looks very appealing from the bottom, but getting out of the base-line pay grade is extremely difficult.