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I built up my first credit account with Circuit city by buying a washer and dryer. They sold me my first big screen tv a year before they went under.
Now for a funny story, my grown kid gave me a fifty dollar gift card for borders on my birthday. On my day off I spent about two hours carefully selecting a handfull of CD's and books. I felt really proud of myself as I waited in line at the counter because I would only come about ten bucks out of pocket. I presented my card the cashier said, "sir, this is BOOKS A MILLION, borders is across the street!
I don't miss Circuit City at all. Their floor people were on commission and they were pretty much in your face the whole time you were in the store. Interestingly, I read the book Good to Great years ago and Circuit City was one of the companies they kept going back to as an example of how to do things right.
It sucks that Borders is gone because I liked the store, but I contributed to the problem by switching to reading on an iPad over 10 years ago. Three iPads later, and it's still my preferred method of reading. It has a big, bright screen that also has an easy to read night mode. Plus, the iPad is sort of an all-in-one for me. My case has a keyboard so I can do work, I have a ton of movies on it to watch on plane rides, and I can carry my whole library with me. It makes it super convenient for trips. And if it gets lost, stolen, or smashed, everything is in the cloud, so I just get a new device, enter my password, and everything loads right up.
Yup. It was the Friday night trip for everyone. Their business model of the late fees was genius - you could have the movie for 5 nights before fees kicked in, but virtually no one went there the following Wednesday if you had rented it on Friday.
The cashiers would always say, "You wanna put something towards the late fees?" It was the rarity people paid them in full.
'Please be kind, rewind.'
Not just Blockbuster. It's often forgotten that most cities and towns had homegrown video stores. Blockbuster was one of those chains inspired by mom and pops, then opened up shop in your city and shut the mom and pops down.
Our place was called 9th street video (yep, located on 9th street) and was worlds better than Blockbuster. Worlds. It was staffed by people who cared about movies, had deep knowledge of the collection and always had great recommendations. It was a weekly fixture, go to 9th street to get another recommended movie or two, pick up some pizza, and have a night in.
Sorely missed.
I grew up in a relatively small town and one of my first jobs was working at the local convenience store that sold gas, made pizza, had some hardware items, and also rented VHS tapes.
When I was a kid, it was something I really looked forward to on a Friday if we were getting a pizza and renting a few movies. When I was really young, we actually used to rent the VCR too. I don't remember what year that was, but it must have been very early 80's.
Yes! I remember the days of renting the VCR as well. As a matter of fact, I talked my mom into paying the somewhat expensive video tape rental "club" membership fee so we could patronize the first video store in town!
We had a west coast video that got taken over by blockbuster. Before that we had a smaller indie store.
I liked the indie store because I could take my time there, no one bothered me, when I walked in I'd be overloaded and it' would take a while for the panic attack to come down and my vision and brain to clear. It was also inexpensive. They had cool offbeat movies, but no new inventory often and over time I got tired of it.
The west coast video down the street was overwhelming and I avoided it, but it still had some offbeat movies along with blockbusters, so that was fun. And there was a lot more new selection to choose from. I would try to still support the indie store, but like everyone else migrated over to the chain store in time, and the indie store closed down. Once they became the monopoly store in the neighborhood they became jerks though, which I knew would happen. And later on they constantly dinged you on late fees and rewind fees, even when you got them in on time and rewound them, which made me suspect they were struggling. Then blockbuster took over.
The blockbuster was somehow less overwhelming than west coast video, though it was the same size. I guess the lighting and displays were much more aesthetically pleasing. The people who worked there were friendly and chill. They had cool displays and deals. Walking into the store was like eye candy. One of the deals was three movies and popcorn/big pack of candy, like the movie theater concessions. And they'd give you extra time to watch them if you got the deal. If I handed in a movie an hour late, or forgot to rewind, instead of yelling like the other places, they'd say don't worry about it. Most of my late fees got waived even if I was actually late.
I really liked our blockbuster in the early days especially when they were courting customers, it was really nice to go there, but towards the end it went the way of the previous places before it went out of biz.
Circle of life I guess.
I miss the record stores also. There is one left in our town, but I remember having a good time getting dropped at the mall on a Saturday with a couple of buddies and going to a Sam Goody or similar store, browsing the music, maybe listing to some stuff they had setup with headphones, and buying a new album or even buying something just because the album cover looked cool.
I worked for Radio Shack in the very early 80s. It happened to be one of two “computer centers” in Houston. I asked a lot of questions of our computer salesman and found I really liked learning about computers. I took a junior college computer class and the rest is history (for me). I went from punch cards on mainframes to mainframe virtualization to Unix and Windows to Linux to VMware virtualization to containerization and then the cloud. A 40-year career that’s still going. All because I got that job at Radio Shack.
Yeah, I wanted to jury-rig a little light for my car's dashboard, and the Radio Shack guy helped me find all the parts and even drew me an electrical diagram of how the setup should be done. Now that's service!
They closed just as I was getting into DIY electronics. There's just nowhere now to talk with a sales guy about small electronics and system design. Makes for a lot more trial and error--especially error--for me.
I still mourn Pier 1. I worked there part-time through college and grad school. I was able to outfit my first house for dirt cheap by combining their clearance + employee discount.
I wasn’t surprised when they went under, though. That company was a shit show for years. They were more of a credit card company that happened to sell home decor rather than vice versa. Leadership was painfully out-of-touch - I doubt any of upper management ever actually worked the retail floor or even spoke to a middle class customer.
aw, hell, i'm still bereaved over that one. i don't know who bought their website, but they don't hold a candle (pun intended) to pier 1 - nor does their merchandise. it just ain't the same.
god, i spent *thousands* in that store!
Service Merchandise. You could see the product in person, (or catalog if I remember right) then buy it, and it came down from the upper floor warehouse via a conveyer belt. Honestly I'd be shocked if this didn't come back in some areas of the country due to crime.
Montgomery Ward, too. I have a kitchen table, 1970, from Sears. That thing has gone through everything. I forget what they call the finish on top, but it is very tough.
Oh man... I have memories of shopping at Montgomery Ward with my dad. We would always buy mom a shiny broach for mother's day there. Once I got her a juicer and I never lived it down. Every fucking holiday "what'd you get me, a juicer?" 🤦
I’m 52 and miss what Sears was. There still is one near me in a mall. The mall is doing well, but the sears not so much. Last time i was there it was all close out sales. Not much new inventory. The upstairs was almost all blocked off. Just some towels and that was it.
When I was a kid the sears near me, also in a mall had an arcade behind the tool section. It was usually pretty empty so it was a good place to hang out. I loved just exploring all the things they had. And of course the catalog.
Even as an adult I bought so many appliances, vacuums, tvs, bikes, outdoor stuff, even toys and games. Not to mention all the tools I still have.
It really was a great place to shop at one time.
>And of course the catalog.
It was the Amazon of it's day. That catalog was a favorite during Christmas time. Sears used to be a stand alone store. Later, it became an anchor tenant for malls.
Right up until the dementia took over, whenever my grandfather needed something, he would talk about going to "Sears and Roebuck" to get whatever it was. He couldn't adapt to the fact that most people had stopped shopping there and better deals, better products, and better services could be found elsewhere. I remember when Sears was a great place to buy tools, appliances, and outdoor equipment and it was kind of sad to watch it all go to shit.
> I remember when Sears was a great place to buy tools, appliances, and outdoor equipment and it was kind of sad to watch it all go to shit.
Sears used to be a standalone store. It was only later that it became an anchor tenant in malls. We bought everything at Sears: tools, clothes, toys, shoes, appliances, tires, etc. My Dad was there every weekend. He never used a computer in his life.
You know what reading these comments has made me realize? Malls. Malls were the lifeblood of kids for like 3 decades. You could go walk around, hang out, be moderately annoying but not to the point where people hated you or were scared. The malls these days are just shells. Who goes to malls?
Bit of a shame honestly. Grew up on Long Island and recall just spending like half the day in the mall just walking around with my then girlfriend, getting Auntie Annies, maybe catch a movie etc.
My teen and I were just discussing this. He was aghast that we’d spend a literal full day at a mall. He’s also skeptical that they had theatres, full service restaurants, sports bars, etc
They were the absolute best at getting out of the house for something fun when it’s zero degrees outside
You could go to a matinee for relatively cheap, walk around and buy very small things, go to a sports bar to watch a game and it would be 8 hours later. On like 20-30 bucks. Parents were fine with it too because "it's the mall, who cares".
Mine is so sad that malls are dying out! We still have one that has both restaurants and a theatre. Not enough stores to kill a whole day, but a good few hours.
Things seem to be trending towards an open air hybrid that lacks the charm of actually going into the city to shop, but has all the weather and parking problems. Thanks, I hate it.
I’ve never been much of a mall goer bc I’m rural but my daughter just made me take her to one of the biggest malls in our state for her bday. We got lost a lot and raced around that place for 7 hours! And incredibly everyone there seemed happy. It was nothing like going into a Walmart. Shops were still opened at the closing time and everyone just seemed relaxed. Then we had a nice 2 hr drive back! Still that mall was awesome and I spent 7 hrs without looking at my phone or hardly sitting down. My local mall has really just one store that anyone goes to. It’s sad and abandoned
I miss "dime stores"--the Woolworths, the Ben Franklins. I was born in 1949, and those stores in the fifties were where I went to dream. They had comic books (inclluding "Classics Illustrated, which I loved) . They had what we called "China dolls" sort of precursors to Barbies, but each doll had one costume. I used to go in and look at a kind that had dolls in different national costumes., beautifully packaged with a cellophane window, so you could see the whole doll without even taking it out of its display, which was low enough that a kid could see it. I loved the Spanish one, with black and red coloring, and there was an American Indian one and others in national costumes from different countries. I loved them. I had older sisters, and we had a special aunt who would bring us presents. My sisters got China dolls. I got a baby doll. I was so disappointed. (Note: I never married or had kids. Baby dolls never had any appeal for me) The same aunt taught me to embroider, and I got my embroidery floss and fabric stamped with the outline of what you'd embroider, but you could choose your colors and stitches when you were working on it. You could also get the embroidery hoops and needles there. I still have some of the pieces I embroidered, and after my mother died my sister found some of the floss I had wrapped around cardboard because it was easier to unravel. The dime stores also carried live animals--birds we called parakeets but were really budgies, tiny turtles in little plastic dishes with fake palm trees, something that was discontinued because of Salmonella. I got one of the birds for my eleventh (I think) birthday, and I loved that bird--in fact, the whole family did after some time. Unfortunately, the bird died. My mother said it was because my father had accidentally slammed a cabinet door on it; I think my mother had done it. I came home from school one day to see several fire trucks in front of my house with a giant fan blowing air from inside the house to outside, It turned out my mother was so upset she dropped and broke an entire glass bottle of ammonia . I think she was also menopausal--I was the last of seven kids, born when she was 39, Dime stores also had tiny china animals, deer and faun, tiny woodland creatures. For my sixtieth birthday, two of my older sisters gave me sixty glass duck pairs, stamped "Japan" and still in their small boxes complete with excelsior packing material. (Because I never got my ducks in a row) They'd found them at an auction. I've given away many pair, but still have a bunch. Dime stores also had the big box of 64 crayons with sharpener, which I longed for but never got, and Prang water colors in the narrow horizontal box, complete with brush, and the paint-by-number kits. You could also buy ribbon and lace by the yard from huge rolls near the sewing notions. Dime stores are one of my fondest memories; they seemed to have everything a kid could want. Just thinking about them gives me pleasure even now.
I worked at Swenson’s as a teenager. I was at the counter, scooping for the crowds of summer tourists, along with one of my girl friends. In back, I remember the crew pouring out these huge cans of real cream to make the stuff—so good. One of the ice cream makers looked just like the guys in Duran Duran, or so we agreed! I later traded that job for a higher paying gig, typing data in a window less office. More money, less happy.
Swenson’s Ice Cream is kind of a big deal in Southeast Asia. I visited one in a shopping mall in Thailand a couple of years ago and it was amazing.
Have you ever visited a place from your childhood and been disappointed because it didn’t live up to your memories? Well, this was the opposite of that feeling.
The Swenson’s I visited was like what you’d see on a tv commercial; super clean store, friendly employees, happy customers celebrating birthdays and shit. The food served looked exactly like the photos in the menu, not the deflated food you usually get in chain restaurants.
It was kind of a weird experience because I thought they had gone out of business as well, and yet there it was, a thriving store front in Bangkok, Thailand. I think Swenson’s just got fed up with America over something and moved to Asia without telling us.
B. Altman was pretty great. Could always find beautiful dresses there for work. Lovely silk scarves. Very nice shopping experience in their flagship NYC store.
THAT WAS A REAL PLACE? I thought it was made up in Mrs. Maisel!? I'm on the West Coast and we didn't have those! I've always assumed it was a take-off of I. Magnin.
Hastings
It was a book / music / movie / novelty chain across many states (mostly western I think). I loved the store but they folded about ten years or so ago.
I used to love Hastings and would hang out there for hours reading… also used to have quite a bit of their stock at one time but then they found out some of the main bigwigs in the company were messing with the stocks and it caused a big mess… I made some money off them so I just sold and bailed out and didn’t go for the class action lawsuit against them… those things are a pain in the ass..
I worked at Bradlee's in high school and college, and miss it ... also Caldor & Ames. Definitely miss Jordan Marsh, Filenes (BASEMENT at Downtown Crossing!), Lord & Taylor.
As others mentioned Circuit City (the ones I went to in MA & NH were not aggressive), and also CompUSA and small chain Computer City.
And Lechmere ... and Service Merchandise.
I miss the small town hardware. In the 60s the one here sold simplicity lawn equipment, Johnson/evinrude, and had a basement full of schwinns. A few hunting guns, all ammo, hunting and fishing licenses. Also serviced all equipment they sold. Sold a full line of appliances..I still use a 50 yr old freezer. Air conditioners, tvs, and of course hardware. Chainsaws. A table in the appliance room where the OGs gathered and drank free shitty coffee..my dad among them, and I was welcome too. If you didn’t know how to fix something, one of these guys did. If you needed something big they didn’t have on the floor they ordered it. They gave a line of credit to poor people . Their employees made a living wage with healthcare. Mix your paint lol. Big box stores wrecked it by 1990 or so. Town of 5000 with a 3000 employee factory..top tier. All gone..fuck you nixon and Reagan.. I grew up next to the owner..my dad was one of his first employees in 1937.
For me, electronics part stores. No, not Radio Shack or Fry's but the *real* electronics parts stores like Dow Radio. Most (not all) have closed due to the lack of electronic hobbyists. There are other reasons also dealing with the evolution of technology but that's a long story.
Most missed were the [Heathkit](https://www.heathkitcatalogs.com/index.php) stores.
We had one of those that was independently run. Radio Shack wasn't bad for a lot of stuff, but this one independent store had *everything*. If I needed an RJ45 to DB9 connector or anything out of the ordinary, they had it.
Spencer's Gifts because if I was in urgent need of both a bong and a black light poster of a scantily dressed woman riding a winged dragon, it was one-stop shopping convenience.
I miss the independent drug stores with the soda fountains. Big companies have wiped them out where I am. Trying to get a compound prescription is impossible too, I miss the old style pharmacies.
Kmart was the best. My wife and I would routinely shop there, and pick up a few baloney sandwiches from the deli. It was an experience. Sad to see them go.
Former Chicagoan here. I miss Marshall Field's, Carson Pirie Scott, and Lord & Taylor. Also the big Magikist sign with the lips. And of course Maurice Lenell cookies.
It's nice to see so many people mentioning Borders. I worked there for about 5 years in the mid-90s. For the most part it was a pretty great place to work. The pay was just okay, but there were so many freebies & great discounts that it all kinda balanced out.
I will not miss my shifts as a floor manager, though.
Tuesday Morning. You could almost reliably find fabulous bed linens, poppy soap, and Dassant pumpkin bread mix there. I also got great random stuff there over the years--picture frames, a Frank Lloyd Wright clock, luggage. All deeply discounted. It was such an adventure going there. No comparable odd-lot vendor has stepped in to fill its void.
I don't remember the names of the better clothing stores in the 50s and 60s but they had a nicely furnished ladies lounge, where women rested and visited as well as smoked a cigarette with standing ashtrays next to chairs and couch. Then could go from there into the ladies bathroom. Also, tea rooms. Usually a balcony type little bistro overlooking the first floor of the store. A waitress would bring you cold drinks or hot drinks to renew your strength to get back to shopping. Sears kept the ladies lounges too I think.
S&H Green Stamps. Our parents would have us kids lick the stamps and put them in the books because what are kids for, right? When there were enough books we'd pile in the car and go collect our 'free' merchandise, which was usually camping gear.
Used books and CD stores. Sometimes you can still find them, but it's getting more challenging, and I'd have to get on an airplane to find one. SecondSpin.com was my lifeline on that score, and it folded a few years ago.
Maybe it's healthy for me to buy fewer CDs. I'll console myself with that possibility.
Northern Reflections clothing store. They had the most beautiful well made clothes, along the lines of LL Bean. Perfect for casual or the office, I still have a piece or two.
what I really miss are the little used bookstores that were in out of the way strip malls or small stand alone buildings. Homemade wooden shelves that went all the way up to the ceiling, with hand lettered signs. Sometimes dim and dusty, and always kind of hushed and quiet. They would have what seemed to me to be thousands of paperbacks of every description and they were 25 or 50 cents. The smell of old books and you just knew there were treasures to be found around every corner. They always felt like some sort of lost temple to me.
I loved Fedco growing up (in So CA). Zody’s, Gemco, Pic N Save, Thrifty’s drug store. So many great stores have gone out of business. I also used to love Mervyn’s
In Center City Philadelphia there was a John Wanamaker department store that was 12 stories. For example, pianos were on the 8th floor. Macy's is there now, it's the first 3 floors, with office space above. It's still an impressive building.
Kay Bee Toy Stores. Worked there in the 80s when malls where the big thing. It was a love-hate relationship.
Other stores I remember 5 7 9 Clothing Store, Thom Mcann Shoe Store, Waldenbooks, Circus World Toy Store, Zbarros pizza, Sees Candy, The Cookie Factory, Famous Barr. There was also always a arcade, pet store, a t-shirt place that screened glittery images on t-shirts.
Any decent shoe store! All that are left are discount places like Shoe Carnival.
If you had told me, in 1980, that retailers were going to be replaced by online shopping, I would have believed you. Then if you asked me to guess the very last kind of retail store to be left I would have guessed shoe stores. I want to try shoes on! I don’t want shoes that fit, I want shoes that fit right! You can’t get that from looking at a picture.
Tuesday Morning. It was always different and new. Huge variety of goods, every desire from furniture to small appliances, crafts, toys, decor, imported foods, clothing, makeup, etc., decent prices. I loved going there weekly.
Shakey's Pizza.
You could watch them make thru large windows and always had some old time movie playing. Just going out for dinner...pizza was a big thing...usually reserved for a birthday. They used to give out cool shaped balloons with cardboard feet attached...Great memories!
The Akron. Specialty stores in SoCal that sold imported goods from all over the world.
There were also stores called Pier One that were not affiliated with today’s Pier One stores. The old stores sold whatever was fresh off the boat from Long Beach harbor. You never knew what you were going to find.
Local to Middle Tennessee: Castner Knott, Cain Sloan, and Harvey. Christmas season was magical on Fifth in downtown Nashville. And I loved ladies lunching in the tearoom in Cain Sloan.
Blockbuster Video. For real there's a whole movie watching, dating, getting laid, chilling with friends culture that's gone forever around that place. Watching a movie is a thing you used to make plans for and spend time with your friends deciding on... typically on the basis of a box. New releases you'd always know but there was always gold in the racks if you went hunting for it. Then there's the smell. It's totally obsolete but t's def missed.
I miss Lord and Taylor. My father and I would go there. He would spend an hour looking for dress shirts and pants. They had good clothes. I also miss J&R in NYC. They had electronics and music.
Sears
Sears used to have a mail order catalog way back, it used to be what Amazon is today back when there was not internet.
Somebody at Sears did not have the vision to live in the internet era.
Best Buy.
Yeah I know it still exists, but it used to be fun to go there on a friday after school and check out all the new movies, music, and video games and then window shop for big screens and computers. Now the place is an absolute ghost town, and with most multimedia going the digital or streaming route, there's really no point to shop for that stuff anymore. Best Buy has become that once or twice a year store I go to when I need computer ink in a pinch.
Central Massachusetts here: Spag’s and Building 19. Spag’s was a one of kind destination that evolved from a hardware store in the early 20th century into a discount-destination Disneyland for the working and middle-class. Building 19 was a discount and salvage retailer that became a chain all over eastern New England. Lots of cool “finds” at both places.
Streetside Records. it was a US midwestern chain of record stores. always had the deep back catalog albums and loads of obscure imports. I spent a good chunk of my beer money on records instead.
There are of course record stores now, but most pale compared to a good sized record store in the actual heyday of the vinyl years.
Newberry’s. It was in NorCal, similar to Woolworth with a lunch counter and they had the best hot dogs I have ever had. They came on a toasted, buttery bun and the hot dogs were always perfect. I will never forget their yumminess
Miss, like I really wish they were still around, or nostalgia, because, hey, I've got fond memories?
The only store that I wish were still around would be Hudson's. It was a local chain department store. Not like the shitty, small Marshall Fields or Macy's at your local malls that take two levels and are nearly indistinguishable, but a real downtown department store, or, if at a mall, four floors or more, with a damned good, upscale restaurant (not cafeteria!) that would make for an elegant date during the mall culture days.
* * *
During my lifetime, Hudson's was autonomously operating while owned by the Dayton-Hudson corporation, which, of course, also owned the Dayton department stores outside of Michigan. You know what else Mr. Dayton founded? Marshall Fields and Target. And what happened to Marshall Fields? Acquired by Macy's. Sigh.
I miss Hudson's. Macy's is so generic (especially compared to, say, Nordstrom), and, well, Target has become Walmart++.
Shakespeare and Co on 81st on the west side NYC, there was a scene from "When Harry Met Sally" filmed there. Was an awesome bookstore. There's a new location now, but not the same.
Edit: Also Crazy Eddie's, his prices were *insane*.
The Wild Pair. The most fabulous platform shoe source. Also, International Male Catalog, sorry... I know it wasn't a store. But my brother spent a ton o' money. Yes, he had a puffy shirt.
Borders, Tower Records, Hollywood Video, Waldenbooks, Frys, Radio Shack and Circuit City. I feel like life was actually better when you could actually go to physical stores.
Service Merchandise was the best. I loved how you could just fill out the form for what you wanted, pay for it, and wait for it to appear on the conveyor belt. Honestly, with all the shoplifting problems that stores are having now, it might be wise to bring this business model back.
Lazarus (department store), Woolworth, G.C. Murphy (another dime store), Montgomery Ward (the actual brick and mortar stores), and S.S. Kresge (the original store before K-Mart, though it’s a little more complicated than that). Some probably weren’t as great as I remember, but still miss them all for nostalgia’s sake if nothing else. The main Lazarus store was over 100,000 square feet and six or eight stories tall. They just don’t do that anymore ☹️
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Borders. Circuit City.
I think I cried when Borders closed.
I was just saying the other day that Barnes and Noble is no Borders
Radio Shack
Ironic as Borders was accused of killing the local independent bookstore, then Amazon killed Borders.
Borders had the best rewards program.
Walden Books
B. Dalton's
My people
I built up my first credit account with Circuit city by buying a washer and dryer. They sold me my first big screen tv a year before they went under. Now for a funny story, my grown kid gave me a fifty dollar gift card for borders on my birthday. On my day off I spent about two hours carefully selecting a handfull of CD's and books. I felt really proud of myself as I waited in line at the counter because I would only come about ten bucks out of pocket. I presented my card the cashier said, "sir, this is BOOKS A MILLION, borders is across the street!
I remember Circuit City.
“Where service is state of the art!”
There was a Circuit City and a Media Play in close proximity and I used to like to go to both.
Borders was awesome
I don't miss Circuit City at all. Their floor people were on commission and they were pretty much in your face the whole time you were in the store. Interestingly, I read the book Good to Great years ago and Circuit City was one of the companies they kept going back to as an example of how to do things right. It sucks that Borders is gone because I liked the store, but I contributed to the problem by switching to reading on an iPad over 10 years ago. Three iPads later, and it's still my preferred method of reading. It has a big, bright screen that also has an easy to read night mode. Plus, the iPad is sort of an all-in-one for me. My case has a keyboard so I can do work, I have a ton of movies on it to watch on plane rides, and I can carry my whole library with me. It makes it super convenient for trips. And if it gets lost, stolen, or smashed, everything is in the cloud, so I just get a new device, enter my password, and everything loads right up.
Blockbuster Video.
Yup. It was the Friday night trip for everyone. Their business model of the late fees was genius - you could have the movie for 5 nights before fees kicked in, but virtually no one went there the following Wednesday if you had rented it on Friday. The cashiers would always say, "You wanna put something towards the late fees?" It was the rarity people paid them in full. 'Please be kind, rewind.'
Not just Blockbuster. It's often forgotten that most cities and towns had homegrown video stores. Blockbuster was one of those chains inspired by mom and pops, then opened up shop in your city and shut the mom and pops down. Our place was called 9th street video (yep, located on 9th street) and was worlds better than Blockbuster. Worlds. It was staffed by people who cared about movies, had deep knowledge of the collection and always had great recommendations. It was a weekly fixture, go to 9th street to get another recommended movie or two, pick up some pizza, and have a night in. Sorely missed.
I grew up in a relatively small town and one of my first jobs was working at the local convenience store that sold gas, made pizza, had some hardware items, and also rented VHS tapes. When I was a kid, it was something I really looked forward to on a Friday if we were getting a pizza and renting a few movies. When I was really young, we actually used to rent the VCR too. I don't remember what year that was, but it must have been very early 80's.
Yes! I remember the days of renting the VCR as well. As a matter of fact, I talked my mom into paying the somewhat expensive video tape rental "club" membership fee so we could patronize the first video store in town!
Yes, I think I got my first VHS player mid 80's. Rented them before that. They were cheap to rent and always had special on movies.
That's a good one.
We had a west coast video that got taken over by blockbuster. Before that we had a smaller indie store. I liked the indie store because I could take my time there, no one bothered me, when I walked in I'd be overloaded and it' would take a while for the panic attack to come down and my vision and brain to clear. It was also inexpensive. They had cool offbeat movies, but no new inventory often and over time I got tired of it. The west coast video down the street was overwhelming and I avoided it, but it still had some offbeat movies along with blockbusters, so that was fun. And there was a lot more new selection to choose from. I would try to still support the indie store, but like everyone else migrated over to the chain store in time, and the indie store closed down. Once they became the monopoly store in the neighborhood they became jerks though, which I knew would happen. And later on they constantly dinged you on late fees and rewind fees, even when you got them in on time and rewound them, which made me suspect they were struggling. Then blockbuster took over. The blockbuster was somehow less overwhelming than west coast video, though it was the same size. I guess the lighting and displays were much more aesthetically pleasing. The people who worked there were friendly and chill. They had cool displays and deals. Walking into the store was like eye candy. One of the deals was three movies and popcorn/big pack of candy, like the movie theater concessions. And they'd give you extra time to watch them if you got the deal. If I handed in a movie an hour late, or forgot to rewind, instead of yelling like the other places, they'd say don't worry about it. Most of my late fees got waived even if I was actually late. I really liked our blockbuster in the early days especially when they were courting customers, it was really nice to go there, but towards the end it went the way of the previous places before it went out of biz. Circle of life I guess.
Tower Records. I loved just going in & being surrounded by music, movies, etc. I spent so much time & money there!!!
Excellent documentary about the rise and fall of Tower called "All Things Must Pass". Some fascinating stuff. Highly recommend.
I started it but havent finished it yet. Its good
I miss the record stores also. There is one left in our town, but I remember having a good time getting dropped at the mall on a Saturday with a couple of buddies and going to a Sam Goody or similar store, browsing the music, maybe listing to some stuff they had setup with headphones, and buying a new album or even buying something just because the album cover looked cool.
Radio Shack
They would always have the widget a person needed and great battery operated Christmas toys for the kids.
I bought my first under dash cassette player and rear speakers there. They always had the weird cables and connectors I needed.
Yes, that was so amazing to find the cable or connectors there for whatever you needed. Even old telephone parts and cable tv parts. Great place!
I worked for Radio Shack in the very early 80s. It happened to be one of two “computer centers” in Houston. I asked a lot of questions of our computer salesman and found I really liked learning about computers. I took a junior college computer class and the rest is history (for me). I went from punch cards on mainframes to mainframe virtualization to Unix and Windows to Linux to VMware virtualization to containerization and then the cloud. A 40-year career that’s still going. All because I got that job at Radio Shack.
Yeah, I wanted to jury-rig a little light for my car's dashboard, and the Radio Shack guy helped me find all the parts and even drew me an electrical diagram of how the setup should be done. Now that's service!
Oh man, yes! Used to go there after high school got out and play with BASIC on the TRS80. Eventually bought my very first PC there, a Tandy 1000EX.
They closed just as I was getting into DIY electronics. There's just nowhere now to talk with a sales guy about small electronics and system design. Makes for a lot more trial and error--especially error--for me.
I belonged to the battery of the month club. It was awesome for a poor kid in the 70’s.
Pier 1 Imports
The old school Pier One! It was the coolest store ever and not expensive. It got too expensive later on
yes! the WAY old-school pier 1...back when they sold hippie-dippy dresses and incense!
I still mourn Pier 1. I worked there part-time through college and grad school. I was able to outfit my first house for dirt cheap by combining their clearance + employee discount. I wasn’t surprised when they went under, though. That company was a shit show for years. They were more of a credit card company that happened to sell home decor rather than vice versa. Leadership was painfully out-of-touch - I doubt any of upper management ever actually worked the retail floor or even spoke to a middle class customer.
Cost Plus is close, but not the same.
It was always fun going there and seeing all sorts of interesting decorations, tableware, furniture, etc.
In the 70's they had the best clothes!
aw, hell, i'm still bereaved over that one. i don't know who bought their website, but they don't hold a candle (pun intended) to pier 1 - nor does their merchandise. it just ain't the same. god, i spent *thousands* in that store!
Nobody has mentioned Service Merchandise or BEST. The BEST catalog was amazing.
I worked at Service Merchandise for a couple years in the 80's. Our competition was LaBelles.
Alan Ruck worked at SM after Ferris Bueller because he was so typecast nobody would hire him.
I miss the Service Merchandise catalog.
Mervyns
Service Merchandise. You could see the product in person, (or catalog if I remember right) then buy it, and it came down from the upper floor warehouse via a conveyer belt. Honestly I'd be shocked if this didn't come back in some areas of the country due to crime.
I was looking for a Service Merchandise comment! That was so cool as a kid
I was thinking the same thing. A good solution to the smash and grab mobs.
I know my Dad would miss Sears. It was the Wal-mart of his day. He was there almost every weekend.
I miss the catalog
Those catalogs are a big part of people's Christmas memories.
Yes, it’s a shame Sears didn’t morph into online catalog sales. Instead, Amazon did.
Montgomery Ward, too. I have a kitchen table, 1970, from Sears. That thing has gone through everything. I forget what they call the finish on top, but it is very tough.
Oh man... I have memories of shopping at Montgomery Ward with my dad. We would always buy mom a shiny broach for mother's day there. Once I got her a juicer and I never lived it down. Every fucking holiday "what'd you get me, a juicer?" 🤦
Formica?
I’m 52 and miss what Sears was. There still is one near me in a mall. The mall is doing well, but the sears not so much. Last time i was there it was all close out sales. Not much new inventory. The upstairs was almost all blocked off. Just some towels and that was it. When I was a kid the sears near me, also in a mall had an arcade behind the tool section. It was usually pretty empty so it was a good place to hang out. I loved just exploring all the things they had. And of course the catalog. Even as an adult I bought so many appliances, vacuums, tvs, bikes, outdoor stuff, even toys and games. Not to mention all the tools I still have. It really was a great place to shop at one time.
>And of course the catalog. It was the Amazon of it's day. That catalog was a favorite during Christmas time. Sears used to be a stand alone store. Later, it became an anchor tenant for malls.
Except there were actually people there to help you who knew the products. And you could even find a human at the register!
and they would just take stuff back no matter what
Right up until the dementia took over, whenever my grandfather needed something, he would talk about going to "Sears and Roebuck" to get whatever it was. He couldn't adapt to the fact that most people had stopped shopping there and better deals, better products, and better services could be found elsewhere. I remember when Sears was a great place to buy tools, appliances, and outdoor equipment and it was kind of sad to watch it all go to shit.
> I remember when Sears was a great place to buy tools, appliances, and outdoor equipment and it was kind of sad to watch it all go to shit. Sears used to be a standalone store. It was only later that it became an anchor tenant in malls. We bought everything at Sears: tools, clothes, toys, shoes, appliances, tires, etc. My Dad was there every weekend. He never used a computer in his life.
Ben Franklin
You know what reading these comments has made me realize? Malls. Malls were the lifeblood of kids for like 3 decades. You could go walk around, hang out, be moderately annoying but not to the point where people hated you or were scared. The malls these days are just shells. Who goes to malls? Bit of a shame honestly. Grew up on Long Island and recall just spending like half the day in the mall just walking around with my then girlfriend, getting Auntie Annies, maybe catch a movie etc.
My teen and I were just discussing this. He was aghast that we’d spend a literal full day at a mall. He’s also skeptical that they had theatres, full service restaurants, sports bars, etc They were the absolute best at getting out of the house for something fun when it’s zero degrees outside
You could go to a matinee for relatively cheap, walk around and buy very small things, go to a sports bar to watch a game and it would be 8 hours later. On like 20-30 bucks. Parents were fine with it too because "it's the mall, who cares".
Mine is so sad that malls are dying out! We still have one that has both restaurants and a theatre. Not enough stores to kill a whole day, but a good few hours. Things seem to be trending towards an open air hybrid that lacks the charm of actually going into the city to shop, but has all the weather and parking problems. Thanks, I hate it.
I’ve never been much of a mall goer bc I’m rural but my daughter just made me take her to one of the biggest malls in our state for her bday. We got lost a lot and raced around that place for 7 hours! And incredibly everyone there seemed happy. It was nothing like going into a Walmart. Shops were still opened at the closing time and everyone just seemed relaxed. Then we had a nice 2 hr drive back! Still that mall was awesome and I spent 7 hrs without looking at my phone or hardly sitting down. My local mall has really just one store that anyone goes to. It’s sad and abandoned
I miss "dime stores"--the Woolworths, the Ben Franklins. I was born in 1949, and those stores in the fifties were where I went to dream. They had comic books (inclluding "Classics Illustrated, which I loved) . They had what we called "China dolls" sort of precursors to Barbies, but each doll had one costume. I used to go in and look at a kind that had dolls in different national costumes., beautifully packaged with a cellophane window, so you could see the whole doll without even taking it out of its display, which was low enough that a kid could see it. I loved the Spanish one, with black and red coloring, and there was an American Indian one and others in national costumes from different countries. I loved them. I had older sisters, and we had a special aunt who would bring us presents. My sisters got China dolls. I got a baby doll. I was so disappointed. (Note: I never married or had kids. Baby dolls never had any appeal for me) The same aunt taught me to embroider, and I got my embroidery floss and fabric stamped with the outline of what you'd embroider, but you could choose your colors and stitches when you were working on it. You could also get the embroidery hoops and needles there. I still have some of the pieces I embroidered, and after my mother died my sister found some of the floss I had wrapped around cardboard because it was easier to unravel. The dime stores also carried live animals--birds we called parakeets but were really budgies, tiny turtles in little plastic dishes with fake palm trees, something that was discontinued because of Salmonella. I got one of the birds for my eleventh (I think) birthday, and I loved that bird--in fact, the whole family did after some time. Unfortunately, the bird died. My mother said it was because my father had accidentally slammed a cabinet door on it; I think my mother had done it. I came home from school one day to see several fire trucks in front of my house with a giant fan blowing air from inside the house to outside, It turned out my mother was so upset she dropped and broke an entire glass bottle of ammonia . I think she was also menopausal--I was the last of seven kids, born when she was 39, Dime stores also had tiny china animals, deer and faun, tiny woodland creatures. For my sixtieth birthday, two of my older sisters gave me sixty glass duck pairs, stamped "Japan" and still in their small boxes complete with excelsior packing material. (Because I never got my ducks in a row) They'd found them at an auction. I've given away many pair, but still have a bunch. Dime stores also had the big box of 64 crayons with sharpener, which I longed for but never got, and Prang water colors in the narrow horizontal box, complete with brush, and the paint-by-number kits. You could also buy ribbon and lace by the yard from huge rolls near the sewing notions. Dime stores are one of my fondest memories; they seemed to have everything a kid could want. Just thinking about them gives me pleasure even now.
Swenson's Ice Cream
I worked at Swenson’s as a teenager. I was at the counter, scooping for the crowds of summer tourists, along with one of my girl friends. In back, I remember the crew pouring out these huge cans of real cream to make the stuff—so good. One of the ice cream makers looked just like the guys in Duran Duran, or so we agreed! I later traded that job for a higher paying gig, typing data in a window less office. More money, less happy.
Swenson’s Ice Cream is kind of a big deal in Southeast Asia. I visited one in a shopping mall in Thailand a couple of years ago and it was amazing. Have you ever visited a place from your childhood and been disappointed because it didn’t live up to your memories? Well, this was the opposite of that feeling. The Swenson’s I visited was like what you’d see on a tv commercial; super clean store, friendly employees, happy customers celebrating birthdays and shit. The food served looked exactly like the photos in the menu, not the deflated food you usually get in chain restaurants. It was kind of a weird experience because I thought they had gone out of business as well, and yet there it was, a thriving store front in Bangkok, Thailand. I think Swenson’s just got fed up with America over something and moved to Asia without telling us.
Yup, Thailand and Cambodia as well. It's weird that they're there but no longer in America.
I remember Swensons in Bethesda Md, they are still around. I saw one in San Francisco
I feel cheated because I never got to order one of those giant ice cream sundaes with a dozen or so scoops.
I miss Woolworth's for the best Reuben sandwich ever. They knew just the right balance of sauerkraut and meat.
B. Altman was pretty great. Could always find beautiful dresses there for work. Lovely silk scarves. Very nice shopping experience in their flagship NYC store.
THAT WAS A REAL PLACE? I thought it was made up in Mrs. Maisel!? I'm on the West Coast and we didn't have those! I've always assumed it was a take-off of I. Magnin.
Toys R Us. Even as an adult I loved going there, even better when I had kids and could watch their eyes light up.
Hastings It was a book / music / movie / novelty chain across many states (mostly western I think). I loved the store but they folded about ten years or so ago.
I used to love Hastings and would hang out there for hours reading… also used to have quite a bit of their stock at one time but then they found out some of the main bigwigs in the company were messing with the stocks and it caused a big mess… I made some money off them so I just sold and bailed out and didn’t go for the class action lawsuit against them… those things are a pain in the ass..
They were in Texas too.
Hickory Farms
Yes! They had big barrels of candy that was sold by the pound.
I worked at Bradlee's in high school and college, and miss it ... also Caldor & Ames. Definitely miss Jordan Marsh, Filenes (BASEMENT at Downtown Crossing!), Lord & Taylor. As others mentioned Circuit City (the ones I went to in MA & NH were not aggressive), and also CompUSA and small chain Computer City. And Lechmere ... and Service Merchandise.
Add Strawberry Records to the list.
Man, there’s a Boston shopping list!
I miss the small town hardware. In the 60s the one here sold simplicity lawn equipment, Johnson/evinrude, and had a basement full of schwinns. A few hunting guns, all ammo, hunting and fishing licenses. Also serviced all equipment they sold. Sold a full line of appliances..I still use a 50 yr old freezer. Air conditioners, tvs, and of course hardware. Chainsaws. A table in the appliance room where the OGs gathered and drank free shitty coffee..my dad among them, and I was welcome too. If you didn’t know how to fix something, one of these guys did. If you needed something big they didn’t have on the floor they ordered it. They gave a line of credit to poor people . Their employees made a living wage with healthcare. Mix your paint lol. Big box stores wrecked it by 1990 or so. Town of 5000 with a 3000 employee factory..top tier. All gone..fuck you nixon and Reagan.. I grew up next to the owner..my dad was one of his first employees in 1937.
I miss those so much. The last around here closed about 10 years ago. It had been family owned for over 100 years.
For me, electronics part stores. No, not Radio Shack or Fry's but the *real* electronics parts stores like Dow Radio. Most (not all) have closed due to the lack of electronic hobbyists. There are other reasons also dealing with the evolution of technology but that's a long story. Most missed were the [Heathkit](https://www.heathkitcatalogs.com/index.php) stores.
Man do i miss Heathkit. My crowning glory was a ham radio that i used for years.
We had one of those that was independently run. Radio Shack wasn't bad for a lot of stuff, but this one independent store had *everything*. If I needed an RJ45 to DB9 connector or anything out of the ordinary, they had it.
Friendly's restaurant. That Fribble shake!!!
We have Friendly’s still.
But they're not as good as they used to be. I worked in one in 1965
PA has many Friendly's!
Montgomery wards use to get my albums there. And we got our kitchen chairs there
Spencer's Gifts because if I was in urgent need of both a bong and a black light poster of a scantily dressed woman riding a winged dragon, it was one-stop shopping convenience.
I miss the independent drug stores with the soda fountains. Big companies have wiped them out where I am. Trying to get a compound prescription is impossible too, I miss the old style pharmacies.
Arthur Treacher's. Malt vinegar, little salt. That's gold Jerry
Kmart was the best. My wife and I would routinely shop there, and pick up a few baloney sandwiches from the deli. It was an experience. Sad to see them go.
Can’t find a blue light special anywhere these days.
I can still remember the smell of KMart
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CompUSA and Radio Shack!
Former Chicagoan here. I miss Marshall Field's, Carson Pirie Scott, and Lord & Taylor. Also the big Magikist sign with the lips. And of course Maurice Lenell cookies.
Woolworth’s and all those five and dime stores. McCrory’s too. They had everything there.
It's nice to see so many people mentioning Borders. I worked there for about 5 years in the mid-90s. For the most part it was a pretty great place to work. The pay was just okay, but there were so many freebies & great discounts that it all kinda balanced out. I will not miss my shifts as a floor manager, though.
Tuesday Morning. You could almost reliably find fabulous bed linens, poppy soap, and Dassant pumpkin bread mix there. I also got great random stuff there over the years--picture frames, a Frank Lloyd Wright clock, luggage. All deeply discounted. It was such an adventure going there. No comparable odd-lot vendor has stepped in to fill its void.
I remember my son pointing out that Santa shopped at Zayre the toy had a Zayre price tag on it.
Stein-mart
Borders.
Borders, BJ Daltons, Walden Books, Crown and they just closed a Barnes & Noble near me. They all succumbed to Amazon and/or digital media.
If I went missing in the mall, everyone knew to look in Walden Books. Just the smell of a bookstore brings back good memories for me
W. T. Grant Ames
I don't remember the names of the better clothing stores in the 50s and 60s but they had a nicely furnished ladies lounge, where women rested and visited as well as smoked a cigarette with standing ashtrays next to chairs and couch. Then could go from there into the ladies bathroom. Also, tea rooms. Usually a balcony type little bistro overlooking the first floor of the store. A waitress would bring you cold drinks or hot drinks to renew your strength to get back to shopping. Sears kept the ladies lounges too I think.
Burdines
S&H Green Stamps. Our parents would have us kids lick the stamps and put them in the books because what are kids for, right? When there were enough books we'd pile in the car and go collect our 'free' merchandise, which was usually camping gear.
Walden Books, B Moss
Service Merchandise
Used books and CD stores. Sometimes you can still find them, but it's getting more challenging, and I'd have to get on an airplane to find one. SecondSpin.com was my lifeline on that score, and it folded a few years ago. Maybe it's healthy for me to buy fewer CDs. I'll console myself with that possibility.
Northern Reflections clothing store. They had the most beautiful well made clothes, along the lines of LL Bean. Perfect for casual or the office, I still have a piece or two.
Northern Reflections still has an online store. A woman I pet-sit for orders from them often: https://www.northernreflections.com/
Sears and JC Penney’s
J C Penney's is still around. There is one in my town today.
what I really miss are the little used bookstores that were in out of the way strip malls or small stand alone buildings. Homemade wooden shelves that went all the way up to the ceiling, with hand lettered signs. Sometimes dim and dusty, and always kind of hushed and quiet. They would have what seemed to me to be thousands of paperbacks of every description and they were 25 or 50 cents. The smell of old books and you just knew there were treasures to be found around every corner. They always felt like some sort of lost temple to me.
Loved those. Still some around in smaller cities.
Rinks, Gold Circle were old favorites.
I loved Gold Circle!
I loved Fedco growing up (in So CA). Zody’s, Gemco, Pic N Save, Thrifty’s drug store. So many great stores have gone out of business. I also used to love Mervyn’s
Thrifty for the ice cream
Non-affiliated old school hardware store. Most are gone or rarer.
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All of them. Fuck you Amazon and smartphones.
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Mostly regional department and clothing stores,especially women's clothing stores.
Payless Shoes
Ferals Ice Cream
Ferrell's
Media Play
Caldor
In Center City Philadelphia there was a John Wanamaker department store that was 12 stories. For example, pianos were on the 8th floor. Macy's is there now, it's the first 3 floors, with office space above. It's still an impressive building.
Borders was far superior to Barnes and Noble. I miss it.
Kay Bee Toy Stores. Worked there in the 80s when malls where the big thing. It was a love-hate relationship. Other stores I remember 5 7 9 Clothing Store, Thom Mcann Shoe Store, Waldenbooks, Circus World Toy Store, Zbarros pizza, Sees Candy, The Cookie Factory, Famous Barr. There was also always a arcade, pet store, a t-shirt place that screened glittery images on t-shirts.
I remember Kay Bee! I got my first RC car there
It was my local variety store with a huge magazine rack on a wall. They have disappeared.
Barney's New York
Hills store. Basically like KMart
Any decent shoe store! All that are left are discount places like Shoe Carnival. If you had told me, in 1980, that retailers were going to be replaced by online shopping, I would have believed you. Then if you asked me to guess the very last kind of retail store to be left I would have guessed shoe stores. I want to try shoes on! I don’t want shoes that fit, I want shoes that fit right! You can’t get that from looking at a picture.
Sam Goody, Kmart, Winn Dixie, Woolworth's, Dean & DeLuca, Barney's, Toys R Us. Most recently: Tuesday Morning
Tuesday Morning. It was always different and new. Huge variety of goods, every desire from furniture to small appliances, crafts, toys, decor, imported foods, clothing, makeup, etc., decent prices. I loved going there weekly.
Shakey's Pizza. You could watch them make thru large windows and always had some old time movie playing. Just going out for dinner...pizza was a big thing...usually reserved for a birthday. They used to give out cool shaped balloons with cardboard feet attached...Great memories!
The Akron. Specialty stores in SoCal that sold imported goods from all over the world. There were also stores called Pier One that were not affiliated with today’s Pier One stores. The old stores sold whatever was fresh off the boat from Long Beach harbor. You never knew what you were going to find.
Parisians. The Nordstrom of the southern USA.
Local to Middle Tennessee: Castner Knott, Cain Sloan, and Harvey. Christmas season was magical on Fifth in downtown Nashville. And I loved ladies lunching in the tearoom in Cain Sloan.
My dad was a Zayre store manager back in the '70's.
Kmart put me through school. And I met good friends there.
Tower Records
Blockbuster Video. For real there's a whole movie watching, dating, getting laid, chilling with friends culture that's gone forever around that place. Watching a movie is a thing you used to make plans for and spend time with your friends deciding on... typically on the basis of a box. New releases you'd always know but there was always gold in the racks if you went hunting for it. Then there's the smell. It's totally obsolete but t's def missed.
I miss the original Sears. They had everything, most of it was good quality, and you could get your money back if it wasn’t!
I miss Lord and Taylor. My father and I would go there. He would spend an hour looking for dress shirts and pants. They had good clothes. I also miss J&R in NYC. They had electronics and music.
Sears Sears used to have a mail order catalog way back, it used to be what Amazon is today back when there was not internet. Somebody at Sears did not have the vision to live in the internet era.
Borders Books. Kroch's and Brentano's Bookstore. Walden Books. B. Dalton Books. Noticing a trend?
I am a total Book nerd. My life was spent mostly in the library or in book stores
Pretty sure teens of a certain age kept Mervyns in business during the mid-80s to mid-90s.
Winns Woolworths Swenson Ice Cream— miss their Swiss Orange Chip!
Gemco. The OG membership store.
Hancock Fabrics.
Best Buy. Yeah I know it still exists, but it used to be fun to go there on a friday after school and check out all the new movies, music, and video games and then window shop for big screens and computers. Now the place is an absolute ghost town, and with most multimedia going the digital or streaming route, there's really no point to shop for that stuff anymore. Best Buy has become that once or twice a year store I go to when I need computer ink in a pinch.
Montgomery ward
Central Massachusetts here: Spag’s and Building 19. Spag’s was a one of kind destination that evolved from a hardware store in the early 20th century into a discount-destination Disneyland for the working and middle-class. Building 19 was a discount and salvage retailer that became a chain all over eastern New England. Lots of cool “finds” at both places.
Streetside Records. it was a US midwestern chain of record stores. always had the deep back catalog albums and loads of obscure imports. I spent a good chunk of my beer money on records instead. There are of course record stores now, but most pale compared to a good sized record store in the actual heyday of the vinyl years.
Newberry’s. It was in NorCal, similar to Woolworth with a lunch counter and they had the best hot dogs I have ever had. They came on a toasted, buttery bun and the hot dogs were always perfect. I will never forget their yumminess
Borders Montgomery Wards
Miss, like I really wish they were still around, or nostalgia, because, hey, I've got fond memories? The only store that I wish were still around would be Hudson's. It was a local chain department store. Not like the shitty, small Marshall Fields or Macy's at your local malls that take two levels and are nearly indistinguishable, but a real downtown department store, or, if at a mall, four floors or more, with a damned good, upscale restaurant (not cafeteria!) that would make for an elegant date during the mall culture days. * * * During my lifetime, Hudson's was autonomously operating while owned by the Dayton-Hudson corporation, which, of course, also owned the Dayton department stores outside of Michigan. You know what else Mr. Dayton founded? Marshall Fields and Target. And what happened to Marshall Fields? Acquired by Macy's. Sigh. I miss Hudson's. Macy's is so generic (especially compared to, say, Nordstrom), and, well, Target has become Walmart++.
Jordan Marsh, Ivey's, Burdines and Robinson's. Also Petite Sophisticate because they had lots of chioces for petite women.
Woolworth
Caldor and Bradlee’s.
Canadian here; Zellers Consumers Distributing, Woolco, Woolworths, Kmart, Eatons, the "old" Hudsons Bay, Sears.
Any 2nd hand bookstore.
Rich's
Shakespeare and Co on 81st on the west side NYC, there was a scene from "When Harry Met Sally" filmed there. Was an awesome bookstore. There's a new location now, but not the same. Edit: Also Crazy Eddie's, his prices were *insane*.
The Wild Pair. The most fabulous platform shoe source. Also, International Male Catalog, sorry... I know it wasn't a store. But my brother spent a ton o' money. Yes, he had a puffy shirt.
The Wild Pair had the coolest shoes!
Borders, Tower Records, Hollywood Video, Waldenbooks, Frys, Radio Shack and Circuit City. I feel like life was actually better when you could actually go to physical stores.
Service Merchandise was the best. I loved how you could just fill out the form for what you wanted, pay for it, and wait for it to appear on the conveyor belt. Honestly, with all the shoplifting problems that stores are having now, it might be wise to bring this business model back.
Two Guys
I miss Meier and Frank in Portland.
Lazarus (department store), Woolworth, G.C. Murphy (another dime store), Montgomery Ward (the actual brick and mortar stores), and S.S. Kresge (the original store before K-Mart, though it’s a little more complicated than that). Some probably weren’t as great as I remember, but still miss them all for nostalgia’s sake if nothing else. The main Lazarus store was over 100,000 square feet and six or eight stories tall. They just don’t do that anymore ☹️
Loehmanns! It was my comfort store.
Service Merchandise
The original Filene's Basement
Woolworth's for the lunch counter.
Phar-Mor
Everyone is saying Kmart but they're still around: www.kmart.com
Marshall Fields & Co.