There are now only 2 Howard Johnson’s restaurants left. One here by me in Lake George, NY, and one in Bangor, ME. The one in Lake Placid, NY closed in April of this year.
At one time there were 400 restaurants in 32 states. It’s sad.
Red Lobster.
Wow. That is the first I heard of that.
I, like probably most, assume that a copier/scanner will just mindlessly spit out a duplicate. I really had no idea that it could mix up numbers/text.
Interesting story.
In San Francisco too. I had never seen a 7-11 except when visiting the East Coast until a few years ago; now they’re all over San Francisco.
Yea it seems I was wrong. The dearth of 7-11s in my area must just be local.
From the late 60’s to the 90’s when I left Southern California, 7-11 was like Starbucks is today. Everywhere.
For that matter, I don’t think Best Buy is a good long-term bet.
There is a 7-11 in Simpsonville on Harrison Bridge Rd., but there is also a QuikTrip being built, for which I am glad, because when I tried a QT for the first time coming back from my brother’s house outside of Atlanta (I think it was at Exit 129 off I-85), their kitchen was easy to order from (select from a touch-screen interface, and get a receipt that you take to the register), and the food was some of the best I ever ate (forgot what it was I ate, though).
Netflix, getting rich as a middleman has a limited shelf life.
Except that Netflix is increasingly in the business of delivering original content. They see themselves as competitors of HBO rather than Redbox or Blockbuster.
True, but that’ll just be a whole different business with the same name.
7-Elevens are disappearing in the US? I’ll bet two open in Thailand for each one closing in over there. When I was growing up in West Texas, 7-Eleven was a Texas company, owned by Southland Corporation in Dallas. Sometime since then, they became a Japanese company now based in Tokyo. The US operation, 7-Eleven Inc, is still headquartered in Dallas, but now the parent is Seven-Eleven America Co in Tokyo. (Seven-Eleven America is held by Seven & I Holdings, also in Tokyo.)
There were no convenience-store chains in Thailand before 1989. None at all. It was all mom-and-pop shops. I remember when the first 7-Eleven opened in 1989, on Silom Road by Patpong, followed closely by a second one on Surawong Road at the other end of Patpong. The latest figure I found is for the end of 2012, just 23 years later, and that is 6822 7-Elevens in Thailand. And they’re still growing. 7-Eleven is alive and well. And other chains have moved in too. But if they’re becoming more scarce in the US, I wonder if the Japanese parent is trying to concentrate more on Asia.
(The 7-Eleven franchise in Thailand is held by CP All, a subsidiary of the country’s giant Charoen Pokphand conglomerate.)
The 7-11 stores around here (northwest Arkansas) were always dirty and staffed by the sort of people you only see at the county fair. More tattoos than teeth. I think they’re all closed now.
Recently, I was surprised to find out that Long John Silvers is still around. None of the surviving locations are near me or my work, and frankly they all appear to be in rather ghetto areas, so I guess I won’t be stopping by.
Oh, they’ll survive. I’ve already seen statements (from European politicos) talking about how they need to “punish VW whithout destroying them” or words to that effect. So, expect the EU’s response to be something steep, but calculated to make sure it doesn’t drive them into bankruptcy.
I’m not so sure, however, that they’ll survive in the US. Even before this scandal, VW struggled in the US, with no sign that this would change soon. (On this side of the pond, they really haven’t been a major player since the days of the original Beetle.) If VW gets a really steep fine from the EPA, on top of additional fines from the Justice Department, plus class-action suits from both owners & dealers, they might decide that trying to do business in America is more trouble than it’s worth.
Another automaker I’m wondering about, in the US at least, is Mitsubishi. They’re closing their only US factory next month, and will be importing all their cars after they. On paper, their sales over the last couple of years have been good (~33% increases year-over-year), but this is mainly the magic of small numbers: They’re going from “basically a non-entity” to “still pretty marginal”. I’m inclined to think that a couple of years from now they may pull the plug on their US division altogether.
I think the company as a whole is probably doing just fine, as Babies 'R Us is part of the same company, and in many cases, co-located with Toys 'R Us stores. And baby stores do a pretty brisk trade. I’d imagine that what happens is that parents go in for baby/toddler stuff, and then look at stuff with the older children in the other half of the store.
I’m with kunilou. I think Best Buy is circling the bowl. If you think about it, what do they sell or what service do they provide that’s unique? Or for that matter, markedly cheaper or better than their competitors? The answer is nothing. You can get televisions at Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, home theater stores, department stores, and Best Buy. Same thing for cell phones and cell phone accoutrements and other cell phone related crap. Appliances can be had at the home improvement stores and appliance stores. Computer software and hardware is probably best bought online. Camera stuff is bought online or at camera shops. Music and video is mostly bought online these days.
They don’t sell anything that you can’t get better or cheaper elsewhere. The only thing they have going for them is having all of it under one roof… if that’s even an advantage.
Bob Evans is struggling.
Guitar Center is still a going entity, but after revolutionizing the music retail industry fifteen years ago, in recent years it’s made the news only for predictions of its demise.
Basically, Guitar Center and other specialty big box retailers are T-Rex (i.e. the last wave of huge predators), and internet retail has been the comet. Unless you’re Home Depot, selling things that are impractical to ship door-to-door, Amazon is killing you.
Surprises me about Guitar Center although I know nothing about guitars. Still, I’d have guessed that was sort of a hands-on purchase.
Best Buy was supposedly getting more into mall shops and kiosks maintaining their still profitable cellphone business. I guess there’s still people whose idea of buying a computer/laptop is “Go to Best Buy” but the last time I was there I didn’t even see much interesting to browse through.
but if it’s like the previous generation of consoles, Microsoft and Sony would have bought the rights to the SoC itself so if AMD folds, they can just have it fabbed by anyone else.
All the Popeye’s (so, 4) within a 15 mile radius of me have closed 
With one of them I can barely believed it lasted as long as it did, but the others always seemed crowded and were clean with good service, etc. This makes me way sadder than is reasonable.