# Stores or restaurants you used to go to in your youth **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 19, 2020, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972 "2020-11-19T15:53:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/161 "2020-12-20T20:38:37Z")
One fast food place that has disappeared is **Carrol’s**. We used to have them in several places in New Jersey. They were comparable to a McDonald’s or Burger King. > **[Buffalo in the ’60s: Burgers and shakes at Carrols Drive-In](https://buffalonews.com/news/local/history/buffalo-in-the-60s-burgers-and-shakes-at-carrols-drive-in/article_c432d000-42bc-510c-8e04-cc32ea5f6ebe.html)** > > That first summer, hamburgers were 15 cents, shakes were 20 The Good news is that, although Carrol’s-named drive-ins have disappeared, the company is still around. According to Wikipedia, the Carrol’s Restaurant Group is the largest franchisee of Burger King in the World, and also owns 55 Popeyes, and it had owned a lot of other fast-food places > **[Carrols Restaurant Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrols_Restaurant_Group)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Carrols Restaurant Group is an American franchisee company and is the largest Burger King franchisee in the world; Carrols owns and operates over 1,000+ Burger Kings, and 55 Popeyes restaurants. The company has operated Burger Kings since 1976 in locations across 23 U.S. states. > The company formerly owned the restaurant chains Pollo Tropical, Taco Cabana, and Carrols.\[citation needed\] > The original Carrols chain ceased operations in the United Sta... ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2020, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/162 "2020-12-20T22:54:35Z")
In the 80s there was a chain of health food restaurants called **Good Earth.** Health good, unbelievably bland. Nothing had any flavor. But, if you were dating a retro hippie chick, you pretty much had to go there at least once a month. I still see their tea in supermarkets, but all the restaurants are gone in my neck of the woods. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/163 "2020-12-21T00:12:51Z")
TG&Y for my fishing lures and Zebco spincasting rods and reels Western Auto, I can’t remember what I got there Spiratone - mail order unique and oddball and often really low cost photographic equipment. Dairy Queen - still exists but I haven’t been to one in about 30 years ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/164 "2020-12-21T00:21:19Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Wait, what? The Tea Company went away? Final bankruptcy and liquidation in late 2015 and 2016. > **[A&P | Second Chapter 11 bankruptcy and supermarket shutdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Atlantic_%26_Pacific_Tea_Company#Second_Chapter_11_bankruptcy_and_supermarket_shutdown)** > > A&P briefly returned to modest profitability by cutting costs in its remaining stores, although customer spending further decreased. In 2013, again a company, A&P was put up for sale but could not find a suitable buyer. In January 2014, Sam Martin resigned. In March, Paul Hertz was named CEO and President as the company broke even. On January 15, 2015, the trade publication Supermarket News reported that A&P was still for sale. > There were rumors of several parties being interested, including Cer... ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/165 "2020-12-21T00:26:00Z")
I lived in Westchester County (suburbs north of New York City) in the early 1990s and there were A&P supermarkets there but they were sad places. There was a Food Emporium supermarket (owned by A&P at the time) near me and that was nice. My point is that A&P ceased to be a relevant store decades before its final collapse. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/166 "2020-12-26T01:11:50Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > In the 80s there was a chain of health food restaurants called **Good Earth.** Health good, unbelievably bland. Nothing had any flavor. But, if you were dating a retro hippie chick, you pretty much had to go there at least once a month. I still see their tea in supermarkets, but all the restaurants are gone in my neck of the woods. There was also a vegetarian restaurant with that name in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, but I think that was just a coincidence. Dunno if it’s still there. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/167 "2020-12-26T08:04:44Z")
My favorite place to get ice cream as a kid was Isaly’s. They had their famous “Skyscraper” cones, made with a special scoop, bearing a resemblance to Marge Simpson’s hair. They had a lot more than just ice cream, but that’s all I ever went there for. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2020, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/168 "2020-12-26T09:13:58Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > I miss the old-style Shakey’s, when they used to have long trestle tables and show old-timey movies on a big screen at the front. Our Shakey’s was never like this, but the description reminds me of [Pizza & Pipes](http://wayoutinthemargin.blogspot.com/2008/12/dining-pizza-and-pipes-and-organ-stop.html), another childhood favorite. I have an autographed photo from the organist at the Greenwood, Seattle location. When I was a teenager I remember reading about an A&P in a Judy Blume book and thought it was some exotic place. The closest grocery store to us in our NJ apartment was an A&P and I would go there when I just needed a few things or if there was too much snow. As soon as we moved, I never went back. It was run down when we moved there, and never got any better. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/169 "2020-12-27T02:51:05Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > Also there was a fish n chips place I think was a chain but I don’t remember the name. [H. Salt Esquire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Salt_Esquire), perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/170 "2020-12-27T03:41:33Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > Also there was a fish n chips place I think was a chain but I don’t remember the name. Long John Silver’s? ---
**Author:** ![PB\_J](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@PB\_J](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PB_J)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/171 "2020-12-27T03:48:51Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > Also there was a fish n chips place I think was a chain but I don’t remember the name. Could it be Arthur Treacher’s? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/172 "2021-01-02T15:26:36Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > In the 60’s we’d drive all the way to Milwaukee area to go to Arlans. Anyone remember them? Just wanted to apologize to **pkbites** and anyone else who misses Arlans. My friend Tom and I put them out of business. Long, sordid tale… let’s just say it involved switching the plastic wrap on record albums (hey, the price tags themselves were too sticky). When I looked them up forty years later and saw they’d gone under long ago, my first reaction was a tiny pang of guilt. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/173 "2021-01-02T15:37:06Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > We also had Kohls Foods with their unusual curved/domed building. You can still see those buildings all over southern Wisconsin. There’s one in Monona, WI that became a hipster euro-furniture store (didn’t those nouveau-riche-wannabes realize they were shopping in an old grocery store?). The one on North Ave. in Wauwatosa (which had a _mezzanine!_ We thought it was so cool to run up there and look down on all the shoppers) is now a Sendik’s. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/174 "2021-01-02T18:24:38Z")
> [@digs](#): > > You can still see those buildings all over southern Wisconsin. For those unfamiliar, this is what a Kohl’s grocery store looked like: [![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/2c/1e/992c1e3c7b92ad624874a9d42c78323e.jpg) ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/2c/1e/992c1e3c7b92ad624874a9d42c78323e.jpg) While they were primarily a southern Wisconsin chain, we had two in Green Bay. The building on the east side of town is still there, if Google Street View is accurate, but the one on the west side was near Lambeau Field, and it was torn down when the Packers built the Titletown complex a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/175 "2021-01-02T19:12:59Z")
Interesting! Near where I lived, in Queens, there was a Penn Fruit grocery in a very similar building. I wonder if it was a standard model for a while. This was in the late '50s and throughout the '60s. The grocery changed names several times during this period. It was where I went to buy live lobsters and rode them back home in the basket of my bike. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/176 "2021-01-02T19:40:05Z")
Old Safeways had the same type building. There’s one that’s still a Safeway a mile or so from our house, just outside DC. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/177 "2021-01-02T19:42:24Z")
So is that Kohl’s supermarket chain related to the Kohl’s department store chain? ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/178 "2021-01-02T20:04:40Z")
Here are a couple menus from Old Spaghetti industrial settings: [The Old Spaghetti Factory : VintageMenus](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageMenus/comments/cpwcln/the_old_spaghetti_factory/) [The Old Spaghetti Warehouse in Houston, TX (1977) : VintageMenus](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageMenus/comments/jz7pbx/the_old_spaghetti_warehouse_in_houston_tx_1977/) > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > [Bill Knapp’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Knapp%27s). I loved that joint as a kid, especially their biscuits with butter and honey, served with their chicken or a la carte. By the time I moved to Milwaukee’s East Side in the late 90s, the local Bill Knapp’s was basically a flophouse for the homeless and mentally ill. A friend of mine came to visit and we got into the whiskey and, before long, everything good was closed. We wandered over to Bill Knapp’s and got it all: poor service, hostile interactions from those (k)napping there, super long wait despite no one else ordering anything. We got our sorry bags of food and left. About 20 seconds later, my buddy, who had obviously been stewing for a while, fired his bag down a gangway with full might in a fit of rage I hadn’t seen from him before or since. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/179 "2021-01-02T20:04:40Z")
I believe so. Some of the Kohl’s department stores had a Kohl’s food store right next door. Here’s the one that became a furniture store. It felt odd to have a high-end store full of Ekornes and Eames chairs in an old grocery store… [![](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/46/446d9be4-b748-5c06-94d9-f3409132103f/541b4d3ae95c3.image.jpg) ](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/46/446d9be4-b748-5c06-94d9-f3409132103f/541b4d3ae95c3.image.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![bmoak1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@bmoak1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972/180 "2021-01-02T20:09:46Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > There was an Arthur Treacher’s in a food court near Yankee Stadium in the late nineties. Ms. P and I would go to that food court occasionally, since she worked nearby. I’m not sure if I ever chose AT, since there was also a Taco Bell there. I feel slightly resentful that Arthur Treacher’s went under and the inferior Long John Silver’s survived. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stores-or-restaurants-you-used-to-go-to-in-your-youth/925972.md?page=10)