# Which Dead National Retail Chain Would You Magically Resurrect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 22, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965 "2025-03-22T23:09:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/181 "2025-03-25T01:21:55Z")
I think these may have all been east of the Rockies, but **Bennigans** was one of my go to restaurants. They had a good happy hour and the three or four dishes I regularly ordered never varied in consistency or quality. It appears the market got over saturated with casual bar & grill restaurants with kitchy stuff all over the walls. I found it far superior to Applebees, TGIF and Chilis. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/182 "2025-03-25T01:27:56Z")
Chicken Delight is my earliest memory of dinner delivery. It arrived between two paper plates secured with a rubber band. They delivered pizza, too. The fried chicken was super crispy, and apparently KFC’s introduction of their extra crispy recipe was partly responsible for its demise. ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/183 "2025-03-25T01:57:09Z")
“Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight.” ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/184 "2025-03-25T02:14:33Z")
Macaroni Grill - A few locations are left, none near us. International chains that have lost U.S. locations: PappaRich Malaysian is the best chain restaurant I’ve ever been to. It is still in New York but that’s too far. Pepper Lunch is no longer even in NYC but is supposed to be trying for a comeback. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/185 "2025-03-25T02:17:49Z")
🎶 Everybody goes to Gino’s ‘cause every other place is closed. 🎵 **Beefsteak Charlie’s** had some excellent Teriyaki Chicken and a big bowl of steamed shrimp. ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/186 "2025-03-25T02:33:02Z")
Woolworth’s Five and Dime Ben Franklin Places where a kid could buy their Mom a genuine tiny bottle of “Perfume” for less than a dollar…Christmas gifts affordable to kids in the 40’s/50’s. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/187 "2025-03-25T02:34:43Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > 🎶 Everybody goes to Gino’s > ‘cause every other place is closed. 🎵 Ah ha, you remember the [Gino’s jingle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abVEicgjbJg). It was a real toe-tapper! ---
**Author:** ![Seydell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Seydell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seydell)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/188 "2025-03-25T02:35:28Z")
Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips. Only 2 locations still in existence. I will have to make a road trip to Cleveland one of these days to see if it lives up to my memory. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/189 "2025-03-25T02:59:02Z")
Performed by Crack The Sky? (kidding) There were two Gino’s in Glen Burnie; the one on the south side took the place of an Amici’s (spelling’s probably wrong) which was a more upscale restaurant. Or, so I’m told. Remember **Hechinger’s**? ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/190 "2025-03-25T03:48:34Z")
I remember when I was a kid going to Gino’s to get Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was surprised when I traveled and saw that in other places KFC had its own stand-alone restaurants. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/191 "2025-03-25T06:06:05Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > I don’t recall even standing behind another single customer at a Radio Shack. I could make a joke about this, but I promised I wouldn’t. 😆 ---
**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:** [March 25, 2025, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/192 "2025-03-25T06:19:48Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > A regional chain I don’t think anyone mentioned yet – **ShopKo**. They were pretty much Wisconsin’s version of K-Mart, and I picked them pretty much just for the nostalgia of shopping there when we went to Wisconsin to visit my grandparents as a child. I actually meant to mention them yesterday, but forgot. 😉 I grew up in Green Bay, WI, which was Shopko’s home market (and one of my grade-school classmates was the daughter of one of the company’s executives). Up through the late 1980s and early '90s, they were the main discount retailer in much of Wisconsin, with Kmart (and Pamida, which was mostly in small towns) being their only real competition; it wasn’t until around 1988, or a bit later, that Wal-Mart and Target really moved into the state. Up through my college years, Shopko were a reliable place to get affordable merchandise, which wasn’t complete crap (though I don’t think I ever bought clothes there). I miss them, from a nostalgia standpoint, as well as the fact that, in their heyday, they actually sold good stuff, and the stores were clean and orderly. They finally folded in 2019, though a remnant still exists in their Shopko Optical chain of eyeglass retailers. ---
**Author:** ![Kimble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimble/32/19185_2.png) [@Kimble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimble)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/193 "2025-03-25T06:57:16Z")
The first Tower Records in Nashville, across from Vanderbilt and about a mile from Music Row, had a very interesting top 25 list and (eventually) Tower Books in the back. The one in the megamall that used to be Opryland? Not so much. I’d probably still vote for Media Play, though, since I’ve gotta have my videogames as well. Honorable mention to Davis-Kidd Booksellers and MacAuthority, teeny-tiny local chains that went semi-regional, got bought out, and eventually closed. ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/194 "2025-03-25T12:30:55Z")
> [@sunstone](#): > > Places where a kid could buy their Mom a genuine tiny bottle of “Perfume” for less than a dollar…Christmas gifts affordable to kids in the 40’s/50’s. And bottles of Aqua Velva for their uncles. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/195 "2025-03-25T13:01:15Z")
> [@sunstone](#): > > Places where a kid could buy their Mom a genuine tiny bottle of “Perfume” for less than a dollar Evening In Paris eau de cologne, in the beautiful blue bottle. Picked out those in my grubby 6 and 7 year old hands for my mother many Christmases at the slightly weary and worn Woolworths in my little Iowa town. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/196 "2025-03-25T14:14:12Z")
I miss [Zantigo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zantigo), the mexican chain that that went out of business in 1987 or so, when its owner, Pepsico, turned them all into Taco Bells. They claim to have invented the chilito, which I immediately fell in love with upon trying. Taco Bell food was never so good, IMHO. I guess the brand was rebooted a decade or so later, but it only has 4 restaurants, all in Minnesota. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/197 "2025-03-25T14:26:48Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](#): > > I think these may have all been east of the Rockies, but **Bennigans** was one of my go to restaurants. I think besides Woolworth’s this is the one I’d bring back. I don’t think their _food_ was better than Chili’s, but their atmosphere was. Chili’s blared overly-loud music until recently. Bennigan’s tested better than the rest of the pack, though. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/198 "2025-03-25T14:32:14Z")
> [@Raza](#): > > I kinda miss **Steak and Ale** ; please don’t judge me too harshly; my palate was still developing. When I was a teenager working in the restaurant biz, we called it ‘Ache and Stale’. Nothing personal against the actual restaurant; we just had funny names for all the chains. As in “where you coming from?”. “I worked 3 or 4 months at Ache and Stale until they fired me for being late too often”. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/199 "2025-03-25T14:48:27Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Performed by Crack The Sky? (kidding) > … > Remember **Hechinger’s**? (Hechinger’s, Hutzler, Hecht… there was a certain alphabetic commonality in that general region.) Let’s see from the ones mentioned already: Fry’s, Radio Shack, Borders, Woolworth’s (…ah, the lunch counter where I was first introduced to a banana split). Sigh… [shakes nostalgic fist at Jeff Bezos] ---
**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:** [March 25, 2025, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965/200 "2025-03-25T14:58:31Z")
I _think_ there used to be Woolworth stores near where I grew up; certainly there was a Woolco store. But I don’t remember ever eating at the lunch counter. Usually we would just go home and eat there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-dead-national-retail-chain-would-you-magically-resurrect/1015965.md?page=11)