I forgot about those twenty-percent coupons but that was a big part of the success of Bed Bath and Beyond.
Yep, we took my Grandma there for dinner on her birthday every year. And every year, my dad would ask the waitress “if you’re over 100, does Bill Knapp’s pay you money?” 
Well, all the Barnes & Noble stores around here closed also, in the same time period that all the Borders stores closed. So in a short period, four big box bookstores within a short driving distance all closed.
So the difference is that it’s still possible to go to B&N if I’m willing to drive a half hour, whereas it’s impossible to go to Borders at all.
Not a retail store, but since restaurants have been mentioned, I kinda miss Steak and Ale; please don’t judge me too harshly; my palate was still developing.
Borders had more titles in stock, some rather obscure. They didn’t waste shelf space by putting out 20 of the same book.
I recall lunch counters at Woolworth’s in South Jersey in the 60s. Pretty good, cheap diner fare, too: grilled cheese sandwiches, cheesesteaks, burgers, fries, shakes, and the like. Always had a mean server behind the counter with painted on eyebrows (above where her real eyebrows should be)—but that just added to the charm for us kids.
The wiki blurb about catalog stores reminds me that we had at least two chains here in Canada. I can barely remember the names but I believe the first and biggest was Consumers Distributing, and the copycat one I think was called Shop-Rite.
They were basically warehouses with an order counter at the front, and a few stands with catalogs and order forms. A few pieces of merchandise were on display at the front, but really more as decoration and advertising than anything else.
I’m not sure what killed them but it was probably the same factors that make all retail so challenging. Prices and quality were roughly on a par with Walmart, maybe better, but it was far more convenient because you didn’t have to spend half an hour wandering a store the size of a football field looking for the section that carried what you wanted. Still, I don’t really miss them the way I miss Eaton’s and The Bay.
Speaking of Eaton’s, throughout the 70s the chain was still booming, and in 1977 opened the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto, a huge downtown shopping mall that became the second largest mall in Canada and the busiest mall in North America, anchored by a fabulous new Eaton’s store. That store, along with all the others, is now gone, but the Eaton Centre lives on, apparently thriving, and a major tourist attraction. I haven’t been there in many years so I have no idea what occupies the former Eaton’s location, but the mall is an example of the fact that upscale retail is still thriving.
Around 1980, my family went to Toronto from Connecticut because my college-professor father was presenting a paper at a conference. We stayed at the Royal York Hotel and visited the CN Tower and the Eaton Centre, which I thought was the coolest place ever, with an enormous skylight ceiling.
Woolworths used to have have a fairly major presence in the UK too, though apparently the UK brand separated from the original US parent company in 1982 per Wikipedia.
This was in the days when the UK high street was populated by the butcher, greengrocer, fishmonger, newsagent, haberdasher, tailor and a few pubs of course etc… before supermarkets (in the UK, anyway).
I remember going to the local market town (Mold, Flintshire) with my parents & browsing through this place that seemed to sell… well, everything! I don’t think the UK ones had a lunch counter, though.
This is going to date me but: Western Auto. The chain was effectively dead to me when they switched to exclusively auto parts in the early 80s.
Someone else should remember to bump this thread someday for Hooters. Reports are that they will enter bankruptcy protection soon. I won’t miss them. (Nor will I miss Big Lots, Party City, Forever 21, etc. when they go under.)
I had two names for Bed, Bath, & Beyond, depending on my mood:
- Bloodbath and Beyond
- Bed, Bath, & Bullshit
(there was also Linens & Morons)
mmm
Fry’s was the first one that came to mind. I was surprised for the proportion of Radio Shack love versus Fry’s, given that Fry’s was Radio Shack on steroids, multiplied by 10, and adding geek snacking needs.
But I looked at the Wiki, and now realize Fry’s only had 34 stores! So, during Fry’s heyday from the mid 90’s to the mid 2000’s, many across the nation had no access to a place where one could buy a PC or a motherboard, or buy everything necessary to build your own motherboard. Or buy spools of cable and separate oddball connectors to make your own cabling.
In the South Bay, I used Radio Shack when I didn’t want to stand in one of the legendarily long lines at Fry’s (and my particular tech need was fairly vanilla). I don’t recall even standing behind another single customer at a Radio Shack.
Exactly. Fry’s Electronics had no stores in most of the United States. It was never a national chain.
And more’s the pity. If those with only access to Radio Shack and the like had ever walked into a Fry’s, it would have blown their minds.
Luckily, for the purposes of this thread, national is not a requirement. (bolding mine below).
True but you mentioned being “surprised for the proportion of Radio Shack love versus Fry’s.” It should not be a surprise given that most Americans had no experience with Fry’s Electronics.
Yep. Need to wire up your house or office with Ethernet? Head to Fry’s, pick up a 1000-foot spool of CAT-6, a crimping tool, and a bag of RJ-45 connectors. Where else can you get that in under an hour? And a 6-pack of Bawls on the way out.
I never actually shopped at Fry’s, but I vote to resurrect them just because I want to be able to experience what it was that made everyone love them so much.
But I will also vote for Radio Shack, because they had just about every possible electronic gizmo you could imagine. You could walk into a Radio Shack and tell the salesperson “I have this thing, and I need to make it plug into that thing” and they had some sort of adapter that would make it work. In fact, I just looked in the closet where I keep all my random outdated electronics, and I found the Radio Shack branded RF modulator I got when I walked into one of their stores 20-something years ago and said “I have an old TV that only has a coax antenna input, and I want to connect a DVD player to it.” And they said “This is what you need.”
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 liked Steak & Ale too. You’re not alone, my friend. I miss Bennigan’s though as it’s hard to find a Monte Cristo sandwich. They also had a good hot turkey sandwich served on pretzel bread as well as a nice bowl of potato soup. If I could bring a chain restaurant back it’d be Bennigan’s.
And also Radio Shack stores were everywhere so there was probably one close to most Americans.
Gino’s Hamburgers was a legendary regional Mid-Atlantic chain and the first fast-food joint in my hometown back in the early ’60s. Their star attraction, the Gino Giant, went head-to-head with the Big Mac—but way better! They even teamed up with Kentucky Fried Chicken (when KFC was actually good), which meant you could have burgers, fried chicken, or both if you were feeling extra hungry (almost always). And they had killer milkshakes: I always went for a black-and-white shake.
I see they’ve popped back up very locally as Gino’s Burgers and Chicken, morphing from fast-food to fast-casual, but it doesn’t seem to have the same vibe—and, of course, there isn’t one anywhere near me (Maryland? Who the hell wants to go to Maryland!?). So,…phooey!