Nostalgic Memories of Long Gone Retailers

[GoetzManor]

I found out about a week ago that the job I've had for the past eighteen years will soon cease to exist after the company I work for filed for bankruptcy for the second time in two years. It made me reflect on all the memories and friends I've made and lost in that period of time.

I figured I'd bring the question to the board, are there any memories that come to mind when you think of retailers that no longer exist? I remember being very young and going to Ames department store, which I recall being similar to K-mart. I would go with my grandmother, and one time she purchased some Halloween masks for me, and another time I remember her buying the NES game Time Lord from there.

I'm interested to hear if anybody else has any memories that stand out from retailers that no longer exist.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I found out about a week ago that the job I've had for the past eighteen years will soon cease to exist after the company I work for filed for bankruptcy for the second time in two years. It made me reflect on all the memories and friends I've made and lost in that period of time.

I figured I'd bring the question to the board, are there any memories that come to mind when you think of retailers that no longer exist? I remember being very young and going to Ames department store, which I recall being similar to K-mart. I would go with my grandmother, and one time she purchased some Halloween masks for me, and another time I remember her buying the NES game Time Lord from there.

I'm interested to hear if anybody else has any memories that stand out from retailers that no longer exist.

The "five-and-ten" in my hometown was G.C. Murphy. I remember the lunch counter, the toy section and the pet department. They also sold yard goods and notions.

Their main competitor was S.S. Kresge, but there was no store in my town.

 

[tonyb]

Too many to list! But the death of Sears, while not quite a loss on a death-in-the-family level, does leave me with a keener sense of my own mortality. Family members had worked at Sears. The house brands were solid values. The catalog — “The Wish Book” — was the most well-thumbed tome in millions of households. Sears was as emblematic as anything of the America of my early years. So yeah, it’s hard not to take it personally, and it angers me that upper management let it get to this point.

Yeah, I know — nothing lasts forever. But I could live without the reminder.

 

[Turnip]

Returning on some rare occasions to the town i grew up at and that i left about thirty years ago, there‘s not much left to recognize from the past nowadays.

Back in the day we had a relative large shoe and clothing shop, some smaller fashion boutiques, book stores, a toy store, drugstores, butchers, stationary stores, electrical and home supply shops, opticians…all independend, all gone.

As well as several ship yards, including the one i learned forging at, related industries around… The company’s buildings i spent my boiler making apprenticeship at turned to a mega disco later…

The whole area transferred from a seafaring, naval and industrial county to a service and tourism area, not my cup of tea anymore.

 

[Zombie_61]

Too many to list! But the death of Sears, while not quite a loss on a death-in-the-family level, does leave me with a keener sense of my own mortality. Family members had worked at Sears. The house brands were solid values. The catalog — “The Wish Book” — was the most well-thumbed tome in millions of households. Sears was as emblematic as anything of the America of my early years. So yeah, it’s hard not to take it personally, and it angers me that upper management let it get to this point...

Sears' main problem is that they were one of the first department stores in American history to special order certain items that they didn't regularly stock in stores, but were listed in a catalog through which the customer might order. So when the Internet came along, Sears should have positioned themselves to be among the first and best for Internet sales, but they dragged their feet about it for so long that they became nearly the last. Not a good business move for them, almost as bad as the days when I'd wander through the local Sears store wondering what they did with Roebuck. These days I kinda' get that feeling when I'm strolling through Penney's wondering what ever happened to J.C..

 

[Rmccamey]

These are a few I remember in and around Texas.

 

[panigale]

Caldor
Ames
Ben Franklin five and dime
Bradlees
Crazy Eddies

Pharmacies with lunch counters.

Walmart and Targhetto took over

 

[tonyb]

Sears' main problem is that they were one of the first department stores in American history to special order certain items that they didn't regularly stock in stores, but were listed in a catalog through which the customer might order. So when the Internet came along, Sears should have positioned themselves to be among the first and best for Internet sales, but they dragged their feet about it for so long that they became nearly the last. Not a good business move for them, almost as bad as the days when I'd wander through the local Sears store wondering what they did with Roebuck. These days I kinda' get that feeling when I'm strolling through Penney's wondering what ever happened to J.C..

Besides its “main” store just south of downtown Seattle (the building is now Starbucks headquarters) and the smaller but still substantial suburban stores, Sears had warehouses where customers could pick up the stuff (larger stuff, mostly, appliances and whatnot) they ordered through the catalog. I recall taking a Craftsman disc grinder there to hand it off for repairs. That’s been more than 40 years ago.

I still shop at Penney’s every now and then, at their store at a nearby suburban mall. I get in and get out, though. I go in search of a new shirt or three and maybe a couple pairs of pants. The mall itself has proven itself less than hospitable to many folks, though, as evidenced by the diminished traffic through its doors. It’s become a hangout for often ill-behaved youngsters. One dustup there not long ago resulted in the murder of a 15-year-old boy. It would come as no surprise if the entire thing failed before long.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I knew "Ames's" as we locals always called it, very well, but it never quite replaced W. T. Grant's, which was the perfect middle ground between a dime store and a department store. Everything you needed, and if you got bored you could go look at the parakeets and the turtles.

As for real dime stores, my childhood favorite was McLellan's, which was a low-end chain where the stores smelled like linseed oil, and were always long and narrow, so you felt like you were going down a giraffe's throat as you made your way toward the back of the store to buy your twenty cents' worth of junk. We had a bona-fide Newberry's here until the mid-90s, where I used to often eat lunch when I worked in radio -- hockey-puck sized hamburgers and crinkle cut fries for a buck and a quarter -- but by the end it was feeling pretty played out.

The big regional discount department store here was Zayre, which all locals called 'Zayre's." You went there twice a year for back to school shopping, and Christmas. We would also go to a classic downtown department store called "Freese's," which always smelled like perm solution from the in-store beauty salon, and was appropriately garish during the holiday season, with a Santa who sounded like he'd just come out of an Aroostook County potato field.

All of these regional chains are long gone. We have one option for this type of shopping, one of the dirtiest, grimiest Wal Marts on the planet, unless you want to try your luck at Ocean State Job Lots.

 

[tonyb]

There had been a chain of five-and-dimes, mostly in the Northwest, called Sprouse-Reitz. Their only store of which I had any familiarity was in the little agricultural/tourist town where my folks and sister settled some years after we kids had flown the nest. It seemed something of an anachronism even then. That little store was among the last of them, when the chain liquidated in 1994.

 

[panigale]

Woolworths