LizzieMaine
Bartender
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- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
... or a goldfish, or a model car kit, or an injection molded Creature from the Black Lagoon, or a kite, or a spool of thread, or yard goods, or shoe polish, or ,,,
While I'm on the topic of extinct retail, my home town had two drug stores with "soda fountains". For those of you too young to remember (I can't believe I'm using that phrase!), a soda fountain was like a lunch counter, except they served ice cream and soft drinks, not french fries and sandwiches.
We had a Newberry's dime store with a lunch counter until the late '90s, and a drug store with a soda fountain until about five years ago. Progress stinks.
The main difference between a dime store and a dollar store is that a dollar store deals primarily in what's euphemistically called "distressed merchandise:" discontinued goods, expired goods, odd lots, etc, and the store is usually run in a low-budget, no-frills manner. Dime store stuff was manufactured specifically to sell at low prices, and while the prices were low, an effort was still spent to maintain a level of service. Well into the sixties, most Woolworth stores had floorwalkers, just like the big full-price department stores.
And that's another term that's disappeared. When did you last hear of a "floorwalker?"