What businesses that you loved as a child are no longer there?

[easyas123]

There was one on Broad Street in Philly that my grandmother used to take me to on Saturdays.

My grandmother used to take all the granddaughters and daughters to lunch & see the windows at Gimbles over Christmas, then back to her house to make Christmas cookies-

 

[RangerPooh]

Toys r Us
Walden Books
Dalton Books
Disney Store- the old version with large statues, bright colors, and sold more than just kids clothes and toys. Snow globes, watches, adult clothing, home goods, park tickets etc.
Fresh Choice
Sizzler (for the salad bar and cheese toast)
Fosters Freeze (don't know if they exist anymore....I've moved to TN)

Toys R Us was mentioned. There wasn't any one all that close to us when I was a kid, and it was a special trip. Same with Consumers Distributing, a Canadian based catalog store that was similar in format to Best and Service Merchandise. I loved looking through the Consumers Distributing catalog, and for a year or two their catalogs said that there was going to be a store in my town although that never materialized. They did open a store in Berkeley when I was in high school, so it was no longer a 25 mile trip. I remember buying a scientific calculator there.

I remember going to Service Merchandise in south San Jose off Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill in the shopping center that Costco is in.

 

[bcla]

Toys r Us
Walden Books
Dalton Books
Disney Store- the old version with large statues, bright colors, and sold more than just kids clothes and toys. Snow globes, watches, adult clothing, home goods, park tickets etc.
Fresh Choice
Sizzler (for the salad bar and cheese toast)
Fosters Freeze (don't know if they exist anymore....I've moved to TN)


I remember going to Service Merchandise in south San Jose off Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill in the shopping center that Costco is in.

When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s I remember Service Merchandise because on the original Wheel of Fortune, if one had any leftover money after selecting prizes, the remainder could go on either a Service Merchandise or Abercrombie & Fitch gift certificate. I wouldn't have known what these companies were at the time without it.

I'd been to a store before. The was a Service Merchandise location at McCarthy Ranch in Milpitas in the 90s. Another catalog retailer was Best. They had some weird architecture that gave Fry's Electronics (RIP) a run for the money.

 

[penn19]

Roy Rogers and Kiddie City.

 

[KayMichigan]

My town still has the shell of The Red Barn. It's been a hundred different entities since those good old days

Yup, the restaurants were all shaped like a big barn so you can usually tell when one has been repurposed! They can change parts of it but it still looks like a barn...

 

[KayMichigan]

When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s I remember Service Merchandise because on the original Wheel of Fortune, if one had any leftover money after selecting prizes, the remainder could go on either a Service Merchandise or Abercrombie & Fitch gift certificate. I wouldn't have known what these companies were at the time without it.

I'd been to a store before. The was a Service Merchandise location at McCarthy Ranch in Milpitas in the 90s. Another catalog retailer was Best. They had some weird architecture that gave Fry's Electronics (RIP) a run for the money.

My first job out of high school was at a Best Products store that had just opened in our local mall! They had the merchandise in glass cases and you had to fill out an order slip and take it to an associate who would enter it into a computer terminal and then the warehouse in the back would pull your order and call you to the register to pay for it.

I usually took the orders. I still remember the Christmas 1982 season because all everyone wanted were Strawberry Shortcake and He-Man toys and we were out of them so we had to issue rainchecks! The store lasted about eight years and closed when the chain went under. It was an interesting idea but we couldn't compete with Service Merchandise and the process was too cumbersome and slow.

 

[bcla]

My first job out of high school was at a Best Products store that had just opened in our local mall! They had the merchandise in glass cases and you had to fill out an order slip and take it to an associate who would enter it into a computer terminal and then the warehouse in the back would pull your order and call you to the register to pay for it.

I usually took the orders. I still remember the Christmas 1982 season because all everyone wanted were Strawberry Shortcake and He-Man toys and we were out of them so we had to issue rainchecks! The store lasted about eight years and closed when the chain went under. It was an interesting idea but we couldn't compete with Service Merchandise and the process was too cumbersome and slow.

We had one store around here, but it didn't have that kind of bizarre architecture. I didn't go there that often, but at least by the mid-80s that store had some items that were stocked on store shelves rather than the sample models. For something like blank VHS tapes I guess it didn't make much sense to make someone go in the back for them.

 

[KayMichigan]

We had one store around here, but it didn't have that kind of bizarre architecture. I didn't go there that often, but at least by the mid-80s that store had some items that were stocked on store shelves rather than the sample models. For something like blank VHS tapes I guess it didn't make much sense to make someone go in the back for them.

Ours didn't have any unusual architecture either, it was just a mall store.

We might have had some things sitting out at one point, but I only worked there for its first three months. Later on they might have had more on the shelf merchandise when the chain was trying to stay in business.

I remember going in there around 1986 because they'd gotten in a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids. They had them just sitting out on the floor, but this was after the craze was over and people were just walking by them.