20 Famous Stores From The 1980s, That No Longer Exist!
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- 20 Famous Stores From The 1980s, That No Longer Exist!
In this nostalgic video, we reminisce about 20 iconic stores from the 1980s that have vanished from the American retail landscape. From department stores to specialty shops, we explore the once-thriving businesses that are now just memories. Join us as we take a trip down memory lane and uncover the stories behind these lost treasures of the past.
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I am a GENERATION-XER at 53 and watching these videos take me back to a decade I wish I could go back to.
Same here. 😭
Jesus 🤦♂️ why because you could treat those different folks anyway you wanted and no pesky social media to hold boomers accountable 🤫🫠🤭
I remember more than half of these stores from my teen years all the way through college and beyond. So many good memories of these places.
54 here and feel the same. The 80's and most of the 90's were great.
@@JohnnyfountaineyesBecause he wouldn't have the kids, who now are the worst generation in this country's history. Blights of humanity.
“I don’t wanna grow up cuz I’m a toys r us kid…” 😭
Borders closing broke my heart…I loved that place. 💕🥰😭
🎶 There's a million toys at toys r us that I can play with! 🎵
Never went there like 65% of them. Here we had Tower Records instead until 2006 and 2 were STILL around in Seattle as of 2015.
same here. I'm baffled that Barnes & Noble is still around. How are they still in business is beyond me. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I can still go to a place to relax, read some magazines, and drink my coffee.
😢😭😿
I wish they'd close one more border.
This makes me want to go back in time so bad. Such a better time to be alive and appreciative more. Proves how the internet and social media has ruined society
100% i was born in 87 so didn't get to experience the 80s but loved the 90s and early 2000s..
1:01 Hollywood Video
2:25 Kay Bee Toys
3:48 Radio Shack
5:20 Babbage’s
6:16 Peaches Records & Tapes
7:37 Venture Stores
9:11 Blockbuster Video
10:19 Tower Records
11:35 Toys R Us
13:05 Sharper Image
14:38 Circuit City
16:08 CompUSA
17:34 Borders Books
19:07 Walden Books
20:16 Sam Goody
21:49 Caldor
23:18 Abraham & Straus
24:18 Lionel Kiddie City
26:01 Woolworth’s
27:10 Egghead Software
Venture(s) , Baggages. My greatness, these scream Midwest.😚
Sears. Kmart, Service Merchandise. Safeway (not sure if this is regional though)
Grandy fast food
Music Boutique
@@tr1besSafeway is still around. I patronized the Estes Park location in Colorado...couple years ago.
Zayre
Love it
There is one last remaining Woolworth's in Bakersfield, California. The new owners are restoring the historical building and keeping the Woolworth lunch counter. The previous owners also had the iconic lunch counter and a two story antique store. Although the store does not offer the original concept, it's great to see part of the store's history preserved.
I'll actually visit next time I'm out that way. I vaguely remember Woolworth as a store, I saw it after it had closed.
Im old in my 50s and so grateful to have been young at this time.
You think 50s are old?? They're middle aged to me. 80s and 90 is old. Harrison Ford is in his mid 70s and he's still making films.
Now imagine if your parents were poor and you could not afford any of the toys at Kaybee's or Kiddie City.
Same, I'm 45. It's nice but kind of sad.
@@MirzaAhmed89I've been there. I used to go door to door in 1984 asking to cut grass for $10.00 a yard. I earned my own money for KAY Bee toys.
@@josebro352Harrison Ford has had an easy life too. I'm 52 and broke my back getting my way through life.
I can’t believe time is passing by so fast, I wish they still have stores like these again in the future 😢
I still have my old Blockbuster rental card. I got it in 1985. It's in a picture frame now. (Jan Griffiths).
so do i, i didnt save it on purpose i just happend to get anew wallet and all of my cards and things didnt fit
Actually I have two.
I still have mine as well.
I do too and pretty sure I still owe them money for late fees, oh well
I still have mine too!
Those were the good old days.
Do any of you guys remember Service Merchandise?
Yes I bought a few things from service ours was on Vincent ave in west Covina CA
I love Service Merchandise
I was a kid but I remember it
Yes the one on Brverly and Montebello Blvd. In Montebello CA
Loved it, and still miss it.
I miss the old America.
Same here when life was simple 😔
I don't. Everything seemed to revolve around materialism and crass consumerism.
@@MirzaAhmed89 exactly
Back in the day when people had, that thing called, morals!
You can blame Clintons,Obama,Biden and Bush's
Gen xer here. Love all the old stores we had many good memories. Going shopping use to be an adventure.
Going to the malls use to be a great way to spend the weekends. Hanging out with friends, or girlfriend. The food, the shopping, just walikg around was fun.
Definitely felt like an adventure! Great way to describe it.
went to 16 mall in socal on Dec 26, 1987
I’m taking a moment of silence to mourn Mervyns. Who am I kidding? I’ve been mourning them for 15 years. 😩😭. BEST store ever.
I bought My first Star Wars toy there 1977, in their little itty bitty Toy section ❤️
Loved Mervyn's. I just found out there are 3 Sears in California, and the company has over 200 stores in Mexico. Let's pray some of these stores come back.
I bought a purse at Mervyn’s in 1995 that would be my absolute favorite purse of all time. I loved it. It was unique and I have never found anything like it since. Wish I had kept it.
We are all poorer without these public common spaces. I remember when the Sears was a 2 story department store downtown. Then it was in the mall. Then gone.
Dey Brothers was at one end of the mall and Sears at the other with my area having its own regional chain Whitherill's.
Western Mass. had the fabulous Eastfield Mall, the first enclosed mall(1967) in the area, I was there, often!
The Sears near me started out as a 2-story department store. It later added a mall onto the back of the store. Now both the Sears and the Mall are closed...
I loved my Realistic stereo from Radio Shack. 2 cassette tape decks, phonograph, and 2 12" speakers.
and a battery on your birthday- even a 9-volt if you want- we were the Kings
Realistic audio equipment, and Optimus speakers, were pretty high quality back in the 70s. Mine had real walnut veneer.
Bought my first TRS 80 at Radio Shack and a Commodore 64 a few years later there.
Radio Shack was my hangout in the 80s.
All the electronic kits I had and Tandy calculator. The 80s was a good time nothing like today. Todays memories are all done on smart phones.
I remember Two Guys quite fondly (and of course Radio Shack, Montgomery Grant, Alexander's, Woolworth, and others).
The Sharper Image, selling things you don't need at prices you couldn't afford. What an ingenious business model. I think exactly 0.00001% of Americans were surprised they went out of business.
Agree, that place was a huge scam.
Swiss Army knifes in every size, a store for the rich and famous 😮
Never bought anything from there, or Brookstone!
I felt rich, just going and trying the products.....I mean really, Who needed a vibrating Car Seat, Who but Somebody parked, late at night, in a Church parking lot 🤣
I like going down memory lane. I really do miss K Mart.
Me 2
Dang. I still miss Tower Records, Hollywood and Blockbuster Video, Border's Books, Sharper Image and most of all, Toys R Us. I remember as a kid, getting the Toys R US "Big Book of Toys" in the mail every Christmas and my brother and I going thru and circling everything we wanted. Then, years later, buying my own children's gifts there. So many fond memories ❤❤
I was a young adult and used to get the book to choose gifts for my nieces and nephew. Oh the memories... and I always came home with a treat for myself. I'm just a big kid who never grew up!
Ill be 61 in june, God I miss the old days. But im thankful that im not growing up now.
So am I.
Amen! Same here! But we have a huge problem…our kids/grandkids, etc. don’t care about anything! It’s like they’ve given up! We have to give them a reason to care. They see how great life was for us and they don’t care about anything now like we did then!
Pray 🙏 they get a new lease on life!
@@shannonnichols3415 We probably didn't really appreciate things at the time like we do now. The young people of today will most likely look back at their youth with nostalgia also. But I know what you mean, lots of things did seem better back in our time. But it is also true that everything SEEMS better when looking back at it.
Circuit City. I loved that store. They ran circles around the BestBuy. Computer wise, they knew what they were selling you.
Not the one in my home town. The people who worked there clueless, rude, and well.. just not suited to be in retail. Went there twice and laughed when they shut down.
MTX Thunder 4000 subwoofers, buy one, get one free at Circuit City. I took this deal twice. Hard to beat two 12" subs for a hunnerd bucks!
Circuit city was the target of electronics and Best Buy the Walmart. Lines Circuit City sold are either direct from manufacture or high end niche specialty stores.
There were 2 Circuit City stores near me. One that had polite but otherwise clueless employees and the other had rude but braindead employees..... Both were extremely overpriced compared to the competition.
Missed picking up Friday movies on VHS at Blockbuster
I miss buying movies really cheap when the extra new releases weren't so new!
I was looking in my closet found VCR still in the box not opened.
now i go and pick up my vhs tapes at goodwill only 25 cents each,.......marius(punk rules).
Yup. That's how it worked. Friday night after work I would get tapes. The location I went had a special where you could get 5 tapes for like $20 or some thing like that. The family didn't always watch all of them, but it was fun to have a selection.
@@garyb8186✅✅✅
these stores as well as others were apart of many of our childhoods
A lot of these store chains were destroyed by the advents of digital media, smartphones, online shopping, and further compounded through the bad business decisions of their own shareholders, CEOs, and executives. One good example of the bad business decisions aspect would be Blockbuster Video. Blockbuster had a ground floor opportunity to buy Netflix and they refused, thinking that digital video and video game distribution would be just a fad that faded away eventually instead of the evolution of content distribution with staying power it turned out to be.
We have the benefit of hindsight. At the time it was not at all obvious that online video would take over.
Man I miss the 80's
I was born 1977 so I definitely remember the 80s
I miss the Eighties as well I was a young adult back then. This coming year I will be 64 years old.
I miss those stores 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
Anyone who didn’t grow up in the 80s. You missed out. ✅
You Sure DID!!!😎The BEST Damn job I ever had was working at Bridgeport Video in high school. Met my first girlfriend there and everything!!!🤓🤓
So you met the love of your life there
@@DavidSkeen-lf6kt No. Her old man was Old School Mexican and he didn't care for a black guy dating his daughter. We broke up and became friends. I wound up rapping to two of her g'friends, though. Not for revenge. It just happened.😎🤓
@@U.S.S.SOUTHSIDE At the same time? 😆
@@lorenmorgan1931 Now THAT woulda been something!!😎😆
Perhaps Walmart & Costco will one day be shown in one of these videos.
Quite possibly. Walmart isn't half the chain it once was as far as quality, and prices go.
I hope not Costco, brilliant store that treats employees far better than most. Walmart couldn't care less.
And probably Target
My favorite stores from the past were Waldenbooks and Warehouse Music.
I miss Kmart and Toys R US always had great service 🤩
Yes service is not like it used to be
You're welcome. I was a chairman's award winner when I worked at Kmart store number 4143.
Always loved the blue light special at Kmart
Toys R Us still in Canada
toys r us moved to the cenadell mall in macys
Man, I miss Radio Shack. Always had what I was looking for.
I’m tired of hearing online shopping killing these stores. I miss a lot of these stores.
My wife is younger than me and she always shops online. I’m old-school I like brick and mortar.
Well, too bad. Most people prefer online shopping. And most younger people prefer paying for experiences rather than physical goods.
Online shopping didn't really kill any of these stores. Lack of innovation and piss poor management killed them..... As for the Circuit City and CompUSA stores near me, piss poor customer service didn't help....
I miss Bullock's and Mervyn's Department Stores out west. My first job was at Sears in the catalog department. I met my husband when I, later, worked at A & S -Abraham & Strauss.
I remember Bullock's I was a teenager when Bullock's was around.
Please do another one. There are so many awesome lost stores from the 1980s. It used to be kind of an event. - Heather
I was a manager with K-B toys in the 1980's. It was a good place to work and i enjoyed it. The whole Mall experience was fantastic and it's sad its mostly all gone. Cinnabun is another one I miss. Coming in to work early and getting one hot was a almost daily routine ! ( I was sorta sweet on a girl that worked there) .
I was born in 87 but man i really wanna go back to the 90s and early 2000s.
The shopping experience is totally different now. I remember When I was a kid, mom would get “car fare” (bus fare) ready (50 cents or whatever it was😂) drag us onto the bus for a one hour ride to Roosevelt field. I would go “time out” which was the game room. All the game rooms are gone now, although they are starting to slowly reappear in some places.
But this was back when dad went to work and most women stayed home to care for the family. Those days are LONG gone. Everyone has to work now just to make it month to month. A house in 1972 was an average of $25,000 and the average salary was $10,000. Fast forward to today?! Average salary is $75,000 and the average house is a million dollars!
Alll these stores bring back so many memories I used to shop at circuit city
I got my first DVD player at CC. It was actually a DIVX player that could play both formats.
Shopping ain't what it used to be!! 😞
Exactly. EVERY SINGLE pair of shoes I ever bought online went back!
Good. It used to be a hellish experience.
Great Video! I so miss the stores of the 80’s!
Where is Sears and Montgomery Wards? Boy I miss them
Sears and Montgomery physical stores are closed, they sell online only now.
Sears closed down their catalog sales about a year before Amazon was founded. Imagine if they had gone online instead of shutting it down.
@@georgeharris6851 Sears does have an online websites, I get at least 10 emails from Sears every week.
Yes, and K-Mart is gone too.
Sears still has over a dozen locations in the USA. I live near a nonclosing Sears in Burbank, California
Radio Shack was my first "real" job in 1981. The pay was something like $4.00 an hour but the stuff I had to play with was awesome! R/C cars, synthesizers, home computers...it was a great time!
I miss radio shack
Should have supported them more
@@shawnkelly695Put in for a personality transplant, please.
@@shawnkelly695 AMAZON !
I do too. They had the best stuff.
@@blueduck9409 if so many loved them then why did they shut down? Stores dont close unless no profits due to lack of sales. Kinda too late to claim yall love them now.
Well done, We had Shook, Goldblatt's Weiboldt's, Service Merchandise, among others now just a memory.
Service Merchandise! Decades since I heard or thought of that!
Does anyone remember S&H green stamps at service merchandise.
Who remembers Blue Chip stamps and the other trading stamps, the green ones? You got the stamps at various retailers and stuck them into books and then redeemed the books of stamps for small appliances and such. I can't actually remember where you got your goods... I think there was a catalog, not a brick and mortar location to redeem the stamps.
I remember my Mom using the S & H Green Stamps, and another one it seems that used yellow stamps.
We had a Blue Chip stamp store on the east side of town. It was exciting to have saved enough and the family got in the car and drove to the store, turned in our books, and brought home our items. We got our first color TV with blue chip stamps. It was a wood console TV.
@@starmnsixty1209 When my parents were preparing to sell their house we found a box full of them they thought had been thrown out a long time ago!
I remember blue chip stamps!!!!my late mom got a lot of things from them!!!!
They had brick and mortar redemption centers
I remember growing up and my parents shopping at Caldor, Bradlees, and K-Mart. I also would buy my vinyl at Tower Records when I lived in Boston and Dallas.
I grew up going to bradlees and caldors in Jersey.
I really miss Radio Shack. I did my Masters thesis on a Color Computer and Word Star on a cassette tape player with a dot matrix printer. Yes, I am that old.
I never heard of Peaches or Ventures.
I was trying to buy a resistor for a breadboard at Radio Shack. They wanted to charge me $10.00 for 1. I bought a bag of 100 for the same price including shipping on line. Every RC toy I bought for my son at Radio Shack failed within a couple weeks. The only thing I still have from Radio Shack is the TV antenna that is still up on my roof, it's useless but not because it was defective. I just never climbed up there and took it down. I'm afraid of heights.
My sister was a manager at Venture for 20+ years in Schaumburg, Illinois. When my sister's store was closing she let my rock band play a concert in the store during it's final days while shoppers were cleaning out the remaining inventory.
I sometimes think Footlocker should pay homage to it's roots by opening a lunch counter. For those of you who don't know. Footlocker is the last remnants of FW Woolworths.
Might be a good idea to return to the company roots in that way.
Actually they are technically the remnants of a Woolworth's spin off or one that Woolworth's had bought out - a drug store if I remember correctly.
Who wants to think of "feet" and "food" at the same time! Lol. Don't quit your day job!
Im an 80's baby too and I remember alot of these stores here in michigan.
Sears, Two Guys, Bamberg, Laneco, The Wiz, Crazy Eddie. I remember this stores!!! Drive inn movies! miniature golf! I can go on and on!!!
You must be from the tri state area. Crazy Eddie, these prices are insane.
Here is the thing. I grew up in the Eighties and I honestly don't remember Peaches Records and Tapes. I've heard of Tower Records but not Peaches Records and TApes.
Same. I wonder what general location they were
I do remember Peaches Records. We would visit their location in Orlando every year on vacation. I even purchased a cassette tape holder with their emblem on it. I still have it! This would have been the early 1980’s.
Me too. I think most are west coast stuff.
Netflix took blockbuster out 😊
There was one in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was born and raised in Ponca City. Mom would take my older sister and me to Tulsa twice a year to shop for fall/winter clothes and then spring/summer clothes. All my sister cared about was going to Peaches for the latest releases. I always looked forward to having dinner at Casa Bonita before we drove back home. 😊
Very nice! Many others come to mind, but many of them were probably regional chains. The only thing constant is change!
Sears? K-Mart? Montgomery Wards?
I think this video is about smaller companies ; Kmart and Montgomery were more of a larger franchise
The Jones Store
Nope
Hollywood Video was all over. I lived next to one in Rhode Island. Spent almost every weekend there to rent the hottest movies that hit the shelves. I still could remember the glossy floors by the registers, long lines, lights, candy and popcorn for sale and empty DVD/Blu-ray cases if u didn't get there in time to rent the movie 😂 Nostalgia and I miss it! Radio Shack was my dad's store. I rem he used to drag me there all the time!
Hats off for your dad. I miss radio shack..it had every electronic gismo to build with ...kids these days play with their phones...no imagination... damn listen to me I sound old😂 in 47
In Canada it was Rogers video it was everywhere
Oh I miss Blockbuster.🎉🎉🎉
Kay Bee back in the 1980's absolutely rocked. You could find anything from Intellivision games to D&D modules. What a place!
They were quite overpriced though for their toys
I remember Hill's and Ames too!
Hills has the hits, LP's or cassettes, Hills.
Gold Circle
Ames brings back memories. It was basically another Kmart, but they weren't able to adjust to the times and Walmart and Target took over. I've read that Ames is trying to make a comeback. Maybe it will work for them as they have name recognition.
@@Ralph-w5p A few business reporters have tried to contact people familiar with Ames but were unable to confirm they are trying to make a comeback. But they were not able to confirm they were not either!
@@petenielsen6683 It will be interesting to see what happens. It seems the only way for Ames to make it would be to have the very large stores like Walmart has.
u guys remember the fee for not rewinding ur vhs tapes . hehehehe
I miss Virgin records, Tower records, and Borders bookstore.
I remember when Netflix switched to online and thinking, "This will never catch on...." And my Friday night routine was to go to the local Blockbuster and pick out movies to watch over the weekend. I was in there so much the cashier would put aside copies of new movies for me. Now people don't even know how to have a conversation. Sad.
This was was time when crime was low, no school shootings, no online anything. Just good ole fun 😊 I miss these carefree, SAFER days.
Dumb
i wish radio shack was still around they always helped me out on things i needed
Back before Amazon turned us all into Borg.
I have seen other videos about businesses that were very popular but now cease to exist but this one affected me the most. I was familiar with most of the stores. I was especially affected by the Tower of Records part of the video because I live where that business originated. This was a very nostalgic and enjoyable video.
We still have a local Blockbuster and Radio Shack store...so much for this video.
You live in Bend, OR? I think your Radio Shack closed.
Look at you, just like a pizza cutter. All edge, no point.
There is a Radio Shack in Fort Myers Florida
@@davidkraus5765 But there's only one Blockbuster left. It's famous for being the only Blockbuster.
@@facely You can order Radio Shack online.
There is still one blockbuster in Oregon
I think their is one in Florida
@rodneymiller1062 no that's a Bustblocker
More companies no longer around: Blimpies which was a sandwich shop similar to Subway sandwich today. Payless Shoes, Sports Authority, Ames, Pier 1, Tom McAn Shoes, and Modell's Sporting Goods. Virgin Mega Stores sold music stuff like CDs, lyric books and more. Consumer Reports stores sold many things and they reviewed products too. DeLorean Cars ended when their creator was arrested and their car is in the movie Back To The Future.
Ames is still around......
I still wait by the phone on my birthday waiting for a call from Geoffrey Giraffe. The call never comes …… 😢
Maybe you could play reruns of Barney the Purple Dinasaur singing how much he loves you! Would that warm you wittle cockles?
I remember Venture in the '80s! It was like a Target!
The vast majority of these all meet one of two ends.
A) "but then the digital age..." or
B) "but then 2008..."
The digital time has ruined the world.
Consumers overall are stupider too. When the number of discriminating buyers dropped, bargain stores beat out quality. MP3s killed music stores, even though they are lower quality. Stereo video streaming (even here on UA-cam) killed the market for middle class level high powered Dolby, DTS, and THX surround systems and entry level audiophile home stereos. The internet made it to where the average computer user didn’t need high powered software too big to download because some website was “good enough”. Boom, radio shack, circuit city, and compusa are gone. Now people are stuck with low quality junk that is made with planned obsolescence. Kids are on these phones and don’t play with toys anymore, we don’t need to go to malls anymore, and we wonder why society is how it is. All started with the dumbing down of the consumer in my opinion.
@@slowpoke96Z28 TMI
@@slowpoke96Z28Damn you’re so right! You hit the nail on the head
Circuit City, Comp USA, and Fry's Electronics.. 3 staples of my early nerd tech buying years. Those along with the old school Tiger Direct were amazing.
Sad miss all of them
Radio Shack was badass! They had the coolest RC cars/truck and you can get anything you needed to fix any house hold electronic
My school had 4 TRS 80 Radio Shack computers and only honors students could take the class. we learned BASIC. I will never forget IF THEN.
10 print " your name"
20 goto 10
run
Yes I had one of the Color computer 2 TRS-80;w/a tape player
@@lowlifeangler Those were the days! if only I had realized how important it would become to life, but I loved books and became an English teacher, so I was lucky to learn a bit back then. My husband actually went to college in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara University) in the late 80's almost right next to the current Apple campus, and he doesn't know one person that majored in Infosystems or IT or whatever it is all called today. They were all finance or pre-med. They all missed the boat, except one who worked on Wall Street who knew to invest.
@PS_testing321... Awesome! I rebuilt the old IBM 8088 in a college class. Anymore ,I just rebuild my own PC tower for normal use. If I had to use a computer for self employed business, it would be an Apple. At work I just use a ThinkPad when I need it. At least it's an AMD processor lol
K B Toys! Where I got all my GI Joe stuff and space Legos! The best!
FAO Schwartz was fun as a kid in the mall
Does it still exist? I used to take my nieces and nephews there in San Francisco in the 1980s. My grandmother took my oldest brothers there in the 1950s. Also shopped at Gumps in San Francisco. I wonder if it still exists.
@@FigaroHey No it's gone down in history
We had another toy chain that neighbored Toys-R-Us called Children's Palace. With these two stores and the KB Toys, the 1980's was made for kids.
I don't miss magnetic tape as a form of storing media. I do miss having several different video/computer game stores that had their own personalities.
my mother was a manager of a radio shack. most of my weekends spent helping my mother with inventory 😊
Anyone remember a discount store called Zayre? There was one here in Sarasota, Florida where Office Depot now resides.
Zayre Shopper City
I used to hang out at Tower Records back then. I got lots of stuff when they closed for good. They were practically giving merch away. (Jan Griffiths).
There is a radio shack in Bozeman Montana and a blockbuster video store in Bend Oregon. I've seen them with my own eyes in 2023
Ahh Damn...this whole entire video is so nostalgic for me. The good ol times when life was so much better and funner. I would totally give up my smart phone if given the chance to go back in time reliving this life. I actually worked at Radio Shack for a while and shopped at all these toy stores. KayBee's was my favorite mall toy store while always having a blast going to Playworld and Toy's R Us. Used to work at CompUSA as well and it was fun. Yeah...the good ol days. I miss them and all these wonderful places. Got my Punk and Heavy Metal cassettes at Sam Goodie as well lol. Thumbs UP and shared! A+++
Rich’s,
Richway,
Sunshine Dept. Store,
Lionel Play World,
Camelot Music,
Mervyn’s,
Big Lots,
Service Merchandise,
Turtles Records & Tapes
Tandy Leather Co.
Sears & Roebuck,
Kmart
Sears made a BIG MISTAKE when they bought Kmart! It sure seemed like a good idea at the time. We all know now that Kmart was beyond repair when Sears got to them. And among many other things, Sears exec's thought that internet shopping was going to be a passing fad and frankly so did I. Sears didn't adapt and we all know how this is going to end!😭😭😭
Wow I forgot about Tandy leather and, Camelot Music.
I gotta you can still buy stuff from Kmart online. Who knows it may ride from the she's just like Target did.
Also Big Lord is still around, you just have to get to the right area.
I miss Mervyns so much. That was my favourite store ever.😭
We still have big lots and radio shack.
Big Lots still open in Louisiana
KayBee was at the Mall of America, it was a once a year trip to look for items -- always had interesting toys that were sometimes hard to find.
I worked for both Sam Goody and Blockbuster. I think I might be old.
It amazes me that I have heard of only about half of these stores! Probably a result of not hanging out on the east coast or midwest.
I had presumed that all the major chains were well distributed. The only oddball was Sam Goody that had sort of an appearance at one store (Lloyd Center) in Portland but vanished in a year or two later.
A lot of these stores didn't make it to the central east coast because I've never heard of them....
Malls will also be a thing of the past.
That makes me sad 😢
Remember "mall hair?" Every teenage girl had it.
Man...I miss almost all of these (there were a few that were not local to me)...but this was my childhood and youth...I really miss Borders bookstore and Toy R Us...and it was always so exciting to get to go pick out a movie or two.
RADIO SHACK was The Best store.
Good work but you did not include 3of the most beloved b&m stores of the 70s and 80s: K MART,SERVICE MERCHANDISE and ARDAN.. Hope you can make a video about those.
I remember kay- bee toy store radio shack and toys r us 👍
45 years old and I worked at both Hollywood video and Kay Bee toys.😅
I shopped at all these except no Venture or Peaches in Dallas, Tx.
Venture was like Target. It was Kmart and, Venture instead of Walmart and, Target. As I type this they say the 2 are affiliated. Ironic timing.😁
I remember Comp USA, Circuit City, Incredible Universe, and Best buy was within less than a mile from each other. It was such a competition from each other.
What was incredible universe?
@darkhelmet-hj9tz Incredible Universe was a big-box electronics retailer that Tandy attempted to launch in 1992. Most of the 17 stores never made a profit.
We had CompUSA, BestBuy, Circuit City, Office Max and Office Depot all within 1 mile of each other..... In fact, you could see CompUSA, Circuit City and Office Max from the front of the Bestbuy store.....
I'm sorry. I must have missed it, but was MONTGOMERY WARDS listed ??
It was a MAJOR retail store !
It wasn’t and the Jones Store wasn’t in the video either
I don't want going to spoil anybody's watching pleasure ... You have to watch this!! ... but the Digital Age shows up here and wreaks havoc, then there's bad management, bad strategic decisions, etcetera . Yeah you have to watch this, well researched and really well presented . You'll find a LOT of nuggets
Enjoyed it.
How did you miss Crazy Eddie? His prices are "insane!"
most of the family i belive were crooks
Children's Palace blew Toys R Us away! I miss all the old stores. Woolworth, Kresge's, Ardan's, Montgomery Wards, Kmart, Stereo Town, Yonkers. And many more. I miss many restaurants and cafe's. I miss old cars and good music and quality items that would last.
I was in a children's palace when I was a young kid 4-7 I have a lot of memories in there.
I remember Big N and Woolworths And i think there was Grants too
Grants is going way back. A little before my time. I think that was 60s. I grew up with Alexander’s, Woolworths, A&S, Korvettes, Two Guys 😂
In East Los Angeles/Commerce (CA) in the 1960s, there was a new-to-the-neighborhood big warehouse store called White Front on Olympic Blvd. I believe it was a precursor to the old Price Club & today's Costco & Sam's Club (Sam Walden of Walmart's copycat version of worldwide/global membership shopping).