Do You Remember Hills Department Store? What Happened To Them?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Hills Department Store was a department store chain that specialized in apparel and toys. They were around from 1957 until 1999. This is their brief history.
The hills toy displays were something to marvel as a child.
child paradise, right?
Damn right! In the home computer and video game boom era of the early 80s, our local Hills would set up demo units and let you play with them more or less unsupervised. Got to try out a lot of cool videogames and computers that way ...
I wonder what today's children will be nostalgic about forty years from now.
The popcorn. The slushees. The posters on the wall in the record department. This was 40+ years ago. I still dream about it regularly...
I loved our local Hills store. When you walked in, you'd be hit by the smell of buttery popcorn (they sold freshly made bags of it in the front) and the sound of the Turtles in Time arcade machine. It had such a fun atmosphere.
This was my favorite store as a kid in the 80's!!!!❤
Same.
@@MayhemNebula Where did the years go?? Lol
@@JOHNKIRBY2077 i have no idea but i want those years back lol.
@@MayhemNebula Who you telling??? Just being a kid with no responsibilities. Our kids have no idea. ♥️💯
I loved Hills! In Youngstown, we had that store and Wells department store. I loved buying clothes there.
I used to love the hills coloring books that they would pass out to all the kids. It was like a pre-Christmas gift to me. I looked forward to it every year.
I miss shopping 🛒 🛍 at Hills Department
Stores 🏬!
We done A LOT of shopping 🛒 🛍 at
Hills!
And the Commercials that you had all throughout your video sure brought back memories and I remember them as if they was on TV 📺 yesterday!
Thanks so much for doing this Hills Department Store 🏬!
thanks for watching
@@EricCProductions76 Your welcome
We had a Hill's as one of the anchor stores at the Kingsport Mall in Kingsport TN.
I can still smell the way to store smelled we had so many locations here in Buffalo New York remember we would go to all of them looking for my WWE Hasbro wrestlers
Thanks for sharing those memories.
Yep. There were two near me in the buffalo area. That snack bar was the coolest
Yo soooo nostalgic wow… buffalonian here the hills had thee best pop corn the one by caz park
Remember D&K on Broadway and Hills on Delaware and Lmart in Hertel and Main Place Mall? Walden Books, Benders, the youth time center downtown?
Rainbow mall in the Falls, the whale car wash and Winter Garden?
Walking inside the stores and you wouldn't be hungry. Then you smell the fresh popcorn and fresh hotdogs. man... Those were the days.
Loved Hills! 😍 as well as Woolworths, Ames, Jamesway, Kaybee Toys, Sears, and Zayres
I have done all of those stores. Check them out. Thanks for watching
I worked at hills. They did fireworks on July 4 every year. Miss that store
Thank you! i totally forgot about Hills and Gold Circle! unfortunately, the Hills we had was not a very clean store...big, but not well kept. wish the memories were better.
thanks for sharing your memories
Awww I miss Hills! My closest Hills was in Carlisle, PA. The whole store smelled like buttered popcorn and soft pretzels!
Thanks for sharing those nice memories.
@@EricCProductions76 Welcome! Other stores I miss are Nichols Discount City, Kings and "it's got to be" Gee Bee, all once found here around the PA/MD border. My hometown here in PA once had a stand-alone Sears. It was converted in the 80s into a county courthouse annex lol. Our last area Kmart jumped ship about a year ago. It's sad. The only Dept stores left anymore are Target and Wally World. Yuck!
@@bikerscout2012 Of these Nichols Discount City, Kings and "it's got to be" Gee Bee, which one brings back the fondest memories? Let me know, thanks
@@EricCProductions76 Nichols! We had one in Chambersburg PA. My mom worked there as a teen before I was born. Across the highway (Rt 30) was an Eyerly's (Bon Ton). It's all wally world and hobby lobby now. This is the same 30 that takes you to Gettysburg etc. Incidentally, mom also worked at Hoover's Drive In on 30 right before I was born. The drive-in attracted actors from the nearby Totem Pole Playhouse in Caledonia during summer stock. My mom served none other than Jean Stapleton, her son Putch and JOHN RITTER a mere months before Three's Company exploded!
@@EricCProductions76 Oh and that Bon Ton became a Triangle Hardware store. Then everything got leveled for Wally World. Speaking of hardware, Lowe's has moved locations several times on 30 over the years. Also Bonanza Steakhouse, they started on 30 in Fayetteville, PA, then moved to Chambersburg Mall around 1980. Then moved out the dying mall a few years ago back to 30 to replace a Ryan's in the Wally World area.
During the sports card craze of the late 80's/early 90's Hill's was on of the best places to go. They even had their co-branded baseball card set with Topps I believe. I have some of those sets somewhere.
If you like baseball cards, I have another channel about collecting ua-cam.com/channels/M1yB263tq9X3YcLDEiRw7g.html
I worked as a softlines manager for Hills’ in 1997-1998. It was a beautiful store with the best selection. And I can still recall the smells of popcorn and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. If any store could make a comeback. I wish it would be this one.
Awesome, thanks for sharing your memories
We had hills in the mall. I loved their popcorn. They took over Ames store when Ames went out of business and then they gradually went out of business. The old Ames store/Hills store in my former city is now Tractor Supply. Likewise, Odd Lots became Big Lots and is something else entirely now, forget what.
I remember hills having a lot of really cool Halloween stuff during that time of year in Middletown OH in the early 90s
Thanks for sharing for those nice memories
@@EricCProductions76 when my mom and dad first divorced he would take me and my brother to hills and get us toys. I loved hills it’s sad it’s just a memory now
@@badground3534 well those are memories you will always treasure.
I loved It myself Going there as i grew up .theY called it the The Fifth Street Hills.Cause it was on Fifth Street Hill Huntington Wva.I can remember way Back .the Smell of the Popcorn and the Candy ,the Soda Machine as soon as you walked in the front door.would always make me Want it lol. around Christmas time there would be all kinds of Christmas stuff .Man this Video Brings me Back there lol
I worked at a Hills in PA. They had great management. They would pay everyone in cash which as a college student was great for me.
I remember them very well we had them all over West Virginia. My sister worked at a Hex and La Joes lol
I miss Hills. The ones I remember specifically in the Pittsburgh area: Wind Gap, which closed around the time they opened in Robinson Town Centre; Perry Highway, which closed and moved to North Hills Village; and near Century Square on the hill above Century III Mall. I don't remember ever being there, but I remember the one on 22 just past the end of the Parkway East also.
Nice, thank you for sharing your memories
Hills is the store i miss the most!! We had 2 of them in Warren, Ohio. I remember riding my bike to Hills just to play video games and to get some popcorn and cherry slushies!! I still remember the last thing i ever bought from Hills. It was a 10-speed mountain bike for $125. Sure do miss that place!!!
thanks for sharing that nice memory
I remember both of the stores on 422 and in Champion.
I grew up in Trumbull Homes, easy walk to Hills on Ridge Road. Loved being there as a kid. If you look closely at the retaining wall on 422 by what is left of that plaza you can still see the Hills sign painted on the concrete. Hills left that plaza in the 80's and relocated to Niles...
@@GoogleUser-es5td I definitely remember when Hills was on Ridge Road. We could see the Hills sign from the front yard of my aunt's house and we used to walk to that store to get candy and popcorn!
I used to go to the one in Champion. Now it's Big Lots.
Hills rocked!
Yes on Montgomery pike too in south williamsport Pennsylvania too kh
I remember the popcorn smell as soon as you walked in.
Most of my young childhood was going to Hills with my mom in the early 90's. Always got a Hotdog and coke when we went there. Seriously miss this place.
thank you for sharing you memories
@@EricCProductions76 Any time, sadly the location where this one is now a Big Lots but I can still remember where the concession stand was right when you entered the doors.
I wish I would’ve heard of Hills and been to one before closing
Hills and G. C. Murphy's were two of the nicest places to shop.
I remember this store. There was one in St. Clairsville, OH, they closed down as I was growing up. I used to go with my grandparents. They had these delicious orange N creamsicle drinks at the snack bar. And I can remember my grandmother used their store-brand baby lotion.
thanks for sharing your memories
My local Hill's is now a movie theater.
I'm from Montreal, Qc. Canada as a french canadian, but when I go to Plattsburgh, NY USA I've go to the Champlain Centre North (Now Champlain Centre), I've been there from 1988-1993 and it was a classic store to go. I was sad when I knew that Ames acquired it (Go to Ames too), but was pretty to don't see that logo again. Thanks for this video Eric C Productions :) Nice flashback to me.
Any time I see a video done on Hills I automatically can smell the front lobby area immediately.
thanks for watching
❤The best apparel land the greatest toy selection. I spent a great deal of my shopping time and money at the Ashtabula Ohio store! Loved it and have the fondest memories! I wish we could go back to those wonderful times! Why couldn’t we have left things as they were??? Know a secret…..I still have some of my clothes that I purchased from there!!! ❤🙏🔥✝️
awesome, thanks.
I Loved the Hills stores as a kid in the 60’s and 70’s and early 80’s. I loved it more than the Kmart stores.
Hills was the best. Halloween and Christmas were the best times. The smell of popcorn, pretzels, and cashews was overwhelming.
Thanks for sharing that nice memory.
"Hills is where the toys are!"
Now I want a big soft pretzel and an Icee.
yes hills i’m there
Man I still remember getting starwars figures from Hills
I used to look forward to going to Hills. We were fairly poor growing up and I would get a lot of my clothes from there. I would get made fun of by some of the kids in my neighborhood because of it. My father worked his ass off to support us so that’s what it was. Dad used to say that those kids are just mad because their father ain’t even around. I didn’t know what he meant then but I know now.
Kids can be harsh and no sense of reality. I learned to appreciate what my parents went through to support me when I was growing up and I totally understand it now when I have kids of my own. Those kids that "bullied" you back then should probably look in the mirror now and probably see what kind of financial shape they are in now and eat a piece of that "humble pie". I'm with you my friend. Thanks for watching
@@EricCProductions76 you’re right. Thank you for your kind words.
@@lemondishonor7736 I was bullied as a kid and made fun of because of my looks, the way I walk and even because I had less money than others so I can relate to you and it pissed me off. But the difference is, I used that anger and resentment in a positive way. If I focused on all the negativity in my life, I would be a cold hard person but I look at life in a positive way and I try to see the good in people because
life is short and in the end, who cares what people say or think about me? I can't control what others think or say but I can control the type of person I want to be.
There was nothing wrong with getting your clothes from HIlls. A lot of us kids got our clothes from there because, well, it was all our parents could afford working in the "rust belt" part of America. It was either Hills or Kmart for my family growing up. I was just happy i got new clothes to show off at school every year!!
Lest we forget, Ames also took over Murphy Marts and closed them.
Best store ever!
Yes it was!
I rememberHills department store.
I miss that store so much.
thanks for watching
the best❤ moms work there forever
I remember watching the Fourth of July fireworks in the parking lot back in the 80s. Grandma would get us toys if we were good and there was the snack bar to keep us fed.
OMG me too. The Hills on Ridge Road in Warren always had fireworks! What memories!
Never been to this store
I loved Hills. I used to get a soft pretzel from the front concession stand and play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I wondered what happened to Hills. I used to love going there as a kid. It was a shame Ames bought Hills. Ames was always such a dingy trashy looking store with boring clothes and goods. The only reason Ames lasted as long as it did was because it tended to be located in areas where you had to drive out of your way to go to a better store.
As a person who was born in 2000. I don’t even know Hills existed. All I remember is Toys R Us or GameStop lmao.
Only good memories about this place in Pittsburgh
They had a lot of computers there too back in the day….
thanks for sharing those memories
Had one in my town, even used to walk to it at times as a kid (took about an hour to walk there). Walking in and first thing was the smell of popcorn. All the toys as a kid, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers and ThunderCats, etc. Got a bit older and it was going there for my video games. Miss Hills a lot, wish someone would bring it back and have it like it once was.
Good memories and good times my friend
I miss hills. Went there all the time when i went to USA! The smell, the beautiful smell. The high variety of amazing things (for me the toys and pretzels), for so cheap. Quite sad when they were gone, made America just... Not the same. I didn't go to hills much (didn't go to America much), but when I did, it was one of the best experiences I had. I definitely miss them.
thanks for sharing those nice memories.
I loved Hills store, I wish we still had them
Thanks for sharing your memories
Hills had a great snack bar & good toys hills was pretty similar to Ames though which eventually bought them out & I think lex to Ames demise I can’t wait until Ames comes back this spring
hopefully they will be the same as they were before.
@@EricCProductions76 I hope so too I’ve heard they are going to sell groceries in the new Ames
Loved that as a kid, I learned to budget with layaway!💗 Pay over time and get ur stuff… Miss these stores-they totally need to bring them back!!
I agree. Thanks for watching
Ames is coming back in the spring
Can you do a story on Raymonds Dept Store in Boston
Thank you for the suggestion. I will put it on my list. Thanks.
I miss Hill's. And now one less competitor one less choice.
I miss Hills. I remember back in the day when I was a kid, my grandparents used to take me to Hills every Saturday. Wasn't complete without a stop at the snack bar, then out to dinner afterwards. Great memories.
thanks for sharing you memories
And the hills were in from is now an Ollie’s
1:45 was our Hills in East Liverpool, OH. It's a Dunham's sporting goods store now after the Ames shut down.
That's awesome. Thanks for watching
I used to go to that Hills store too. I got my gameboy there.
Hills had the best toys
Thanks for watching
They had the best popcorn 🍿 that served in the snack bar.
I had a two mile walk home from Jr. High School, and on the way was a Hills dept. store. My favorite treat was an ice cream bar they called the "Walkaway." It was huge, and had an enormous amount of chopped peanuts sprinkled all over the chocolate coating. They had jeans to fit all body types and all lengths. I actually bought my wedding dress from Hills. It was sold as a graduation dress, but it was a beautiful white dress covered in white lace. That was in 1971, and it cost $12.00. With their lay away program, and my babysitting money I had a wonderful wardrobe. I wish you could see the beautiful bikinis they sold in the late 60's and early 70's. My favorite looked like brown leather with lots of fringe. It was awesome. My second favorite came with a hip hugging mini skirt with a wide patent leather belt. Ahhh the good old days!!!
Lots of good memories going to Hills for toys, we also went to Ames and Jamesway. Once Walmart came to town all the other stores went out.😒
Its sad that Walmart did that do the discount stores and Macy took out the big department stores.
I worked set-up for the Hills store in Hendersonville Tn.
It was a mad scramble to get the place ready by the opening date.
Needless to say, I don't have fond memories of the place. lol
thanks for sharing your memories
Online ordering happened. I despise people who say it doesn't change things. Why go out when you can just use your computer.
thats right. Do you remember the movie The Net with Sandra Bullock. It was the precursor to now.
@@EricCProductions76 Actually I don't think I have. Isn't there a second one? I did see Swordfish though. lol
@@kevinkelley3906 maybe, but Sandra Bullock was ordering a pizza online long before that became the norm.
@@EricCProductions76 Ahh. Gotcha
A Christmas Commercial Special showed a Hills Commercial about having alot of toys year round.
We had a Hills in the Richland Mall in Johnstown, PA in the 80s.
thanks for watching
I miss Hills. Hills ruled, smelling the popcorn everytime as soon as we enter the store. Don't only blame Ames, also blame the scumbags at Walmart for wiping out every retailer in the country with their cheap, faulty, and unreliable chinese junk. If Hills Was still open today, I'd be buying music, movies, and video games there. Good times.
yes it was.
This was Our favorite store in Elmira, NY
thanks for sharing that nice memory
My firm handled the liquidation
Wow, does your company handle the ones now such as Toys R Us and such? It seems like it is one company that does all of the liquidations.
i remember hills it was a cool store to visit had good times at hills
thanks for watching
@@EricCProductions76 welcome
I remember going there all the time with my grandma
Thanks for sharing that nice memory. Thanks for watching
I remember the hills department stores….
I miss Hills. I loved the smell of the entrance with the popcorn & cotton candy. Got a lot of my He-Man action figures there as a kid. Remember when my local Hills turned into Ames. I thought it was alright, but nothing could beat my fond memories of Hills.
thanks for sharing your memories
The best hotdogs on the planet. That snack bar was the bomb. Popcorn, cotton candy, peanuts, and those ice cold Icee drinks.
I remember the one in the east hills location
Yeah hills and Ames did overlap each other in my area i don't remember going to hills because i was born in 1997 hills was basically out of business I remember when it was Ames. I requested this video because I two old hills cups from their in store cafe they were known for. Again thanks Eric
thank you for your suggestion.
@@EricCProductions76 your welcome
@Sean Michael thanks for sharing that memory. Thanks for watching.
I loved hills!
Awesome, thanks for watching
have you ever heard of Westons shoppers or shopping city they were bought out by Jamesway . they were only in the northeast .
I haven't heard of either of them but I will look into them. Thanks for watching.
@@EricCProductions76 The home office was in NY city and had stores in PA and upstate NY .I think the owners last name was Simon and had about 17 stores . They sold everything you could think of .
I slightly remember Hills, but I was 3-4 when they shutdown. I do know that the one near me turned into an Ames, and I do have more of a memory of that.
thanks for watching
The narrator read the Hill's Wikipedia page throughout the video.
If that was the case, why did you look it up when you could have just watched the video?
@@EricCProductions76 I watched your video and wanted to learn more about Hill's so I went to their Wikipedia page. That's when I noticed it served as the script.
thank you for watching and commenting my friend@@aafris
@@EricCProductions76 Your video was well done and I enjoyed it.
Bought by Ames.
thanks for watching
Hills was huge in my hometown. Two within five minutes. Bought most of my Ninja Turtles there
thanks for sharing your memories
Does anyone remember/know where they got those extra big hotdogs? I used to get them once in a while, and now wish I still could.
It was Hills. They had a regular size hot dog & a jumbo. They also had amazing 🍿
I remember getting the Resident Evil 3 book there
Goldberger’s idiot son and his sidekick destroyed the whole chain.
dint hills and ames originate in Canada, or operate in Canada , thats why they have the red colour scheme. isnt it ?
you might be right
@@EricCProductions76 i checked it out , not in Canada , i dont know why i thought that , hills or ames was never in Canada
I loved Hills,
thanks for watching
Man I liked hills when I was young in chillicothe ohio would later become ames it's now a hobby lobby and big lots
thanks for sharing that nice memory
New store for me...
I have been alot of requests for companies that existed on the East Coast. Not much here.
Loved the Nintendo ad. If I had any coding skills, I'd make that game! LOL.
Ames messed everything up🤬
🎶Hills is where the toys are 🎶 Hill's, Gold Circle, K Mart, Grant's, Murphy's, Zayre, Gee Bee's. We had all these discount stores in Pittsburgh, PA. That's not counting "higher" stores like Sear's, Ward's, Penney's and hirgher up to Gimbles, Kaufmann's or Horne's. You could actually SHOP for price. Now it's either it's Target and Wal-Mart. with Penney's and Macy's just hanging on. I had heard of Target when I was a kid in the 1970's, we didn't have any locally. And I never even heard of Wal-Mart until the 1990s. Of what's left, Target IS superior to Wal-Mart.
Everything AMES touched it ruined. AMES was always a wannabe. Awful product lines, understaffed and always low on merchandise. So sad AMES took away so many good stores like Hill's....
Macy's did that to the department stores
@@EricCProductions76 Exactly!! I thought of that too.
Ames was terrible, they came in and utterly ruined what Hills had been. Cheap merchandise, ratty stores, and poor product selection and then poof they were gone.
I'm not going to hit anything
You'll get to Scolari's food and drugs and Osco drugs plus Chuck E Cheese's Showbiz Pizza video 📲👍✨😇
soon...
Well hill's never bothered to actually examine how much debt that gold circle was really in!
At that time Walmart was not necessarily a major factor as a competitor and given that Walmart really didn't sell anything that hills didn't, furthermore hills had prices that were still actually better at the time!
Not to mention hills actually still had a real toy department compared to Walmart and then Kmart really just didn't stock a bunch...
When I was growing up the places to go to shop for toys was hills department store and Meijer those are the only two with the toy section worth a shit!
The biggest problem for hills was they had a bad habit of issuing store credit cards to those who already owed the money and so after their first bankruptcy in the late '80s early 90s the dumbasses went right back to doing that that's what screwed them over coupled with they never could get rid of the debt and or the problems that the debt caused from the gold circle deal!
Then you had a situation to where the executives at the top of the company was going completely nuts and was just blowing money left and right it's amazing they were not investigated for say criminal activity mystery still shrouds that one to this day!
Hills executives put hills out of business it was nothing to do with Kmart nor Walmart they forced themselves to be sold to Ames because they were morons!
See I can remember through the 90s there was lots of regional department stores that went under and much the same fashion but the news stories of the day was all about how Walmart put them out of business blah blah blah Walmart to blame blah blah blah and then Kmart maybe....
99.9% of these cases you will find that it's actually the fault of the said company that went under bad management was the problem then and by the way it's still a problem today!
Apartment Ohio was the odd department store headquarters of America back then.