Store chains you miss that went out of business?

IAmTheCheapestGamer

IAmTheCheapestGamer

Banned
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've seen alot of stores come and go in my 33 years on Earth. I remember going to many of them as a kid, some converted over to other chains, others simply faded into retail history.

Here's some of the ones I miss and WHY:

Woolworth's-They used to have a nice cafeteria/food counter at all of our local ones, where food was cheap AND good.

Zayre-I remember going to this chain and just staying up front by the arcade machines they had and playing on them while my family shopped. They seemed to have all of the latest games there.

Hill's- Hill's was decent for cheap prices on clothes and decent off-brand sneakers.

So, which store chains that have gone under do you miss? And for what reasons? The only 'good' thing to come of these stores going under were the closing sales, where I got some games and other items cheap.

Here's a wikipedia list of defunct store chains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_store_chains_of_the_United_States

And here's a page you can go to which lists them with links and info(usually): http://www.deadmalls.com/

Click on the Old Store List link on deadmalls.com to get a list of chains which have disappeared.

I wasn't sure if this was where to post this. Mods, please move if in the wrong place.
 
I remember Funcoland before they got gobbled up by Gamestop. They were the ones who had the Game Informer subscriptions with their discount card originally, I think. One thing I was surprised by, when I first read that deadmalls page, is that Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise still have their websites going. They're not 100% out of business.
 
[quote name='Proto Man']Funcoland was awesome before it turned into Gamestop. I miss the paper sales price lists :([/quote]

Same here. I loved Funcoland, then one day they were gone and in its place was a gamestop.
 
EB Games was pretty decent before it got gobbled up by GameStop. The morning update on the website ruled. Come to think of it, I find myself missing pretty much everything that GameStop consumed. So yeah, fuck GameStop.
 
I always liked Best (or Best Products) it had a nice clearance section and a lot of stuff to browse.


I miss Media Play as well, but not that much. I don't really miss the prices, I just liked having an all-purpose entertainment store.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']I remember Funcoland before they got gobbled up by Gamestop. They were the ones who had the Game Informer subscriptions with their discount card originally, I think. One thing I was surprised by, when I first read that deadmalls page, is that Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise still have their websites going. They're not 100% out of business.[/QUOTE]

service merchandise was awesome, i remember all the bullcrap times i had there. Like they had displays that made them look like them had items in stock, then when you went get it and lugged the display box up they would look for a half hour to tell you the item was not in stock. All those n64 memories.
 
Electronics Boutique, way back in the day.

I remember the one in the mall by me would have some games marked 19.99, and the same game would sometimes have a .99 cent tag on other boxes. The clerks
always gave me the .99 price without even asking :).
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Funcoland, Babbage's, CHILD WORLD (well, I don't miss this now, but I was devastated as a kid. They kicked TRU's ass), and Filene's.[/quote]

Holy, CHILD WORLD! Nice man, good recall on that one. I remember buying Ghostbuster figures there (well my Mom bought em...)
 
Only two places around here went out of business (soon to be 3 with CompUSA closing soon)... MediaPlay and SamGoody/Suncoast. I don't miss any of them except for Suncoast who had a lot of cool/weird movies/anime/games.

We did have a Funcoland and I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who liked their trade in price papers.:lol:

There was also this mom and pop used game store that only lasted for a year or so... it was at the old mall in our town which was dying so I didn't know about it until a few months before it closed. That made me sad because there were some great games there even if the prices were barely any better than GS/EB- the lady working there was awesome. She was like a 35 year old and was a real gamer (she actually played real games... not online Yahoo Bejeweled or Uno). Really made me sad that she lost her business.

*sigh* Those were the days.
 
Another vote for Best

I was devistated when Rhino video games went under

I remember Woolworths too... last one her closed down a decade ago... cant compete with WalMart
 
Chi-Chi's. I don't know if it is completely gone, but there aren't any around Green Bay anymore. I loved their salsa and maragritas.
 
Back home in Ohio, there was a Record Exchange that specialized in selling used DVD's, CD's, and games. Either no one in Medina bought games, or this store had insane luck on having a great selection, because nearly every time I'd go in, there'd be a ton of great games on the cheap. I remember specifically picking up Final Fantasy VII for $7 used, and getting a used Dreamcast for $15. I think the store is still there for anyone near the area, but they've changed their name to "The Exchange".

Lionel's Kiddie City was awesome back in the day too. I remember getting a Sega IR7000 there when I was like 11, and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. I used to get TONS of wrestling figures there until they went out of business.
 
I miss the local Sam Goody, though I heard they were bought out by someone else and still exist in some places. I use to buy all my CDs (huh?) there.

Oh, and zman73, good to see another R&F fan.
 
Oh man, Lionel Kiddy City was epic. We used to live near one when I was a pup and we went there daily. Now the one we went to is a furniture store.
 
Brand Names (the brand names catalog was big around here, and was THE catalog to look at when you were a kid)

Media Play, great for browsing and getting some air conditioning on a hot summer day, they also had VERY good sales when they put merchandise on sale, you could score some very cheap stuff. Cheap authentic anime merchandise, now there is no where to get anime merchandise. Great for those 4-5$ T-shirts.

We're Entertainment - this is an odd one, but its where I got most of my Atari and video game shirts (that I am still wearing btw), they were kinda like the warner bros store but they closed down very quickly. Again they had great sales as well.

I LOVED EB games when it was EB Games and the staff was nice and they were totally friendly, plus I knew half the staff. I also liked it when they carried older console stuff, because the stuff was so cheap. The morning updates were a riot even though I never woke up for them heh, I used to grab the leftovers though. .74 dreamcast memory cards ruled!

I also remember Gold Circle and Child World. I was kinda miffed as a kid that we never had a TRU, and by the time we got a TRU I was too old to really appreciate it. As a kid I used to go to Child World and ride the battery operated cars around all the time. I don't really remember much of Gold Circle here other than it was the place my mom bought tons of clothes for me as a kid when they were closing.

Hill's - I can still hear their slogan - "Hill's is where the toys are"! Had (now vintage) kiddie rides on the inside of the store in the cafeteria so you could ride them even in the winter, the cafeteria was separate from the store in the front of the store but closed off from the merchandise, weird setup. There was always at least 3-4 rides so I was always happy to go there as a kid.

Super Duper - This is the grocery store that had a mario bros arcade game in the front of the store (probably a couple other arcades), a chicken egg machine, and a merry go round ride outside of it so needless to say I was always happy to go there, especially since the egg machine used to give lots of prizes before it actually took your quarter.

Camelot Music - great place to grab great cassettes off the 5$ and under rack.

Jenss - OMG I remember the closing of this store, can we say SHOES EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere, it was insane the amount of shoes this store had, just piles and piles and piles...

For what its worth I also remember the HUGE McDonalds Playground that was at a mall when I was a kid, I am pretty sure it was a McDonalds inside of the Boulevard Mall in Amherst NY. Keep in mind this was during the 80s. They had a huge slide, this GIANT sit & spin thing, bouncy animals and a FREE coin op merry go round where you would just push a button. There was probably other stuff too but the best part was this stuff was all FREE if you ate there. Needless to say my mom purchased food there for me but I NEVER EVEN ATE IT since I was too busy begging and begging to go to the playground. A Burger King closer to where I live had a pretty kickass playground with a twisty slide just like on Double Dare and I used to go there and pretend I was on double dare all the time. Oh how tempting it was to dump the ice cream they sold down the slide and pretend it was the actual Sundae Slide from Double Dare.
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']I miss Sam Goody. I use to buy all my CDs (huh?) there.

Oh, and zman73, good to see another R&F fan.[/quote]Sam Goody's still around, just extremely overpriced, cluttered, and dirty.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']I remember Funcoland before they got gobbled up by Gamestop. They were the ones who had the Game Informer subscriptions with their discount card originally, I think. One thing I was surprised by, when I first read that deadmalls page, is that Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise still have their websites going. They're not 100% out of business.[/quote]The Service Merchandise brand name has been bought and sold more times than a $2 whore since they closed. So yes, the store you loved is long gone. IIRC, the original owner purchased the brand name and domian name after his family's store went under to try to resurrect the site. The website that was running with the Service Merchandise brand closed months (years?) ago and now there's a shitty "99 cent store" at www.servicemerchandise.com

I put in my vote for Hills, Ames, and Funcoland
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']Yeah, that popped into my mind after I posted. I see that Trans World bought them and plan to conver the remaning Sam Goody stores into FYEs.[/quote]

I remember at my local mall, there was a place called Mothers Records. After that it became The Wall. They were overpriced as hell, but they had a replacement program. Even if you broke the cd in half yourself, and only had even a quarter of it. They would replace it as long as it had their sticker on it. TWEC went and bought them out, now that spot is shoe store
 
I need to also pay homage to Phar-Mor, they were a pharmacy type store here, no video rental service or anything like that, basically a larger version of a Walgreens or Rite-aid, but when they were closing I got these Strawberry shortcake stickers that they had that were leftover from the 1980's and they were selling them for 25 cents a pack. I still liked SS when they had these so I grabbed one of each of what they had then typical as a kid I stashed them in a drawer and forgot about them. I know the stickers came from phar-mor because thats the name that was on the tag of the stickers, 4 for 1$. The stickers turned out to be from 1984 and I was born in 1981 so there is no way I got them when I was 3 years old. I am figuring I purchased these somewhere in the early or middle 90s which is when I started collecting stuff. This just proves how long some drug store type stores hold onto merchandise..

I found them recently and put them on ebay this holiday season and the whole lot of 10 packages of unopened stickers netted me $165 on ebay.
 
I miss Montgomery Ward because they had the best Master System and NES kiosks ever. They were on big TVs suspended from the ceiling, and you always felt so small before the mighty, uhh, game kiosks. By the time the chain went out, though, the one here didn't even have games at all.

I only got to visit a Rhino once and they were offering a B2G1 on Playstation 1 games. Legend of Mana was in their pile, for I think $20, and I passed. To this day, one of the dumbest moves I've ever made. I can't remember if anything else was in there, other than maybe Vagrant Story, but still: I haven't even seen a copy of Legend of Mana in the wild since then.

I think Phar-Mor's the one I miss most. I had one close to my house that had insane good prices on games and game rentals and an incredible selection. I must have rented over 200 games there, between the NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear.
 
CompUSA. They had awesome clearance deals on games. $10.99 for God of War when it was still MSRP $49.99, PSP games for $7.49 - $12.49 when they were MSRP $39.99, lots of clearance XBox, PS2 and Gamecube games etc.

I see Best and Bradlees mentioned. I don't remember Best that much but I remember Bradlees being a ripoff on games sometimes charging $10 over MSRP. Same with Clover (who I think was bought by Kohl's).

I miss Kiddie City. I don't think they had the greatest deals but they were always fun to go to as a kid. My local Kiddie City (closed in 1991 I think) turned into a Toys R Us so it isn't a total loss.
 
[quote name='SaraAB']I need to also pay homage to Phar-Mor, they were a pharmacy type store here, no video rental service or anything like that, basically a larger version of a Walgreens or Rite-aid, but when they were closing I got these Strawberry shortcake stickers that they had that were leftover from the 1980's and they were selling them for 25 cents a pack. I still liked SS when they had these so I grabbed one of each of what they had then typical as a kid I stashed them in a drawer and forgot about them. I know the stickers came from phar-mor because thats the name that was on the tag of the stickers, 4 for 1$. The stickers turned out to be from 1984 and I was born in 1981 so there is no way I got them when I was 3 years old. I am figuring I purchased these somewhere in the early or middle 90s which is when I started collecting stuff. This just proves how long some drug store type stores hold onto merchandise..

I found them recently and put them on ebay this holiday season and the whole lot of 10 packages of unopened stickers netted me $165 on ebay.[/quote]

Some Phar-Mors did have video rental. Mine did. I remember as a kid going there every Sat and renting 3 NES games for like 3 or 4 bucks. Still remember 2 of the first 3 games I ever rented too; Adventures of Lolo and Top Gun.
 
Dude, Kids R Us was my ultimate nightmare. When I was kid, there was a shopping strip mall about a mile from my house. When you entered a partiucular way, you had to turn left to go to the TRU and right to go to the Kids R Us. Everytime, I thought we were going to shop for toys, and instead, we went to the damn clothes store!
 
[quote name='SaraAB']

Media Play, great for browsing and getting some air conditioning on a hot summer day, they also had VERY good sales when they put merchandise on sale, you could score some very cheap stuff. Cheap authentic anime merchandise, now there is no where to get anime merchandise. Great for those 4-5$ T-shirts.
[/quote]

I also miss Media Play for these reasons. Plus, the also had a great repeat-customer appreciation program with their promo cards. I would always hit them up during their double/tripple point weeks, and they always sent out some great coupons like BOGO and half-offs and stuff.


[quote name='SaraAB']

I LOVED EB games when it was EB Games and the staff was nice and they were totally friendly, plus I knew half the staff. I also liked it when they carried older console stuff, because the stuff was so cheap. The morning updates were a riot even though I never woke up for them heh, I used to grab the leftovers though. .74 dreamcast memory cards ruled!
[/quote]

I miss those EB morning website updates too. Good times.
 
Media Play because with their rewards card, with the amount we (me family, mainly I....) spent there, we'd end up having enough to buy multiple anime box sets each year in coupons. I also miss Babbages, mainly because the manager of ours gave me free stuff, tons of it. I'd just walk in and the employees would practically toss preorder bonuses at me. Gamestop employees act like its fucking kryptonite to give out anything. Babbages also let me take all of their cardboard standees/etc.
 
Gamestop employees act like its fucking kryptonite to give out anything.
Click to expand...

Pleae. They often act like it is above and beyond the call of duty to simply give you things you are entitled to...like service. I'm not going to go off on a rant about how I constantly have to wait a few minutes when the story is empty, because the double-digit moron is playing Guitar Hero.
 
[quote name='ZForce915']Chi-Chi's. I don't know if it is completely gone, but there aren't any around Green Bay anymore. I loved their salsa and maragritas.[/QUOTE]

I know Ive still seen them... out of state, but around
 
The only thing that comes to mind is Rax, which was a Arby's-like restaurant back in the day. Back in the early-mid 90's it was the local after school hangout, and it's where my wife and I had our first date...I cried when it closed down in my town.
 
I miss the Toys R Us of my youth, back when they were an actual toy store instead of a children's clothing/nursery station that just happens to carry some toys. I swear the toy department at Wal-Mart is now bigger than the toy department in Toys R Us. It's a shame.

I also miss CompUSA and MediaPlay although not to a huge extent. MediaPlay was five minutes away from my college (in traffic) so it was very convenient even if their pricing was a bit on the high side. CompUSA also carried a lot more PC supplies than anything else nearby, although I now pretty much go exclusively through NewEgg.
 
[quote name='HumanSnatcher']Some Phar-Mors did have video rental. Mine did. I remember as a kid going there every Sat and renting 3 NES games for like 3 or 4 bucks. Still remember 2 of the first 3 games I ever rented too; Adventures of Lolo and Top Gun.[/quote]
The first game I rented at mine was NARC. I returned it the next day. =P

I rented their Solstice cart so many times they might as well have given it to me. And I still never beat the fucking game.
 
I miss Phar-Mor (2 dollar Rubbermaid plastic bins), woolworth's (greatest food counter ever downtown Chicago and Ford City), Montgomery Ward ( got N64, goldeneye and beeper for $65 dollars new), Service Merchandise and Goldblatts.
 
[quote name='briansraregames']The only thing that comes to mind is Rax, which was a Arby's-like restaurant back in the day. Back in the early-mid 90's it was the local after school hangout, and it's where my wife and I had our first date...I cried when it closed down in my town.[/quote]

I loved Rax growing up, I must have had about 75 of those goofy plastic alligator "cups" you got with the Kid's meal :)
 
What I miss is

Aladdins Castle. 6 copies of street fighter II. Around 200 games per location It was crazy. Now in a town of 300,000 people there is like 2 or 3 places you might call an arcade and they only have about 25 games each. sniff.

Hot and Now. Some of the best burgers at a fair price.



I wonder what happened to these 2. I suspect Aladdins just disapeared cause home consoles pretty much took over but hot and now¿?
 
Babbages and Funcoland. Montgomery Ward, Service Merchandise (my first big retail job!). KB-Toys, but recently my local KB got pulled from the brink of closure. Roughly 80% of the store was cleaned out then they say they are actually staying opened and that everything is back to normal prices :( Wow. The nearest Aladdins Castle is about 30 minutes away. Last time I checked they didn't have much in there.
 
Rhino, no contest. First thing I thought of when I read the topic. Rhino was by far the best gaming store in the area, both in terms of friendly staff as well as the best deals by far. Sure, they were a little slow getting in new releases at times...but that was a small price to pay for the unequaled trade-in values, great sales, friendly no-pressure staff, etc.

RIP Rhino.
 
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