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Stores you miss walking around in, or, the retail nostalgia thread

bucyou

bucyou

Member
Circuit City - I remember being no more than 8 or 9 (early 90s) and going there with my parents to buy a packard bell computer powered by a blazing fast 33mhz pentium processor for the bargain price of $1100. Also went back when I was around 16 to get ripped off on some subwoofers for my first truck. Bestbuy kinda scratched my circuit city itch but Im still salty about GCU (RIP)

Blockbuster - Nothing beat the summer game pass, or whatever it was called, it was a monthly fee where you can rent unlimited games.

Montgomery Ward- Big ass department store full of overpriced stuff, might still be around but im too lazy to google it.


What about you, GAF?
 
Super Mario

Super Mario

Banned
Blockbuster - That was a fun night going through the new release wall, and finding something. It's tough to explain, but it's not the same anymore with a digital service

Toys R Us - This one is just recently gone, and walking in there would transport you back to being a kid. A selection of fun you just couldn't find anywhere else. What a shame

Funcoland - So much better than Gamestop. Bunch of nostalgia. So much FUN. Then it became a used game dealership shack.
 
The Snake

The Snake

Member
Agree with Blockbuster and Toys R Us.

I'm a big fan of the classic movie scene, and nothing beats scanning the aisles for obscure horror shit you've never seen or heard of. A lot of great, obscure horror and anime I love, I found on the shelf of a rental store. I went on to work in a rental place as a teenager and that was kinda neat too. I'll feel old describing these to people in the future but they were honestly a unique experience that you won't get again. I mean, Netflix has all manner of obscure stuff to discover, but it's just not the same vibe.

I miss TUR because it was such a great way to kill time with friends. Saturday night before the drinking starts--whaddaya wanna do? Screw it, let's drop in at Toys R Us and look at toys.

The third is pretty obscure; growing up in Flint there was a store called "Seventh Heaven" (shitty picture here) that was a big year-round Halloween shop in a basement. Such a cool place.

I dunno if I can think of any others I miss. Most of their equivalents are still around.
 
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logicslayer

logicslayer

Member
Radio Shack - I used to do a lot of small electronic repairs when I was younger. I knew Radio Shack died when they started selling cell phones and employees didn't know what a 9V Battery Snap was.

Pinellas Square Mall - A local mall that I spent many of my younger years walking around in. They killed it and replaced it with the new shitty outdoor malls. It itself has gone through several changes as well. More info for the curious.
 
haxan7

haxan7

Banned
Suncoast was always cool / memorable to go in when I was a kid.

Some quick googling shows me there are still some of them left, but they'll never be as cool as they were in the late 80s/early 90s.
 
The Snake

The Snake

Member
logicslayer said:
Radio Shack - I used to do a lot of small electronic repairs when I was younger. I knew Radio Shack died when they started selling cell phones and employees didn't know what a 9V Battery Snap was.

Pinellas Square Mall - A local mall that I spent many of my younger years walking around in. They killed it and replaced it with the new shitty outdoor malls. It itself has gone through several changes as well. More info for the curious.
Click to expand...

Ah hell. Yeah. A couple weeks ago I needed some resistors for some emergency lite repairs and I didn't have a clue where to get them without going online.
 
Space Runaway

Space Runaway

Member
90's Electronics Boutique and Babbages. They were always stuffed to shit with videogames, especially that giant wall of PC games. Purchasing games or speaking with an employee wasn't some sick nightmare either.

Video rental stores in general. Was a lot of fun walking around, seeing what they had, hoping the movie or game you wanted was in. Especially awesome as a kid during the VHS era as those horror, sci-fi and fantasy sections would be loaded with awful movies that had amazing covers which were usually better than the movie.

Really any toy store when you were a kid as well.
 
logicslayer

logicslayer

Member
Damn, I totally forgot. We used to have a Tiger Direct right down the road from here. I used to love walking through there. Looking at all of the upgrades and toys I couldn't afford.
 
bucyou

bucyou

Member
logicslayer said:
Damn, I totally forgot. We used to have a Tiger Direct right down the road from here. I used to love walking through there. Looking at all of the upgrades and toys I couldn't afford.
Click to expand...

fuck yeah, forgot about tiger direct. The one we had in clearwater off us19 shut down :messenger_downcast_sweat:
 
Guileless

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I miss going to the mall with my friends to pick up new release games at Electronics Boutique and reading the instruction manual (remember those?) at the food court. Those were good times.

I always went to Blockbuster on my Friday lunch break in the mid-aughts to browse and get a movie.
 
The Snake

The Snake

Member
Off Duty Ninja said:
There were times I would wander Hollywood Video for an hour or more just looking for the perfect movie. It isn't the same scrolling through all the crap on Netflix...
Click to expand...

Even though it wasn't a great job, sometimes I miss being in Hollywood Video. We had such crazy stuff you'd never heard of. I really regret not buying a ton of VHS tapes when we sold them all for 50 cents to make room for Blu Ray. Back then I thought of them as garbage, and here in 2019 I'm collecting them as many of them have become quite rare.
 
Nymphae

Nymphae

Banned
The Jumbo Video chain in Canada (not sure if it's anywhere else) was fantastic as a kid, my parents would take me and I loved looking at all the movie and game covers I could rent. The best thing though was that they had free popcorn at their locations.

Surprisingly, this place still exists where I live, and has now become one of the better used game retailers around.
 
brap

brap

Banned
Wards, Ventures, Service Merchandise, Value City before it just became a furniture store, Coconuts.
 
The Snake

The Snake

Member
Nymphae said:
The Jumbo Video chain in Canada (not sure if it's anywhere else) was fantastic as a kid, my parents would take me and I loved looking at all the movie and game covers I could rent. The best thing though was that they had free popcorn at their locations.

Surprisingly, this place still exists where I live, and has now become one of the better used game retailers around.
Click to expand...

We have a number of Family Videos around here that appear to be thriving against all odds (so much so that I've seen articles investigating the phenomenon). They're alright but nothing special, unfortunately. Pretty good if you want to buy some not-so-great PS3 games with sun-bleached cover art.
 
#Phonepunk#

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Software Etc.

Babbages (i remember seeing Mega Man 3 for the first time in the window of this store)

retail arcades

video rental stores (just walking looking at the covers was an experience)

yeah for a while i used to live at the mall.
 
EverydayBeast

EverydayBeast

ChatGPT 0.1
If they rebooted most of these places I'd be there day 1

Hollywood Video was great...

images
 
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jshackles

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Was Southern-US regional, but Hastings Bookstore. They had everything - movies to rent and buy (much better selection than blockbuster!), music, books, and video games (including big-box PC titles!). They were also ahead of their time as they're the first store I can recall ever visiting that had Thinkgeek-like nerd memorabilia like action figures, puzzles that had movie / video game characters, key-chains, stickers, and more. They also sold Magic: The Gathering and other CCG cards and comic books. Truly a "one-stop-shop" for everything I loved growing up.

I moved out of the South about a decade back. Sadly, the corporation shut down in 2016 from the looks of things.
 
I

infinitys_7th

Member
jshackles said:
Was Southern-US regional, but Hastings Bookstore. They had everything - movies to rent and buy (much better selection than blockbuster!), music, books, and video games (including big-box PC titles!). They were also ahead of their time as they're the first store I can recall ever visiting that had Thinkgeek-like nerd memorabilia like action figures, puzzles that had movie / video game characters, key-chains, stickers, and more. They also sold Magic: The Gathering and other CCG cards and comic books. Truly a "one-stop-shop" for everything I loved growing up.

I moved out of the South about a decade back. Sadly, the corporation shut down in 2016 from the looks of things.
Click to expand...

I think Hastings still function online. I've seen GoHastings sell stuff on Amazon.
 
jshackles

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
infinitys_7th said:
I think Hastings still function online. I've seen GoHastings sell stuff on Amazon.
Click to expand...
I think they've been trying to squeeze every ounce of profit out of their left over inventory.

Their eBay store still has 8 items up for sale. So random.

920x920.jpg
 
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Mr Nash

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
The stores I'm nostalgic for aren't big corporate chain stores. They're smaller local / regional businesses from my area in the 1980s. One was a shop called Toys n' Wheels where I remember regularly going with my parents to check out Lego sets and Transformers. Next, there was Crack a Joke, which was a practical joke item shop up front with whoppie cushions, masks and the like, and an arcade in the back. Used to go there and place the first couple of Double Dragons, Side Arms, Quartet, and other arcade games of the 80s. Finally, there was Encore Video, which was a game rental place that had a ton of NES, SMS, Genesis, SNES, and TG16 games. I remember renting Veigues Tactical Gladiator there in the early 90s.

Thinking about this, it does bother me that retail is so homogenized with the same corporate chains everywhere and hardly anything in terms of local business. It's super boring now, and I never want to go to malls anymore. I'm guessing that I'm not alone either given the decline in retail over the last decade or so. Brick and mortar hasn't done a good job of competing against the internet.
 
Red Crayon Aristocrat

Red Crayon Aristocrat

Member
Media Play and it's anime section was literally heaven on earth for teenage me, I've still never seen so many anime dvds in one place and they would throw this special "anime nights" events that we're like a mini convention.

Since it was in a town an hour away from me and this was pre-social media explosion I was not able to keep in touch with the people I met there, but those are still cherished memories.

It was in general an impressive as hell store, a huge store dedicated to just media, books, movies, games, music, even musical instruments, I remember buying Psychonuats and Destroy All Humans there.

I was completely devastated when it closed at the start of 2006, that's still a very painful memory to be honest.
 
Chairman Tickles

Chairman Tickles

Banned
We used to have FX Games and Games Wizards in Australia. Basically 100% oriented video game outlets. Nothing like EB, GameStop etc. They only sold pc/console games and consoles. No merchandising or toy bullshit. You could go in and request to try a game (any game). They had all console and PC stalls set up. They install/insert game for you and you play.

When I was strapped for cash as a child I'd go there and finish multiple Snes games. They didn't mind. Groups of kids would show up and the store clerks would even help them with cheats and getting past levels. It was the golden age of social gaming.
 
Vlaphor

Vlaphor

Member
I just love old videos like this



Major nostalgia kick.

I also loved the local Hollywood video, not just for their games, but for the fact that they put anime alongside all of the other animated movies and didn't age gate any of it. As a 13yr old, I had no problems renting Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, and Fatal Fury The Motion Picture.
 
StreetsofBeige

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
HMV.

There used to be a handful of leftover HMVs in Toronto, but I think they are all gone now??? But somehow SUnrise Records came back from the dead and took over some locations.

HMV was always a ripoff for prices, but was always the best for browsing to see what albums were out. This was before the internet, so it was a matter of looking at their new release list on a marker board, randomly checking racks and seeing there's a new release or a Greatest Hits album you never knew came out.

Best selection by far. Too bad their prices were stupidly high.

The second Future Shop, Best Buy and Walmart got on board with selling CDs/DVDs in force, it was coffin time. And internet sales were the final nail.

Then they resorted to selling music tshirts, board games, Aerosmith coffee mugs and junk like that................. which is exactly what EB Games has been trending to for the past 6-7 years.
 
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#Phonepunk#

#Phonepunk#

Banned
6z5a4EM.jpg


my fave was Software Etc. this store was where i bought Monkey Island for getting all A's in school. i got it based on the box art and yeah it ended up changing my life. i got a bunch of other games, mostly DOS, from here.

always remember it being just packed full of posters and displays and stuff all over the place. they had a little CRT playing Shadow of the Beast on an Amiga (we could only afford PC games, we didnt have any consoles other than Atari 7800) and they gave out free magazines. that horrible Atarian magazine was given out here lol. they didn't sell Atari games tho, for those you went to second hand stores.

there was an arcade in the same mall for a while. there were like 3 or 4 in the area. those were the days.
 
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Silentium

Silentium

Member
Badenergytroll said:
8JNP7H1AAG856M74-pad825x396xx444x.img


In 1995 when i was a little kid i was obsessed with Batman. The summer of Batman Forever i made my parents take me to this store every weekend! It was literally turned into a Batman Store.
Click to expand...
Damn you got me, so much nostalgia.

Borders,_Westfield_SF_Centre_2.JPG


Used to love browsing through those large multistory Borders stores.
 
lil puff

lil puff

Member
logicslayer said:
Radio Shack - I used to do a lot of small electronic repairs when I was younger. I knew Radio Shack died when they started selling cell phones and employees didn't know what a 9V Battery Snap was.

Pinellas Square Mall - A local mall that I spent many of my younger years walking around in. They killed it and replaced it with the new shitty outdoor malls. It itself has gone through several changes as well. More info for the curious.
Click to expand...
Radio Shack. I miss that.

I like dollar stores.

Goodwill.

Comp USA was awesome, they had everything.
 
Threeshotgamer

Threeshotgamer

Banned
Super small local thing but I miss a bookstore that was aptly named The Bookstore that was ran by this old hippy who loved sci-fi and fantasy. He sold everything and would order anything he didn't have in stock. Even had a display case for dice sets and TTRPG had a small section. I think I bought my entire collection of Animorphs and Redwall books there and probably most of my Drizzt novels as well growing up.
 
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