Which companies or businesses do you miss that have been shut down?

My husband really misses Bally's Total Fitness. He had a grandfathered yearly membership but he new company 'Lifetime Fitness' did not want to honor it. They reluctantly did but now he is thinking of not renewing because the gym is so far he doubts he will ever drive all the way there to work. I really liked the idea of him having something for when we come home on vacations. But as of now, he is burning up his calories cutting grass so I guess I shouldn't be too worried about it.

 

I think there are a number of businesses that are going to start going out of business as the world becomes more advanced (electronically). Like is there even a Blockbuster anymore? I use to like going to the video store but now there is Red box which in a way seems easier. In another 10 years are there going to be movie theaters anymore? With being able to stream everything online.

 

Though back in the 90s, I preferred Borders over B&N, I would hate it if the latter were to go away because that would just leave indie stores that are few and far between. I miss Borders though I got hustled by their staff to join their rewards program weeks before they officially closed.
A weird store that I miss is Gemco. They were bigger than K-Mart and sold groceries sort of like Target but not quite as visually appealing. For a small membership fee, anyone could buy designer jeans for slightly less than the mall as well as a quart of milk. I believe they also sold glasses and electronics.

 

I miss a Dunkin Donuts in my area. I know they are not closed nationally, however, they went bye-bye in my town. Oh well, I guess it is better for me! Darn.

 

I really miss Gamecrazy sometimes because of the fact that you can sell your games to them for a nice profit. Another one I miss a lot is Say Cheese. They used to have cheap but tasty pizza and it was a buffet type place. The only other pizza buffet in existence is Ci Ci's and they're gross. I also miss Village Lanes. We don't have duck pins in our area anymore. I miss the farm/tractor store but only because they had baby chickens you could pick up and their last few years in business they didn't have those anymore.
I agree about Borders somewhat. I kinda miss them because I would buy board games and exclusive books but there are other stores where you can find those and Barnes and Noble is ok.

 

The businesses I miss the most are restaurants because a lot of them come and go so quickly that I really don't get that much time to frequent them enough to enjoy them. We used to have a good amount of A&W and Jack in the Box restaurants here a few years ago, for example, but they only lasted about 2 years and now it's almost as if they never existed at all. We also had a few Carl's jr. branches but those closed down after a few years as well. I also miss renting DVDs from a store since it's way more fun to physically browse the packages than just looking at them digitally, although, I won't argue that it's way more convenient and practical.

 

I miss Fashion Bug's retail stores! They were awesome. I could go shopping with my teenage daughter, and both of us would come away with some cute clothes. They had regular women's and plus sizes and juniors, all in the same building, plus some jewelry and lingerie, and the prices were reasonable and the styles were terrific. I was so sad when they closed.

At least there was still Old Navy...until they stopped carrying plus sizes in most of their retail stores. That wasn't as big a loss to me though. Their prices were low and their styles were cute, but the quality of their clothing was really low. Alas!

 

I miss the Sega video game arcades, Merry Go Round clothing store and Contempo Casuals clothing store. I also miss the Woolworth's chain of discount stores.
Woolworth's is where I used to buy all my cheap household items when I was young, and I used to eat at the diner inside Woolworth's with my grandma.

 

I miss Woolworth's too, so many people tried to save it in the UK. It was the place to get sweets and household items. There was always a photo booth there for passport photos and I knew you could always go in and find a bargain. As a teenager, it was the place to go and buy the Top 40 and records as they would always have the latest singles.
I still have quite a few things from there with the price tags and kept the bag as a memento, who knows it maybe worth something one day!

 

I miss Meier and Frank department store. They were taken over by Macy's, but it's not the same. Macy's is such a huge chain of stores, I don't think they understand the regional cultures very well. I have never been impressed with their selections since the takeover. It's really sad that we lost Meier and Frank too, because that was like the oldest department store in the state, they were started before we even had statehood I think.

 

Oh my goodness, someone would have to bring up Woolworth's, lol. The ones in our malls somehow managed to stay in business through the mid 1990's before finally shutting down. But the last few years in particular that they were open, it was literally like a ghost town in their stores, which was sad because they were initially one of the flagship stores in the malls. There would only be like one or two employees in the entire store, and what was left of the merchandise had been sitting there for years collecting dust. Some sections of the store they had just shut down all together and left them empty, such as the shoe dept, or the pet supplies section. They used to be much livelier, with a concession stand as soon as you walked in, selling nachos, and popcorn and hot dogs and other stuff - which smelled incredible. At some point in the late 80s I guess it became unfashionable to shop there. There seemed to be more of an emphasis on more expensive brand name clothing, so most people I know wouldn't be caught dead wearing clothes from Woolworths or K-Mart, which perhaps kind of tipped off their demise. Eventually they became kind of the "slum" store of the mall.

One of the weirder stores that comes to mind would be Jewel Mart. They had a different store format, where there was only one of each item on the shelf, as a display item. When you walked in, you took a clip board with you, and jotted down the item numbers of all the merchandise you wanted to purchase. Then when it came time to check out, you handed the cashier your order and a warehouse person went and retrieved the items for you. It just felt so weird walking around there and seeing only one of everything. Plus it was kind of annoying waiting so long to check out. They didn't last very long in our area. There was another chain store called Best which I believe had a similar format for a period of time, but then switched over to a more traditional store format before closing.

Consolidated Department Stores were fun, they were like a cleaner bigger version of Big Lots (most of the Big Lots in our area are dumps). I believe they are now all under the Big Lots brand now though.

Murphy's Mart was another place I enjoyed. The one in our town had a really cool downstairs section with all sorts of toys. When you walked into the store there was a big wide grand staircase leading into the lower level of the store. The lower level was almost like an entirely different look and feel. They had old lamp posts that lit up the ends of the aisles and an old fashioned telephone booth from like the early 1900's with a working pay phone inside. There were several aisles full of the latest toys. They also had a huge wall of vending machines with neat toys in them. One of the machines was a giant metal robot that had some more expensive items in it that cost a few dollars. The robot would light up and talk to you while it was retrieving your items.

Aside from the department stores, I miss how a lot of the flagship stores in our malls used to have full sized restaurants in them. Strouss's had a large circular rotating restaurant on the upper floor with windows all around it so you could get different scenic views while dining there. Even Sears and JCPenney had family style sit down restaurants in them. Woolworths had a big buffet style restaurant connected to it called Harvest House, which was delicious (I would always get the open faced turkey sandwiches with stuffing and gravy).

 

I'm not sure if they have disappeared altogether, but there are no more TCBYs around here. To me, frozen yogurt tastes about the same everywhere. The "customizable" Sweet Frog model ends up with a sky-high yogurt bill just for me. Our last trip to Sweet Frog racked up a $9 yogurt bill for two of us- and I didn't even get the heavy fruit I wanted! The same thing would've been way less at TCBY.

 

My local Woolworth's on Miami Beach used to have a full size 1950's type diner that used to make really good milkshakes, fries and grilled cheese sandwiches. I remember the very last thing I ever bought at Woolworth's before they closed forever. It was actually 2 things, a stuffed giraffe and corduroy baby dress because I was pregnant at the time. That was in 1997. I miss that store.
In the 80's when I was in elementary school, my mom bought me a pink cassette boom box and a Stacey Q cassette there for my birthday. Good old Woolworth's.

 

I miss Woolworth's too. I used to buy my movies and music from there. I also used to get some clothes in there because they always had sales. Then closed the store and put up a dollar store that wasn't worth taking down Woolworth's. They barely have anything in there worth getting and it will probably be the next store closing down since the things are not always a dollar.

 

I remember Woolworth's. There was a large store in downtown Cleveland that I would go to with my friends when I was allowed to date or go out without my Mom. We would purchase some the the cheapest things and have so much fun acting grown.