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Radio Shack going... going...
Feb. 7th, 2015 09:49 amWith the news of Radio Shack filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Dad and I got a bit nolstalgic over the various stores that have gone from my days. So I thought I'd compile it up. Note that these are centered roughly around the Baltimore/DC area.
The big one that hit us was SuperFresh, also known as A&P. They're still around, but shrank drasticly away from Maryland (leaving only two stores on the Eastern Shore) and selling stores away. One with a prime position in Baltimore City was sold to Fresh & Green, which after a year shut it down anyway (even though it looked like it was profitable).
Another constriction was Hects, when it was bought by Macy's. Within a few years stores were closed and merchandise moved across malls where the two were in the same mall. This started some malls on the road to failure.
A missed but not gone was Price Club, which was bought by Costco and eventually turned their stores into one brand.
Some stores that failed that I had visited in my youth were Ames(Park 97), Caldor(Ft. Meade), Zayre(Laurel -- I remember every time going in there and going straight to the back snack bar to get some soft pretzles), Montgomery Ward's(Laurel Mall, also failed), F.W.Woolworth(Woolies, Colombia Mall), Best(Pikesville and Marley Station), and Crown Books (Colombia).
One complicated failure is Waldenbooks, who actually got bought by Borders, the brand eventually discontinued... before going completely Chapter 7 bankrupt and liquidated.
And one on the long-term death watch is Sears/K-Mart, owned by the same company. They're kinda acting a bit like Radio Shack in this regard.
What does make me wonder is what was at 6405 Dobbin Road, Columbia, Maryland. Right now it's a Walmart. Before that it was a K-Mart. But before even that is what I wonder, in my early youth. It was definitely a department store, but it also had a sizable grocery store in the back of the store (almost like it's own cubby-trench) and a small snack counter up front. It was like a Walmart Superstore at it's time. My question is, was this a Murphy's Mart or a McCroy's? I'm leaning towards Murphy's Mart myself.
The big one that hit us was SuperFresh, also known as A&P. They're still around, but shrank drasticly away from Maryland (leaving only two stores on the Eastern Shore) and selling stores away. One with a prime position in Baltimore City was sold to Fresh & Green, which after a year shut it down anyway (even though it looked like it was profitable).
Another constriction was Hects, when it was bought by Macy's. Within a few years stores were closed and merchandise moved across malls where the two were in the same mall. This started some malls on the road to failure.
A missed but not gone was Price Club, which was bought by Costco and eventually turned their stores into one brand.
Some stores that failed that I had visited in my youth were Ames(Park 97), Caldor(Ft. Meade), Zayre(Laurel -- I remember every time going in there and going straight to the back snack bar to get some soft pretzles), Montgomery Ward's(Laurel Mall, also failed), F.W.Woolworth(Woolies, Colombia Mall), Best(Pikesville and Marley Station), and Crown Books (Colombia).
One complicated failure is Waldenbooks, who actually got bought by Borders, the brand eventually discontinued... before going completely Chapter 7 bankrupt and liquidated.
And one on the long-term death watch is Sears/K-Mart, owned by the same company. They're kinda acting a bit like Radio Shack in this regard.
What does make me wonder is what was at 6405 Dobbin Road, Columbia, Maryland. Right now it's a Walmart. Before that it was a K-Mart. But before even that is what I wonder, in my early youth. It was definitely a department store, but it also had a sizable grocery store in the back of the store (almost like it's own cubby-trench) and a small snack counter up front. It was like a Walmart Superstore at it's time. My question is, was this a Murphy's Mart or a McCroy's? I'm leaning towards Murphy's Mart myself.
