Stores that don't exist anymore

1101113151621

Comments

  • Originally posted by: SnowSauce



    Did KB-Toys ever sell games? I remember going there as a kid, although I think they are all gone now.



    Yeah, they did sell games.
  • Anyone remember "King Norman's Toys" ? It was in California in the 70's and closed in the mid-late 80's.

  • Originally posted by: SnowSauce



    Did KB-Toys ever sell games? I remember going there as a kid, although I think they are all gone now.



    You betcha! Most of my CIB NES cllection comes from KB. Final Fantasy, Zelda, Zelda II, Metroid. KB had some awesome closeout prices on NES stuff, marked at $20 or so in the early 90s!


  • Originally posted by: SoleGooseProductions

     
    Originally posted by: SnowSauce



    Did KB-Toys ever sell games? I remember going there as a kid, although I think they are all gone now.



    You betcha! Most of my CIB NES cllection comes from KB. Final Fantasy, Zelda, Zelda II, Metroid. KB had some awesome closeout prices on NES stuff, marked at $20 or so in the early 90s!

     



    Nice!



    I don't remember when I was there last... probably 10+ years ago.

     
  • sure miss some of these store(s) that are listed in these page(s) .. =/
  • I use to buy all my toys and games from Mr' Big's in Waltham, Ma




  • Originally posted by: SnowSauce



    Did KB-Toys ever sell games? I remember going there as a kid, although I think they are all gone now.



    Zany Brainy stopped selling videogames in 2001 and Kay Bee Toys stopped selling them in 2003. I knew those stores were done for when they made those announcements. Their level of revelvancy for me plummeted instantly. So sad, I honestly have much fonder memories of Toy Works and KB Toys than I do Toys R Us.





  • Originally posted by: Trj22487




    Originally posted by: SnowSauce



    Did KB-Toys ever sell games? I remember going there as a kid, although I think they are all gone now.



    Zany Brainy stopped selling videogames in 2001 and Kay Bee Toys stopped selling them in 2003. I knew those stores were done for when they made those announcements. Their level of revelvancy for me plummeted instantly. So sad, I honestly have much fonder memories of Toy Works and KB Toys than I do Toys R Us.



     

    My fondest gaming memories come from my local Wal-Mart... small town life I suppose.



    I've visted a few KB's at the end of their life, but I don't remember where they were as I would have been in 3rd/4th grade at the time.




  • I was pretty sad to hear the K-Mart in South Burlington, Vermont closed at the end of last year. It had been one of the final stores that kept the original logo on the building,

    though I see from the news story on the closing that they must have finally changed the logo and painted the facade in the last couple of years, seen below.

    At this point Kmart is nearly out of New England entirely aside from Massachusetts. To think 26 years ago it was still #1 in the USA.







    The last time I visited the store was in January 2009 when it still had the original logo.

    I shot all of these photos, unfortunately I didn't think to actually get a shot of myself in any of them.

    This is the smallest K-Mart I had ever seen. The rest of the strip mall was entirely vacant when I visited.



































  • I love this thread. Always cool to see the pics people post.
  • I found this awesome photograph online of the window display of the Toys "R" Us in Rochester, NY in 1990 pre-SNES. Really takes me back







    And the concept art for the Herald Center Toys "R" Us in 1996



  • I also found these two commercials on Youtube from 1990 and 1991 that were shot inside actual K-Mart stores





    1990 Game Boy K-Mart Commercial





    1991 Super Nintendo K-Mart Commercial

  • Originally posted by: Trj22487







     



    This might be the most awesomest thang I've ever seen.

     

  • Originally posted by: ne$_pimp




    Originally posted by: Trj22487







     



    This might be the most awesomest thang I've ever seen.

     



    I know it, you can open it in another tab and really check in out in detail, every little bit of the display is incredible.


  • It's funny to think there's places where there aren't K-Marts lurking about. You can't travel far around here without finding one, but you know you've hit a sketchy side of town when you do.



    Was just talking about KayBee Toys at dinner tonight, as usual kicking myself that I was too young and foolish to take massive advantage of the unreal sales they had on video games. The only game I ever purchased from there was Super Mario All Stars, but I just know I could have done better. Electric Avenue is another store I have fond memories of - my mom bought me Link to the Past from there when I was six. It couldn't have been more than five dollars. Still have those games to this day, but not the boxes.



    It really wasn't the stores that made these memories, though, it was the stuff they carried. Games aren't worth a damn nowadays.
  • Vanna White at Caldor Department Store in Norwalk, Connecticut - May 1987















  • stores that dont exist anymore: RadioShack. where can i get my soldering supplies now??
  • 1991 Children at Toys "R" Us Nintendo display - note the grey Zapper!







    1992 November Jonathan Taylor Thomas at New York City Toys "R" Us for Sonic The Hedgehog 2 launch











    1994 December Mother looking at Mighty Morphin Power Rangers display in Washington D.C. toy store







    December 1996 Mother making decisions at Kay Bee Toys







    May 1997 Man buying Tamagotchi for daughters at Kay Bee Toys







    2000 October Playstation 2 launch at Toys "R" Us







    2001 Paramus, New Jersey child looking at vintage Nintendo games



  • Wow! I'm impressed with the clarity of the shots in the post above. They are part of the Getty images collection so they were shot by a professional.



    I'd really love to see more store interiors. There are only a handful of posts which share those scenes.



    I still remember the cages / display cases in the TRU and seeing Mario Bros 3 hanging.





    The shot here is the best. 'Tammy and Susan's mother considers purchasing the older Super Nintendo game console at a discounted price while Tammy is holding out hope Nintendo's recently released (and more expensive) N64 console.'





    The simulated violence level of the 3D graphics may be too extreme for her children.

    EDIT:
    It's funny. The style / marketing teams coordinated so well between stores that a lot of these stores look so familiar. That shot of KB with the mother looking over the SNES looks just like a KB from the King of Prussia Mall circa 2000.
  • Here are a couple photos I found off Google of K-Mart I thought were interesting:



    1. (via Huffington Post.com)



    It's a photo of a cabinet from a closing KMart. For context, the photo was taken in 2014.

    image





    2. (via Reddit)



    I can't find an exact date, but it mentions it was posted 3 years ago (so I'm assuming early 2013). You can probably see why I posted it.





    image



    3. (via Reddit)



    This is pretty crazy. It's newer than the previous photo (2 years ago, so I'm assuming early 2014). Green GBA next to a WiiU game.



    image
  • cool pictures guys! wish i had been old enough back then to buy things
  • Here is one that's kind of interesting. It's the empty shelves of a Louisiana K-Mart. I'll give the blog that I found this from credit at the bottom.



    These shelving systems were pretty interesting, because unlike typical game shelves, they were fitted onto the regular store shelves instead of being separate units (like you'd find at Wal-Mart). They were a pain to take apart too, but those plastic, spring loaded backers... Man those things flew.



    Anyway, I was able to save the headers from the ones at our store. I have most of them hanging in my game room. Nintendo had the nicest ones, with designs and made of hard(ish) plastic instead of just paper.



    image



    Source:

    http://southernretail.blogspot.com/2015/11/kmart-updates-from-2015.html
  • Man, a GBA, that's pretty crazy.
  • Originally posted by: Trj22487

    Man, a GBA, that's pretty crazy.




    My thoughts exactly!
  • Those damn interwebs ruined everything...
  • Does anyone know the story behind the demise of FuncoLand?
  • No real story, they were bought up by Gamestop.
  • Originally posted by: Trj22487



    Man, a GBA, that's pretty crazy.



    That is pretty insane. I'm guessing it was just forgotten about by management.

     
  • These come from Round Lake Area News in Illinois and are from the 1980's. The Walmart and Kmart were both replaced with bigger stores.























Sign In or Register to comment.