This store must have been built at the very tail end of when payphones were a common sight in new construction, and certainly at or past the point when they stopped being something to post a large sign about! Unsurprisingly, the old phone booths were as empty as the stockroom in 2019. In the foreground, this was apparently the small appliance aisle -- I'm not sure if this is something that Fry's would have carried in their prime, but the extremely limited stock is a sad sight regardless.
Fry's used to have a very good small appliances department back in the very early 2000s. They had some of the brands that everyone else sold like Hamilton Beach, Black & Decker, and stuff like that, but they also had some obscure brands. One of those brands was De'Longhi, the Italian appliance maker. They would frequently sponsor products on 1980s-1990s TV game shows, but I wasn't aware of anyone who sold their products. Well, Fry's sold De'Longhi stuff and I believe we ended up buying a De'Longhi toaster just to see if it worked as well as it looked (I wish I remember the answer to this, but I'm afraid I don't, lol).
ReplyDeleteFry's also had a pretty impressive lineup of kitchen tools, hair dryers, and stuff like that. They even had some pretty good stuff up until maybe 3-4 years ago when Fry's inventory really started falling apart. I know that sometimes I would go to Fry's with people who didn't really care about electronics, but they could usually find something in the small appliances/housewares aisles to keep them entertained.
Ha, that sounds like me in department stores! I have fond memories of looking around the small appliances section at the Port Angeles Gottschalks with my dad when I was younger, while my mom was shopping for clothes 🙂
DeleteWhile you're here, any chance you recognize the decor from this Kroger in Arkansas? It was being discussed over on Discord the other day, and there was talk that the store might have been a Safeway and Harvest Foods before becoming Kroger, but that decor doesn't line up with anything anyone recognized from Safeway or Kroger.
(sliding in because I want email notifications for this conversation lol)
DeleteWow, I've seen some really retro looking small town Krogers before and this is certainly one of them. I really don't know what, if anything, that might have been before it was a Kroger. It certainly has some interior decor that's not normal for a Kroger, but it seems unlikely to me that it was a Safeway. I really don't know anything about Harvest Foods. I tried looking at Lonoke County records, but that didn't turn up anything either.
DeleteHere's another odd small town Arkansas Kroger in DeWitt that used to be in a shopping center with an Alco that appeared to be quite a bit bigger than the Kroger. This makes some of the QFCs you've shown us look huge, lol. Unfortunately, the photos inside this Kroger are rather limited: https://goo.gl/maps/WfdaFJPSqh23zzys8
Those two Krogers make this kind-of fake neon Kroger in Morrilton, AR look down right normal! https://goo.gl/maps/6kETQbd3e9RnLrTH9
Hmm, interesting! It doesn't look much like a Safeway to me (though the interior decor is a little bit reminiscent of some of Safeway's 80s decor), but I've learned that Safeways around here aren't always representative of other parts of the country...
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