The second floor was home to the typical Sears services alcove, which had been reduced to just Sears Optical by 2018. Originally, there would have been several more departments here, almost certainly including an Allstate office, but by this visit, there was only one thing left for the sign to check off.
The exact mix of specialty departments varied by store and market. In Houston, many Sears stores had driving schools in them which lasted until Sears left Houston. It seems Seattle had those as well based on that 1980s commercial on YouTube which I shared earlier. Those were run by a 3rd party. Sears also had car rentals which were later taken over by Avis/Budget who usually operated out of the Sears Auto Centers towards the end. In the 1980s, during Sears' stock and socks era, Sears had their Allstate, Dean Witter investments, Caldwell Banker real estate offices, and Discover Card offices (all of which were owned by Sears) in their stores. Sears also had their Portrait Studios and hearing aid offices.
ReplyDeleteSome of the nicer Sears around here had special appliance showrooms which were for new home buyers. Some fancier home builders used Kenmore appliances and they'd send the home buyers to these special Sears centers to choose their appliances. Some Sears locations also had Sears home services booths where someone could get information about getting Sears kitchen remodels, Sears roofing, Sears central A/Cs, and so forth.
I've seen photos of Sears with jewelry repair services, DMV offices, and even doctor's offices, but I've never seen those at a Sears I've been to.
Oh, some Sears stores had restaurants as well! Oh, some Sears also had Scout shops for the Boy/Girl Scouts as well. There were also the Sears Keyshops, but those were usually in huts in the parking lot. I can probably go on with listing stuff, but I think I've listed enough, lol.
Yeah, Sears had all sorts of odd services at some point! I know Allstate, portrait studios, and optical departments were all very common, but I have no idea exactly what this store would have had over the years. For being a large store, it doesn't seem like it had a very large space for these things, unless there was more space that was properly closed off at some point.
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