Add to that Roundhouse Hobbies, Moro Craft (on Whyte), and Northern Hobbies by the Municipal Airport. I got my first R/C car from Northern Hobbies. Roundhouse and Moro Craft had a great selection of plastic models.
As much as I miss Kites, I have to admit that I wasn't ever interested in most of their products - I was only interested in their RPG stuff because back in the late 80's and very early 90's there weren't a whole lot of options for a kid from outside the city to shop for that sort of thing.
I rarely went in there due to the pain of knowing my parents would never buy anything from there. But it was so good. Was there an old fashioned diner that use to be close to it? Johnny's?
I used to like the cheaply printed Saan flyers, where the colours never quite matched in location, so the models always had kind of a red and green halo, and their pupils rarely hit the middle of their eyes.
I bought new shoes 2 days ago and thought about Saan for the first time in what might be decades. Used to get off-brand white Keds-type shoes at the Callingwood location as a kid (80s).
People talked about the distinct smell of Zellers but the Saan store is the one engraved in my memory. Its a distinct kind of mustiness, unnecessary carpeting, clothing that has been left too long in a back room, old ladies' perms, and the packaging on very cheaply made plastic backyard toys to waste your allowance on.
I used to call my local Zellers at like 8 years old and ask what Legos they had and get them to put some aside for me since my parents didn't want to go to Kingsway if they didn't have it in stock lol
My mom had three little kids under the age of four so she told us that Mr.Zellers would get mad at us if we were goofing around in the store. I believed in and was scared of Mr.Zellers until I was about 12 years old.
I can't count how many times, in the last few years, I muttered how much I miss Zellers. Now, to find similar stuff, I spend a lot of time going between Walmart (which I hate), Canadian Tire, and Goodwill. It's a waste of time when Zellers had all of it in one place.
I still remember my mom's Zellers member number. We never used the actual card, she had it memorized so it's in there like few phone numbers ever were haha
Growing up almost all my clothes were Zellers,. They were good quality and cheap. Now if I want good quality for cheap Id have to hit up multiple stores. And Walmart is disgusting. Everytime I go into one I feel like I have to shower after leaving it.
Not a chain, but Mother's Music. It was bought by Long and Macquades, and is now a Boxing place. Coolest music store in town, particularly for drummers. I ordered probably one of the last kits they ever sold. I'm sad everytime I drive by there
The owner of MM owned GP on Whyte Ave too. After he died, the stores were sold to Long and McQuade. Wasn't too impressed with the staff at the Whyte Ave location when I went there after. Mother's had stores in Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg if memory serves. It was a family run business.
I bought the bass I've been playing for the last several years at Mother's on 109th. I feel sad when I drive by there, too. I had been using a 5-string Ibanez SDGR, but it got stolen during one of those bullshit battle of the bands at Jet Nightclub. (I sure don't miss that place!) So I went to Mother's and spoke to Carmine (Sorry if I spelled that wrong, my dude. You rock!) and told him I was looking for a 5-string with a natural wood finish. He gave me a "just a moment" gesture, walked into the used section and came back with this gorgeous 6-string Ibanez BTB with a through-body neck and a maple top. He handed it to me and I swear to god I heard the music from
Woodward Food Floor had lots of hard-to-find foods. I really miss the Norwegian cheese they had. It was either called Mysost or Primost. (Not Gjetost).
Oh yeah! I loved the idea that behind the big wall was just a magical place full of cool gadgets and toys. The number of times I was mad because they took forever to get to my order and came back empty handed, haha...ah, the days before computers. I feel like a dinosaur.
I used to work at CD back in the day --- well, until the day where they closed. We learned about the bankruptcy by a reporter coming to our store and asking questions...
Oh shit, I bought my first pogoball there! The one in Westmount mall, when the foodcourt was halves of cars, and Smitty's (which is still there) was busy AF, and Zellers was right below it.
Omg the hologram store. I had the most bitchin mobile from there! It was a spiral with stars hanging from it and it hung above my bed until it fell apart.
I miss that store so much! I frequented one in north Calgary and was blown away by the huge variety of music they had. You could get anything in there. In 1997 I was studying massage therapy and one of my instructors played some "world music" in class. I looked around other places and no one had heard of the group, but A&B had it. I loved browsing through there.
My family lived on the north side and it was always a big to do to go to the A&B sound on the south side. We would all get a CD and then stop at Olive Garden for dinner 😂
I remember shortly after my older brother bought his first car, he took me to A&B sound and bought a new stereo system. I thought that was about the coolest thing ever.
As far as I know my brother still has the Kenmore washing machine we got in the late 70s. We had to replace the Kenmore dryer about 15 years back with some other lesser brand that never worked well. It's a shame Sears had such terrible management. That was the place to go for almost anything. We used their furnace and duct cleaning guys regularly. Always had great service from them.
That was the best video store in Northern Alberta, bar none! In Calgary, Casablanca on 33 Ave in Marda Loop. Thankfully my 1990's and 2000's were spent hanging around BOTH! RIP, video stores! Streaming just doesn't have that social aspect it did back in the day however I wouldn't change it for the world.
Cosmic City at WEM, Rafters at south common for browsing random stuff, coast mountain sports (they had a rock wall, right?), Jacob, Mexx, Esprit, and then maybe Powder Ridge and Summerco/Winterco.
Coast mountain sports was just rebranded as Atmosphere. I worked at the WEM location around the time of the name change and us staff were told that Atmosphere was their name out in eastern Canada and that Coast Mountain Sports only resonated with Alberta and BC people. It was that eastern Canadians didn’t understand the store name and how it applied. Which I thought was weak because Coast Mountain is way better than Atmosphere.
Definitely Zellers. When my parents got divorced, my mom would bring me with her to do groceries, and we would start the evening with dinner in the smoking section of the diner in the back of the store. It was our little treat despite the financial hardships we had to endure. My mother was (and still is) and awful cook so we made sure that dinners at my grandmothers were consistent and then this treat at Zellers.
Zellers. It was just at the level where the stuff was actually affordable without feeling like the sort of place that winds up in Walmart shopper shaming photos, and didn't push the super sketchy low quality crap that say Walmart or Princess Auto or Giant Tiger do.
Millenium and Le Chateau! Some of my favourite clothes came from Le Chateau and I’m still regularly complimented on the bowler hat I got from there 10 years ago for 10 bucks.
I never thought I’d say this but I miss wholesale sports. Their service was atrocious, their online ordering was absolute trash but they had a good selection of reloading supplies and would have occasional decent sales.
Nope. The "service" (especially at the gun counter) was so horrible that I prayed for the day they shut down. I honestly will never ever miss them. I have a lifetime of spite left for the ghost of that place.
That magic shop in Hardwood Plaza on Jasper and 110th street. I remember it like a dream location - oddities stacked up to the ceiling, an odd, music-less quiet and this general air of fantastic mystery.
Fanny's Fabrics. They were well organized, clean, helpful to inexperienced sewists, and were already doing electronic membership records 15 years ago while Fabricland still has not gotten with it. Marshall's fabrics is similar, but isn't quite the same feel.
Trade and Play was great, I remember getting Intellivision games there. I built a couple computers out of parts from Best Computers, seems forever ago now.
Elephants Never Forget, somewhere near Jasper I think? When we would come to the city my aunt would take us to the museum and then to Elephants. The two places were the entire day! Followed up by pizza that was delivered right to your door!! (Little country kid me was fascinated by this)
Eatons! Mostly I remember going to the restaurant with my grandmother and getting a bowl of rice pudding. Also playing Super Mario brothers on NES for the first time in their toy department
Zeller's. Whomever was the buyer for that store in Kanata, Ontario did a really good job. Lots of clothing selection and different items that you couldn't find in other big box store. Their cafeteria was awesome too. Always clean and the food was consistent with good quality. I loved their breakfasts and Big Z burger.
I can’t remember the names of them but there use to be these cool sciencey toy stores in the various malls across the city. I haven’t seen one of those in ages.
San Francisco 😍 as a kid in the 90s, nothing will ever have the same feel as their clutter, dolphin lights, blow up furniture, lava lamps and the ever-present fire risk.
Zellers for sure. Do you remember how the Customer Service Dept. was usually on the second floor , tucked way in some corner? Unlike say London Drugs who has theirs at the front door and can become an extra cashier if needed? Also, no idea why, Zellers would train new cashiers on Saturday, their busiest day!! Have to wonder if their upper Management group ever actually shopped at a store.
A few i miss are Millennium, Mariposa, Deja Vu, Zazoo, Playdium, The Met (got taken over by Saan) but we had one in Whitecourt that had awesome food in the 90s. Funky pickle....i could go on
Army and Navy was a great place to stock up on canned goods and other grocery items. The Zellers near me was usually pretty quiet, but they had good prices. The one near my childhood home was renowned for really good food in the cafeteria. I bought quite a bit of stuff there and was so disappointed when Target moved in and immediately bombed. I would like to see Zellers come back.
Who actually misses being ignored by all the sales staff until you accidentally walked close to the $2K+ electronics at which point they'd all swarm you? I spent plenty of money in Future Shops over the years, but I always hated their commission-heavy sales force.
Best Buy is identical to Futureshop except the colours. I worked futureshop when they got bought out. They laid off all the salespeople with absolutely zero warning. It was complete bullshit. So nope. Don’t miss them.
In my city our zellers was replaced with a sears, which was then replaced with a target (that promptly fucked off out of Canada a couple years later) and now it’s a spirit Halloween for two months a year
Kidtropolis in WEM It was a cool set up. For $20 an hour you could drop off your kid and they could drive power wheels, be a baker, be a policeman, work at the radio station.
None of them. But Sears corporate management was the dumbest company on the planet. They had catalog sales all set up before the internet. They had the customer base, the infrastructure too easily switch over to online sales and they blew it! Management sat on there hands while everyone else ran circles around them.
Everything for a Dollar store in Milwoods Town Center was the best dollar store. Bought a fair amount of stuff from the Sport Mart there too. They never really filled the space it left, now there’s that weird hallway through the middle of the mall
Kites and other delights
Add to that Roundhouse Hobbies, Moro Craft (on Whyte), and Northern Hobbies by the Municipal Airport. I got my first R/C car from Northern Hobbies. Roundhouse and Moro Craft had a great selection of plastic models.
This, and the Science Shop in southgate
There was a time I spent all of my money on model rockets there. Woosh. Where did it go? Who knows!
As much as I miss Kites, I have to admit that I wasn't ever interested in most of their products - I was only interested in their RPG stuff because back in the late 80's and very early 90's there weren't a whole lot of options for a kid from outside the city to shop for that sort of thing.
I remember this place. Also that weird goth store Millenium in WEM. Never bought anything there but used to browse
My dad used to take me to that store as an excursion. I miss the awe I felt when I walked in.
I rarely went in there due to the pain of knowing my parents would never buy anything from there. But it was so good. Was there an old fashioned diner that use to be close to it? Johnny's?
Loved that place. I remember going there when they were in Kingsway!
Saan store anyone?!? I grew up in lethbridge and we were too big to have one. Loved visiting the one in Drayton and other smaller towns.
So many small towns had a Saan or a Fields.
Don't forget McCloud's hardware, every small town had one.
I used to like the cheaply printed Saan flyers, where the colours never quite matched in location, so the models always had kind of a red and green halo, and their pupils rarely hit the middle of their eyes.
My Big Treat used to be getting to pick out some earrings when my mom would drag me out there.
I bought new shoes 2 days ago and thought about Saan for the first time in what might be decades. Used to get off-brand white Keds-type shoes at the Callingwood location as a kid (80s).
People talked about the distinct smell of Zellers but the Saan store is the one engraved in my memory. Its a distinct kind of mustiness, unnecessary carpeting, clothing that has been left too long in a back room, old ladies' perms, and the packaging on very cheaply made plastic backyard toys to waste your allowance on.
Saan! A pillar of the old Fort Saskatchewan mall of my childhood.
I was not a fan of the Saan store; I got a lot of clothes from it in my tween years and I don't think I ever once was happy about what we found.
Growing up in Fox Creek in the 90s, most of my wardrobe in early school years was from the Saan store because that's all Whitecourt had. 😂
Zellers. It was the best place to go for cheap day to day stuff like linens, pillows, bedding, dishes, etc. Got most of my first appliances there.
I used to call my local Zellers at like 8 years old and ask what Legos they had and get them to put some aside for me since my parents didn't want to go to Kingsway if they didn't have it in stock lol
My mom had three little kids under the age of four so she told us that Mr.Zellers would get mad at us if we were goofing around in the store. I believed in and was scared of Mr.Zellers until I was about 12 years old.
I can't count how many times, in the last few years, I muttered how much I miss Zellers. Now, to find similar stuff, I spend a lot of time going between Walmart (which I hate), Canadian Tire, and Goodwill. It's a waste of time when Zellers had all of it in one place.
Don’t forget the cheap, no name restaurants that were in some zellers. And haircuts!
I second the Zellers. Just walking into the musky, drab (but yet, bright white lighting) does bring back memories
I grew up with my Grandma spoiling me and buying toys for me at the Bonnie Doon Zellers.
I still remember my mom's Zellers member number. We never used the actual card, she had it memorized so it's in there like few phone numbers ever were haha
Not to mention a Big Z open faced turkey sandwich 🥪🥪🥪
Growing up almost all my clothes were Zellers,. They were good quality and cheap. Now if I want good quality for cheap Id have to hit up multiple stores. And Walmart is disgusting. Everytime I go into one I feel like I have to shower after leaving it.
I loved the Zellers restaurant! Used to eat there all the time with my grandma as a kid.
Not a chain, but Mother's Music. It was bought by Long and Macquades, and is now a Boxing place. Coolest music store in town, particularly for drummers. I ordered probably one of the last kits they ever sold. I'm sad everytime I drive by there
The owner of MM owned GP on Whyte Ave too. After he died, the stores were sold to Long and McQuade. Wasn't too impressed with the staff at the Whyte Ave location when I went there after. Mother's had stores in Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg if memory serves. It was a family run business.
I used to work at Lillo’s. Fuck I miss when Whyte was littered with good music shops and venues
I bought the bass I've been playing for the last several years at Mother's on 109th. I feel sad when I drive by there, too. I had been using a 5-string Ibanez SDGR, but it got stolen during one of those bullshit battle of the bands at Jet Nightclub. (I sure don't miss that place!) So I went to Mother's and spoke to Carmine (Sorry if I spelled that wrong, my dude. You rock!) and told him I was looking for a 5-string with a natural wood finish. He gave me a "just a moment" gesture, walked into the used section and came back with this gorgeous 6-string Ibanez BTB with a through-body neck and a maple top. He handed it to me and I swear to god I heard the music from
Woodwards. Basement deli counter in downtown Edmonton. Great milkshakes.
🎶🎶 $1.49 Day...Tuesday 🎶🎵🎶
Woodward Food Floor had lots of hard-to-find foods. I really miss the Norwegian cheese they had. It was either called Mysost or Primost. (Not Gjetost).
I forgot about that store! My mom used to get the deli sausage rolls!
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Their annual catalogs were so much fun
Oh yeah! I loved the idea that behind the big wall was just a magical place full of cool gadgets and toys. The number of times I was mad because they took forever to get to my order and came back empty handed, haha...ah, the days before computers. I feel like a dinosaur.
I used to work at CD back in the day --- well, until the day where they closed. We learned about the bankruptcy by a reporter coming to our store and asking questions...
Oh shit, I bought my first pogoball there! The one in Westmount mall, when the foodcourt was halves of cars, and Smitty's (which is still there) was busy AF, and Zellers was right below it.
And there was one in WEM too ...
Target didn’t just fail in Canada, it took Zellers with it. I just want Zellers back.
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San Francisco, all that cool stuff they had during my Junior and High School years.
I love how their schtick was forever “going out of business” sale until they legit went out of business of course.
100% this! And the further back you walked into the store the more mature it got haha
Got all my favorite mood rings from there 🤣
Spencers has most of that kind of stuff.
My brother stole so many bongs from them
All the novelty shoelaces and jelly bracelets you could want, in the 80s.
I miss the hologram store
Great place. I'm also reminded of Millenium in WEM which was a similar concept.
Omg the hologram store. I had the most bitchin mobile from there! It was a spiral with stars hanging from it and it hung above my bed until it fell apart.
Well that's a vivid flashback.
OMG I LOVED this store!!!!
Oh, Mariposa! That was THE place to shop as a teenage girl.
So many clothes with butterflies on them!
Totally got my first “cool” outfit from there.
Surprised nobody has mentioned A&B Sound. When CD prices were at their highest, they rolled in with super cheap CDs, especially new releases.
A&B Sound on Boxing Day was always a must.
I miss that store so much! I frequented one in north Calgary and was blown away by the huge variety of music they had. You could get anything in there. In 1997 I was studying massage therapy and one of my instructors played some "world music" in class. I looked around other places and no one had heard of the group, but A&B had it. I loved browsing through there.
My family lived on the north side and it was always a big to do to go to the A&B sound on the south side. We would all get a CD and then stop at Olive Garden for dinner 😂
I remember shortly after my older brother bought his first car, he took me to A&B sound and bought a new stereo system. I thought that was about the coolest thing ever.
They had such a good collection of CD’s back in the day!
They were everything for me for their entire existence! White tags 20% off, Red tags 10% off, Yellow tags priced as is!
Sanrio Gift Gate
I had a keroppi eraser from there and it was my favorite
Maybe it's a good thing it's gone because oh my god the money I would spend in there now as an adult...
Child me misses Zellers, Teen me misses sport mart, adult me misses sears
I miss Red Robins 😭 Not a retail store I know, but still very much missed
Freckled lemonade!!!!
I miss Red Robins too! Their whiskey jack chicken wrap was the best and I miss it forever. Very sad about losing them.
I loved Red Robins! Some memories of the place:
Red Robin taught me that a fried egg on a burger is not the atrocity it sounded like to 10 year old me.
Chilis all you can eat soup and salad. $10 I miss so much
Zellers Restaurant
the best fries and gravy.
Apparently Hudson’s Bay had one too. Your comment reminded me of this song but I misremembered (I thought it was about the Zeller’s restaurant)
Best chicken fingers and poutine. 🤤
Zellers for sure! Spent all my allowance there buying Transformers and Star Wars action figures.
Sears. Really liked their clothes, good place to get tools and kenmore was a good appliance brand.
As far as I know my brother still has the Kenmore washing machine we got in the late 70s. We had to replace the Kenmore dryer about 15 years back with some other lesser brand that never worked well. It's a shame Sears had such terrible management. That was the place to go for almost anything. We used their furnace and duct cleaning guys regularly. Always had great service from them.
Bullwinkles!
The Movie Studio.
The Movie Studio was the absolute best.
Great one! They were a good movie place for sure.
That was the best video store in Northern Alberta, bar none! In Calgary, Casablanca on 33 Ave in Marda Loop. Thankfully my 1990's and 2000's were spent hanging around BOTH! RIP, video stores! Streaming just doesn't have that social aspect it did back in the day however I wouldn't change it for the world.
Eaton’s!
I forgot about home outfitters entirely until I saw that picture and it was like getting punched in the solar plexus
I didn’t even know they were gone
I miss Biway. Remember them?
Loved Biway
Baskin and Robbins
Meeee too... But I only had mint chip there and discovered a substitute that tastes just like it: PC Ice Cream Shop Mint Chip.
Radio Shack.
Zellers
San Francisco
I was going to comment this. Spencer's tries to be what San Francisco used to be. It's not the same.
Liquidation World
Cosmic City at WEM, Rafters at south common for browsing random stuff, coast mountain sports (they had a rock wall, right?), Jacob, Mexx, Esprit, and then maybe Powder Ridge and Summerco/Winterco.
Oh Rafters... I only wish I had discovered that place sooner
Ugh I miss Jacob! Loved shopping there.
Coast mountain sports was just rebranded as Atmosphere. I worked at the WEM location around the time of the name change and us staff were told that Atmosphere was their name out in eastern Canada and that Coast Mountain Sports only resonated with Alberta and BC people. It was that eastern Canadians didn’t understand the store name and how it applied. Which I thought was weak because Coast Mountain is way better than Atmosphere.
Oh gosh. I totally forgot SportMart was a thing. What happened to it?
If I recall, they were bought by Forzani and were probably all consolidated under Sport Chek.
Definitely Zellers. When my parents got divorced, my mom would bring me with her to do groceries, and we would start the evening with dinner in the smoking section of the diner in the back of the store. It was our little treat despite the financial hardships we had to endure. My mother was (and still is) and awful cook so we made sure that dinners at my grandmothers were consistent and then this treat at Zellers.
Zellers. It was just at the level where the stuff was actually affordable without feeling like the sort of place that winds up in Walmart shopper shaming photos, and didn't push the super sketchy low quality crap that say Walmart or Princess Auto or Giant Tiger do.
Millenium and Le Chateau! Some of my favourite clothes came from Le Chateau and I’m still regularly complimented on the bowler hat I got from there 10 years ago for 10 bucks.
I never thought I’d say this but I miss wholesale sports. Their service was atrocious, their online ordering was absolute trash but they had a good selection of reloading supplies and would have occasional decent sales.
Nope. The "service" (especially at the gun counter) was so horrible that I prayed for the day they shut down. I honestly will never ever miss them. I have a lifetime of spite left for the ghost of that place.
Army and Navy on Whyte.
Sound Connection. Loved that place. Lots of vinyl and bootleg concert tapes!
Where the heck is k-mart, eatons, biway, woolco... (idk if any of those were in alberta...)
I want Zellers back!! Missed going to their restaurants.
I’m old enough to remember the joys of Toys and Wheels at Kingsway Mall.
That magic shop in Hardwood Plaza on Jasper and 110th street. I remember it like a dream location - oddities stacked up to the ceiling, an odd, music-less quiet and this general air of fantastic mystery.
Consumers distributing was always my fav
Fanny's Fabrics. They were well organized, clean, helpful to inexperienced sewists, and were already doing electronic membership records 15 years ago while Fabricland still has not gotten with it. Marshall's fabrics is similar, but isn't quite the same feel.
Zellers should be the only answer
I miss that rockabilly store that was just off whyte.
rowena? they went online.
Video game store maybe called Trade and Play, and two computer stores, A+ Computers and Best Computers.
They were then called VR Superstore or something like that. I worked there for a couple of years.
Trade and Play was great, I remember getting Intellivision games there. I built a couple computers out of parts from Best Computers, seems forever ago now.
Today I learned that Home Outfitters is discontinued.
Maybe Sears because of Craftsman tools
Compusmart or Compucheck? Can't remember the exact name. Bought all my PC games there in the 90s.
I believe it was Compusmart. They had such an awesome collection of PC games
Zellars
Zellers. And army and navy. I was so sad when the Whyte Ave location closed
Zellers & Sears for sure.
Zellers. The little bear ride and old people restaurant.
Blockbuster (and other rental stores)
Elephants Never Forget, somewhere near Jasper I think? When we would come to the city my aunt would take us to the museum and then to Elephants. The two places were the entire day! Followed up by pizza that was delivered right to your door!! (Little country kid me was fascinated by this)
Ahhh every childhood dream! A two story toy store!
RadioShack
Sears furniture stores, they had the best quality furniture
Warp One, the location that was on 80th Avenue. I bought so much stuff there.
Yes pre eyepatch
Eatons! Mostly I remember going to the restaurant with my grandmother and getting a bowl of rice pudding. Also playing Super Mario brothers on NES for the first time in their toy department
Does anyone remember "LaSenza Girl" it was like a preteen girls clothing store.
Zeller's. Whomever was the buyer for that store in Kanata, Ontario did a really good job. Lots of clothing selection and different items that you couldn't find in other big box store. Their cafeteria was awesome too. Always clean and the food was consistent with good quality. I loved their breakfasts and Big Z burger.
The Zellers in Pembroke also had surprisingly good quality clothing that like you said wasn’t stuff found in box stores. Was sad to see it go.
Army and Navy for sure, but also, I'll be weird and say Target, haha. They had a lot of fun things for a decent price.
From Ontario here, but i grew up with zellers and sears. I miss those.
I can’t remember the names of them but there use to be these cool sciencey toy stores in the various malls across the city. I haven’t seen one of those in ages.
Omg ! I read Acts of Gord as a kid. Pretty sure it prepared me for all the stupid I would encounter in life.
I haven't heard someone mention "Gord" in decades!
Woodwards, Woolco, Eatons
San Francisco 😍 as a kid in the 90s, nothing will ever have the same feel as their clutter, dolphin lights, blow up furniture, lava lamps and the ever-present fire risk.
Divine Decadence followed by a slice at the Funky Pickle
Y E S
Definitely Zellers I used to watch there with my friends all through high school.
San francisco
Zellers for sure. Do you remember how the Customer Service Dept. was usually on the second floor , tucked way in some corner? Unlike say London Drugs who has theirs at the front door and can become an extra cashier if needed? Also, no idea why, Zellers would train new cashiers on Saturday, their busiest day!! Have to wonder if their upper Management group ever actually shopped at a store.
Payless
A few i miss are Millennium, Mariposa, Deja Vu, Zazoo, Playdium, The Met (got taken over by Saan) but we had one in Whitecourt that had awesome food in the 90s. Funky pickle....i could go on
Millennium is WEM. That was a prime store for teenage me. Also San Francisco.
San Francisco stores in WEM and Londonderry Mall
XS Cargo. Yeah, it was full of cheap chunk, but I loved going through it. Found some really good refurbished name brand stuff.
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HMV for sure. I’m still upset when Blockbuster would push out the smaller Ma & Pa video rental places.
Forgot about HMV. Remember their concert stage in WEM?
Oh! A&B Sound! Their giant south side location was a great place to spend a few hours looking through CDs of bands that you've never heard of.
Army and Navy, best place to get outdoor gear.
Sears hands down!
Army and Navy was a great place to stock up on canned goods and other grocery items. The Zellers near me was usually pretty quiet, but they had good prices. The one near my childhood home was renowned for really good food in the cafeteria. I bought quite a bit of stuff there and was so disappointed when Target moved in and immediately bombed. I would like to see Zellers come back.
Consumers Distributing- loved that place.
Idk if there are any left, but was always fun looking around a San Francisco
San Francisco
Zellers - where the lowest price was the law.
K Mart...
Where are my Northern Reflections people at?! ;) :P
Woolco anyone?
No Future Shop?
Compu smart baby
Who actually misses being ignored by all the sales staff until you accidentally walked close to the $2K+ electronics at which point they'd all swarm you? I spent plenty of money in Future Shops over the years, but I always hated their commission-heavy sales force.
Best Buy is identical to Futureshop except the colours. I worked futureshop when they got bought out. They laid off all the salespeople with absolutely zero warning. It was complete bullshit. So nope. Don’t miss them.
Zellers
In my city our zellers was replaced with a sears, which was then replaced with a target (that promptly fucked off out of Canada a couple years later) and now it’s a spirit Halloween for two months a year
Kresgees their little diner counters
Sears. I loved the wish book
Kidtropolis in WEM It was a cool set up. For $20 an hour you could drop off your kid and they could drive power wheels, be a baker, be a policeman, work at the radio station.
San Franciscos in West Edmonton Mall
I was actually a huge fan of Target… anyone else?
None of them. But Sears corporate management was the dumbest company on the planet. They had catalog sales all set up before the internet. They had the customer base, the infrastructure too easily switch over to online sales and they blew it! Management sat on there hands while everyone else ran circles around them.
San Francisco, bro. Holy do I miss that shop.
San Francisco should be on the list.
Ponderosa! Ponderosa! Doing it better! A great deal better!
Everything for a Dollar store in Milwoods Town Center was the best dollar store. Bought a fair amount of stuff from the Sport Mart there too. They never really filled the space it left, now there’s that weird hallway through the middle of the mall