In the 80s - The Places We Shopped

Every generation mourns the death of the places they once frequented in their youth. For the depression era generation, those places were the mom and pop shops that once surrounded their town square. For Baby Boomers - well, while they probably mourn Woolworth's with us, they also mourn the downtown shopping experience that gave way as indoor malls began to take over.

These are the places that are disappearing or have already disappeared which we tip our 40 to. Yup.

Woolworth

Photo by roadsidepictures [Flickr]

Woolworth's has been around a long time and is actually still around in Europe. However, in America, Woolworth only remains as a ghost of shopping excursions past. Initially, Woolworth was found only in downtown areas where you might stop in for a snack at the lunch counter.

Growing up in the 80s, we actually had one downtown and then we had one in the mall.

Yup. The mall. That staple of 80s culture.

Like the one downtown, the one in the mall also had a lunch counter and as we normally found ourselves in the mall more often than downtown, it was this one that was most frequented. There, we bought a number of things. I remember Halloween and Christmas always being an exciting time at Woolworth's because there were lines of costumes in boxes. Those nifty plastic costumes with the somewhat scary, eyeless masks.

We bought all kinds of things at Woolworth's.

Photo by Sakurako Kitsa [Flickr]

The things we bought at Woolworth's varied, but they ranged from:

• Jelly bracelets
• Garbage Pail Kids
• Wacky Packs
• Costumes with mask in the box
• Cheap lipgloss
• Stickers, stickers and more stickers

The Mall - Old School

Photo by mallsofamerica blog

Obviously, malls are still around, but they're, well, different. In the 80s, malls had drugstores and discount stores and even sometimes grocery stores. They were a regular destination on weekends and the mall benches were always filled with teenagers wearing an array of neon, tight-rolled jeans and teased bangs.

In the picture above, you can even see that Woolworth's was a regular staple of the 80s mall.

K-Mart

Photo by happyshooter [Flickr]

K-Mart is a dying chain. Pushed out by giants like Wal-Mart and Target, it still hangs on we a number of stores, but we all get that feeling that, eventually, there will be no more K-Mart.

The K-Mart of the 80s had small shopping carts that were always in need of repair and floors that seemed to be mixture of every ugly neutral color known to man. K-Mart wasn't so different from the Wal-Mart of that era - which had yet to become supersized. And Target wasn't everywhere as it is now. In the 80s, if you wanted discount shopping, you usually found yourself at Wal-Mart or Target. And neither was bigger than your average grocery store. Go figure.

Photo by TCMHitchhiker [Flickr]

Most of K-Mart's merchandise was branded with one of those enigmatic yellow stickers that told someone what "key" the item was.

Photo by luckyfish [Flickr]

And more than likely, just outside the entrance, you found one of these guys. For a quarter, you could ride this little guy that went round and round as a tinny version of some song like "Saturday in the Park" played.

Service Merchandise

Photo by Dystopos [Flickr]

Service Merchandise was an odd store. And I think I mean that in a good way. While some items could be pulled right off the shelf and taken up to the counter, most of the time, you had to pull a ticket from the shelf that indicated the item you were interested in. From there, you would take it up to the service desk and present it where the clerk would go back into the mysterious stock room and pull a box that contained your item.

Service Merchandise began to fade away in the mid-90s. Currently, it's an internet-only retailer.

There were a number of cool things that it seemed you could only get from a place like Service Merchandise at the time. Genuine gumball machines, beer-themed dartboards and other crazy stuff you didn't need.

Not so long ago, I was going through crap that had been packed away in storage and found a Service Merchandise catalog from 1990. While not the 80s, it still gives one a good idea of the items that you would have found there in, say, 1987-89. Eventually, I'll be scanning it in, so if you haven't subscribed, do so now!

S & H Green Stamps

In the 80s, stores like S & H Green Stamps were quickly becoming a relic. Popular mainly during the 60s and 70s, the "stamp stores" continued to operate into the 80s, but were pretty much extinct by the 90s.

The stamp stores worked like this: you went to the grocery and bought your food. Depending on how much you spent, you would get a certain number of stamps. Later, you'd get home, take those stamps, lick them and put them into "books." Later, those books could be redeemed at the redemption center (pictured above) for all sorts of items like toys, furniture and housewares.

S & H wasn't the only stamp store. I remember we had two stamp stores at the time, but can't for the life of me remember what the name of other one was.

S & H was like Service Merchandise - a unique concept that eventually died out. Still, I know I loved my Dr. Suess alphabet book that I once got from the stamp store. *sigh*

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I could have mentioned a ton of store that were here and now gone. Montgomery Ward (which was already a relic in my hometown by the time I came along), Zayres, etc. More than likely, you will see more about those and others in the coming posts.

What were your favorite places to shop in the 80s?

Comments

[Matt Elkins]

Oh man. How great would it have been to see K Mart in it's heyday. And to look at a 60s or 70s model K Mart compared to today. K Mart kept it's 70's look until 1994 when stores were modified to a more modern look. I hope there are still a lot of those K Marts that were around during the 60s or 70s. I would love to shop and look around in one of them.

[David]

Seriouslly! You need to scan in the Service Merchandise catalog! I have looked all over and have not found any copies of it online in digital format or on paper! Drop me a line if you get it scanned :P

[Dave]

BTW, my email is quonleefl@hotmail.com

[Remember80sRetail]

The trip down memory lane.... I grew up in Tampa, and there was a 1970s (early) KMart that was the only one in town that I was aware of. This Kmart was near the S&H Green Stamp store (where I got a red BuddyL dump truck with a yellow dump box) with my parents' hard-earned green stamps. That was in 1979. The KMart was located across the street from the Cincinnati Reds Spring Training facility, and was in the shadow of the old Tampa Stadium. That's all gone now, but the Kmart is still there. The S&H store was located about 1 1/2 miles north of the Kmart, and was a stand alone store next to a Mercedes dealership. The Mercedes dealership is still there, but the Green Stamp store was demolished in the mid-80s. By the way, I still have the truck I got at the Green stamp store. I remember how it impressed me that I was able to get it. Times were tough in 1979, and to get an unexpected surprise like that made an impression. That's why I keep the truck. The green stamps were earned from grocery purchases at Lakeland, FL-based Publix stores. Also, at that time, there was a catalog showroom that preceded Service Merchandise's arrival in Tampa called Wilson's. They had a location that was in a large "tilt-up" 1970s concrete looking store that later became a men's suit warehouse. This was located approximately a mile from Tampa Stadium on Hillsborough Avenue, just down the street from the Woolco store (that's a whole 'nother blog entry there, trust me). Service Merchandise came into my suburb like a lion in the mid-1980s replacing a Florida-based catalog showroom called Luria's (which is Italian for "too expensive for Tampa shoppers"). Later, Service Merchandise moved into an old Wilson's location in central Tampa where it stayed until bankruptcy. I last shopped at a Service Merchandise store in 1996 when I bought my groomsmen gifts (Cross Pens) following my wedding. Not long after, both the store and my marriage folded. I miss the store more than the wife. Kmart opened a new store in my suburb in 1980. This Kmart was THE place to shop. It anchored a shopping plaza called Mission Bell Plaza, with a six-screen movie theater on the northwest corner, and Kmart taking up the southern end of this Southwestern-themed strip mall. They had a Hot Wheels/Matchbox car selection like I'd never seen. I mean, there must have been 200 different models, many of which I still have. They sold tires and batteries, and my father used to comment that only idiots bought tires and batteries at places like Kmart and Zayre. I had no idea what a bias ply tire was, but that's what Kmart sold and my old man only would buy radials and lifetime shocks and lifetime alignments from Sears. After all at Sears, their motto was, "We Install Confidence." This new Kmart had a candy counter, a cafeteria in the back of the store (the later became a display area for workout gear in about 1985 or '86), a garden shop, and a standard hardware department. In addition to the cafeteria at the rear of the store, there was a Slushie/Hot dog stand at the front. The store expanded into a neighboring storefront in the mid-1980s. By then, Kmart was on its way out. My folks used to drive to a store way out in the country called Wal-Mart. The prices were reasonable, and the seed was planted. Since, I've shopped at Kmart perhaps 15 times - ever. I even lived in Michigan where Kmart is King, in a town of 20,000 that had two Kmarts (Traverse City), and never shopped there. Sad, because I can remember when going there was an event. My Atari 1600 video game system came from Kmart. My first computer (an Atari 800XL) came from Kmart. My brother's first stereo (with an 8-track)and my first 8-track tape (Air Supply's "Lost In Love") all came from there. Just reading this entry brought back the sounds, the smells and the sight of the Blue Light cart as it made its way around the store from bargain to bargain. *sign* What a nice trip down memory lane. Kmart's pretty much gone. I live in Rapid City, SD, and there's a huge Kmart (1970s vintage), that's still open across town. It's in a dying shopping area, and it's sad. The old auto service doors are still visible, and they're closed, locked and painted over. The store anchors a dying strip mall that you can tell was the bomb in the 1970s..... The tragedy of this Kmart is that it's never occupied by shoppers. I mean, never. It's also the cleanest store in town. It's also much more expensive than the WalMart monster that plays host to 12,000 shoppers a day that's located about 3 miles away. Retail is not like it used to be. Malls had drug stores in the 1980s (Super X drugs at University Mall), malls had a sense of being the only relevant shopping destination in any suburban area. Your good clothes came from the mall stores, but your school clothes came from the catalog pick-up at the Sears or Penney's stores at the mall. Now, it all comes from the laptop computer or open-air "Lifestyle/Power Centers" that are quickly replacing enclosed malls. I prefer the old malls, myself. Something about them made going there to shop special. Going to the Target or the Kohl's in a "Lifestyle" center is like an ATM transaction. No soul, no character, no "experience." Anyhow, thanks for the place to enter my memories....

[dennis]

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!!!!

[karyn]

Plaid Stamps. You are thinking of Plaid Stamps.

[Michele Cohen]

I'm trying to think of the name of a store in malls in the '80s. It had Earth in the name and sold candles and posters and such. Anyone know what it is?

[Jane]

Does anyone remember the name of a mall bookstore from the '80s that sold toys, as well? I have a family member from IL who is going crazy trying to remember the name!! Thanks!