Oh forgot Hammond Toys also.

@Vapor lol road trippin' for the 'Zilla, nice. My mom waited in predawn lines at multiple Kaybee's and Toys'r'us stores for Return of the Jedi toys for Christmas for two little boys. I remember when Kaybee's went out of business and had clearance sales.

@Crow Chuck E. Cheese is still around but it is a shadow of its former glory. I was in a Chuck E. Cheese for my birthday party deep in the swiss cheese maze when the building caught fire. Frantic parents were on hands and knees dragging kids out of the maze with smoke waist high and above. I remember watching the roof collapse as the building burned from across the street and crying because I still had a pocket full of tokens.

Little Caesar's is also still around and I occasionally pick up a hot'n'ready but I remember the days of Pizza Pizza when you got two pizzas in one long box or a Bigfoot pizza that was huge. At one time they had salads, subs, pasta, etc.

There were Dee's sit down restaurants and Dee's Drive-Ins burger joints. I don't know the whole history but it seems there was a messy divorce and the wife took over the franchises but there is still one Dee's sit down restaurant in  the town I grew up in (similar to a Village Inn or Ihop). The Drive-Ins disappeared bought out and transformed into Hardee's fast food burger joints then they disappeared bought out by Carls Jr. and dismantled. Years later they came back to my area Carl's Jr.s but they are not the same. I remember playgrounds and Halloween kids meals, Super Heroes kid meals, etc. Back in the day there were milkshakes, and chargrilled hamburgers. Then they changed to charbroiled in the Hardee's days but even they went away for frozen patties.

After I thought about it I wish there was a Churches Chicken closer to where I live. And there aren't any book stores in my area. And Farrell's ice cream parlor.

The funny thing is that since I live near 2 colleges there are a bunch of fast food places near where I live.

Showbiz Pizza
A K-Mart with a Little Cesears inside
Blockbuster
Borders
Circuit City
Montgomery Wards
KB Toys
Fazolis

Like others, I miss Circuit City. They had such a wide DVD selection. There's no other store like it.

I miss Carl's Jr and Jack in the Box.
Culver's and Steak n Shake are near here but only in the suburbs.

I have no complaints though, because there are plenty of non-chain places to get a good, inexpensive burger here. And not one that's been sitting around under a heat lamp for hours, either! Fresh off the grill. I'd say that's worth the extra five minute wait, and they rarely have much line anyway so it's just as fast in the end. Like Jim's Original, Billy Goat Tavern, White Palace Grill, Duk's...compared to them I say eff the franchise corporates. And while I like Wendy's, KFC, and Popeye's, I never go. I'm just not in that lifestyle any more.

pikachulover wrote :

After I thought about it I wish there was a
Churches Chicken closer to where I live.
-end quote

Ugh Church's. I used to live half a block from one. Every Friday I would go there after work and get a sandwich to go. One day, they started serving shrimp. I could smell it outside for weeks. And it was G R O S S . I was never able to eat there again, lol

massreality wrote :
A K-Mart with a Little Cesears inside
-end quote

We have one of those in Chicago and, I just checked, a surprising number of standalone locations.

shakin steak wrote :
I have no complaints though, because there are plenty of non-chain places to get a good burger here.
-end quote

Ditto. In fact, this past Sunday evening we ate with some friends from church at a joint we hadn't been to in quite some time. It was nice to sit down and eat some good old fashioned beans and cornbread there.

I'd love to have a Cici's Pizza back in town, I could eat about eight of those pizzas. I'm pretty sure I've done it before too.



If I remember correctly, one of the flavors was apple cinnamon. That was pretty good. I miss how the employees yell "Welcome to Cici's!!!" when you walk through the door.

For me it's all about Swensen's Ice Cream Shop. That was the place we went to as a family growing up and for my birthday party each year we would copy their dessert design to create homemade "Mr. San Fancisco" ice cream treats (basically one scoop of ice cream with a cone for a hat and gumball eyes, then you decorated it with whatever additional candy you felt like). When they closed the location in Costa Mesa, CA I was bummed. 10 years later a smaller one opened up in a strip mall and I had to personally teach the teenage staff how to make a Mr. San Francisco from their official handbook, but it wasn't the same.

Hoju Koolander wrote :

I hadn't been for about a year and when we tried to stop by on 4th of July this year we found it was boarded up with the sign removed. Bring back Swensen's! Anybody else know what I'm talking about?

-end quote

Ahh, that sucks. Places like Swensen's (never been there, but it must be halfway decent by all accounts) disappear while crappy places like Friendly's still survive. I have been to 3 or 4 different Friendly's and each one of them had terrible service.

Once, on vacation, we were given seating at a place at the very back of the restaurant and never saw a waitress. We waited for nearly 15 minutes when my dad finally stood up and yelled so everyone in the place could hear him, "Back here! Can anybody help us??!!!" Then we left.

I know! A Tower Records.