Before Walmart

[DuckieLady]

I never knew America had K-marts

I never knew Australia did... keyword for here is had. Ours shut down a few years ago. I don't think there are any Kmarts left in Washington State.

 

[amadeus]

I never knew America had K-marts

There were lots of them in California when I lived there. For my two years in Wyoming [1985-1987], I never saw one, but when I moved to Oklahoma both K-Mart and Walmart were there.

 

[JohnDB]

Five and dime stores started getting fairly junky...now replaced by dollar general and family dollar stores.

But there were several years that there wasn't anything like that at all...

 

[amadeus]

In California there was a place called Gemco.
Safeway was the grocery store of choice that got replaced with Albertsons.

Yes, I remember both of those in California as well as Lucky's and Piggly Wigglys and a multitude of others. I suspect a lot of the others were driven out of business when Walmart developed their supercenter with massive grocery stores. In Oklahoma many small town groceries store went out of business after Walmart came in... Then with the last few years, some small towns were left without a grocery store because Walmart closed many of their smaller stores in favor of the the Supercenters. Towns too small for a Walmart supercenter had nothing and people had to drive to a larger town to buy groceries. Walmart undoubtedly made money out of the deal, but never mind the financial burden it put on a lot of people.

 

[Josho]

@FluffyYellowDuck @amadeus

Did Kmart in America have the same signage?

Here in Australia, Kmart's signage looks like this.

 

[DuckieLady]

@FluffyYellowDuck @amadeus

Did Kmart in America have the same signage?

Here in Australia, Kmart's signage looks like this.

Depends on where you go, but ours was like all red...

 

[amadeus]

@FluffyYellowDuck @amadeus

Did Kmart in America have the same signage?

Here in Australia, Kmart's signage looks like this.

Yes, but later when they were trying to compete against Walmart's Super Centers, K-Mart was building Super K's.
In Oklahoma K-Mart is just about gone except in Oklahoma City and probably Tulsa. Our town, a university town has no K-Mart but we have two Walmart Supercenters and one Neighborhood Walmart.

 

[Ziggy]

We had Purity Supreme for the market. Woolworth's 5 and dime. Brighams ice cream. My mom worked at the donut shop.
We had a movie theatre but was burned down probably for insurance.
We would take the subway to downtown Boston and shop at JC Penny bargain basement.
The first burger shop was a Burger King. Puff in stuff and the King was there for the opening. That was late 70's.
We had 2 local diners. a bowling alley and an ice skating rink.
We lived about a mile from the beach so summer was fun ride bikes hit the clam shop and feed the seagulls.
My mom didn't drive and my dad was always working. So we either walked, took the bus, or the subway.
But Broadway was just 1 block away and never had to travel very far for anything.
Roebell's and Kay's were clothing along with the small salvation army where my mom got most my clothes.
She was good at sewing so she would buy used clothes and spruce them up with buttons and embroidery.

 

[DuckieLady]

We had Purity Supreme for the market. Woolworth's 5 and dime. Brighams ice cream. My mom worked at the donut shop.
We had a movie theatre but was burned down probably for insurance.
We would take the subway to downtown Boston and shop at JC Penny bargain basement.
The first burger shop was a Burger King. Puff in stuff and the King was there for the opening. That was late 70's.
We had 2 local diners. a bowling alley and an ice skating rink.
We lived about a mile from the beach so summer was fun ride bikes hit the clam shop and feed the seagulls.
My mom didn't drive and my dad was always working. So we either walked, took the bus, or the subway.
But Broadway was just 1 block away and never had to travel very far for anything.
Roebell's and Kay's were clothing along with the small salvation army where my mom got most my clothes.
She was good at sewing so she would buy used clothes and spruce them up with buttons and embroidery.

Edith Bunker <3 <3 <3 <3

 

[Nancy]

I remember Woolco or something along those lines, when I was a kid ...and I think there was a delicatessen inside. I was pretty small, but I remember that big word. lol

So my question is...to some of you who have a few years on me, did Woolco have a delicatessen? I have a friend who says that Australia still has Woolco stores.

Tagging @Josho and @amigo de christo @Nancy

I have not heard of Woolco but we used to have a Woolworths. Was a department store downtown with a little counter, stools and they had ice cream and hot dogs and stuff.

 

[JohnDB]

I keep drawing a blank on the name of the English "Fish and Chips" place we used to go to all the time.

It wasn't named after some hokey boat captain either. It was styled after a place in England with fake newspaper to wrap up your order.

Miss that place too.

And there was an ice cream place called Farrell's...they made all kinds of great ice cream floats and banana splits...had the band of horns and cymbals that came out to the table for your birthday and everything...

 

[Ziggy]

Edith Bunker <3 <3 <3 <3

She reminds me of my mom. Not her voice though lol.. but my mom looked a lot like Edith.
The city scape in the opening and closing of the video reminds me a lot of where I grew up too.
South Boston, Ma. Aka: Southie.
I don't even recognize it now and I haven't been there for at least 20 years.
Last time I went all the one-ways were going in the opposite direction and I had a hard time finding the HUGE apartment complex I grew up in.
Nothing ever stays the same.

 

[Ziggy]

This was Broadway.
You can see Woolworth's on the left hand corner.
That's the way I remember it.

 

[JohnDB]

She reminds me of my mom. Not her voice though lol.. but my mom looked a lot like Edith.
The city scape in the opening and closing of the video reminds me a lot of where I grew up too.
South Boston, Ma. Aka: Southie.
I don't even recognize it now and I haven't been there for at least 20 years.
Last time I went all the one-ways were going in the opposite direction and I had a hard time finding the HUGE apartment complex I grew up in.
Nothing ever stays the same.

I know the feeling...

I also lived in Boise Idaho years ago too...

Went looking for my high school that was attached to a huge Church...

Both Church and school are gone... Church caught fire and they bulldozed the school. They rebuilt the church...but it looked different. They didn't rebuild the school.

 

[amadeus]

When I still lived in California in San Jose or in the East Bay [across the bay from San Francisco] I used to visit my old home town periodically and try to meet with old friends. In those days they had a rodeo and parade every summer but both had been discontinued the last few times I visited. In about 1997 I made the trip from Oklahoma and stayed with my older brother in San Jose. We made the trip to the old home town but the elementary school we both attended for 8 years was a vacant lot. They had torn it down and built a brand new school on the other side of town. We met no one either us had known even though it was still a very small California mission town [Mission San Juan Bautista (location for part of the movie, Vertigo)]. The closest thing to an old acquaintance was a woman working as a Park Ranger near the Mission who was the little sister of one of my school friends. We had not known her personally because she was a few years younger but she had older brothers who would have known us both. They were not around and we had to leave. You really cannot go home again.

 

[Nancy]

@FluffyYellowDuck @amadeus

Did Kmart in America have the same signage?

Here in Australia, Kmart's signage looks like this.

the K Marts around me changed their name to "Big K", and now I think they've closed down.

 

[amadeus]

In California there was a place called Gemco.
Safeway was the grocery store of choice that got replaced with Albertsons.

When I moved to Oklahoma in 1987 there were Safeway stores everywhere. Just about every small town had one but after a few years they sold the whole chain in Oklahoma to another food store. I forget which one, as those are all gone now as well. Other than Convenience store chains and Walmart, the only groceries stores are Homeland, Sprouts and Aldi's. Because of the university there are probably a couple of little specialty but all of the old Mom and Pop style stores are completely gone.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Before Wal-Mart we had the catalog department stores. SEERS, JCPenney, McCrorys, Montgomery Wards.

Yep. The K-Mart said "adios" about 15-20 years ago, then the Sears not long after that. We haven't lost the Macy's, JC Penney's or Dillards yet, but I heard that a lot of the smaller mall stores have closed down now, so it may be only a matter of time before the big three bow out as well.

Walmart is the monster that just keeps gobbling along. But the way they operate now is more like a higher-priced Dollar Store, in that a lot of the items will no longer be on the shelves. I get the feeling that they only buy in bulk at the cheapest prices, so whereas you can have space for 40 different items on the pickle isle, what you actually only have most of the time are maybe a choice of 10-15 items, with the rest being gone for some indefinite period of time until they decide to stock the shelf with it again. Very strange store to buy at now. Very hit and miss.

 

[Hidden In Him]

These days though, at least toys and things, we shop online. I was sad they got rid of "toys r us" though. I never got to take the kids. They will never know. Lol.

Ours closed as well. Bad management at the corporate level was part of that deal, though.

 

[Mayflower]

I never knew America had K-marts

They started closing the chains I think about 7 years back. We shopped once or twice.