'Brick and Mortar' store reminiscing thread

[digitalbabe]

For the sake of competition and a healthy market place-lets hope consumers who wish to not only catch bargains, but have choices, continue to have options for their entertainment buying in the future.

As the sad reality of the shuttering of numerous physical media and entertainment stores continues, due to a variety of factors, what are your favorite memories as a child, or an adult of browsing your favorite stores?

 

[Ricker]

Mine was going to Woolworths to eat at the counter

 

[digitalbabe]

Occasional Hot dogs with Mom at Bradlees (oh my god that was long ago!), and browsing Sam Goody music stores.

 

[snowblood]

Always going to F.L Moore's Music when i was a kid looking through the vinyl. I use to do a lot of swimming when i was young, And i remember my Dad (RIP) buying me Madness One Step Beyond L.P for when i swam a mile. Man, That was a long time ago.

 

[CaptainCoffee]

I remember browsing HMV's dvd section when i was about fourteen and being mesmerised by how much choice there was.

I also remember how much I wanted to win the lottery after every visit!

 

[digitalbabe]

Palmer Video stores when I was in grammar school and trying to find a rental at Blockbuster Video. Always seemed to take forever, LOL.

 

[surfury]

I always remember conning my folks into giving me the money I needed when Deep Purple's "Made in Japan" came out (very tenuous link to HMV) by saying I'd sat on a mate's copy and broken it. Vinyl days. Was actually a small indie store as Woolies never stocked the decent stuff. Must have been 14 then. Those were the days.

 

[93Cobra]

I had 2 favorites---Erol's video and Bradlees..
Their was an awesome place for ice cream named Farrells, it was the coolest place to eat!!

 

[Ricker]

OMG, everybody is taking about Video, I was out of High School before it was even thought of.

 

[blumaster]

Sorry, Ricker.....I miss my local video rental shop, Captain Video. That place was so awesome and the people that worked there were characters unto their own.

 

[Ricker]

I used to work at Captain Video. I probably helped some of you when you were 5 years old.

 

[Necroscope]

I grew up in a small town, and my local video store was Magic Video. I went in so often that the owner started throwing me the order sheet, and telling me to pick some horror movies to order, since I had seen everything in the store! It was great. She would also give me all of the movie posters that she didn't use. Such a great place...

 

[digitalbabe]

Necro, haha, that's a great story!

 

[ricster]

MVC

It was round the time DVD has first launched. Titles were low on the ground. There was no supermarket support and we didn't have a Hmv. The closest Hmv was Chester and they close 5:30pm

So every Monday night after work, I'd drive to broughton park, just outside of Chester. The MVC store there would be open til late. 8pm I think it was.

It was brilliant. Loads of DVDs and WIdescreen VHS. Remember those ???

Even when the supermarkets started selling DVDs, you couldn't get the box sets. But you could always rely on MVC on a Monday night, they'd have them.

Anyone remember the Warner UCA collections. Big oversized box with th DVD inside and also a film cell, art cards and poster. Yup. MVC had them.

And then on a Monday night, it was a great hunting experience. At the time I went into MVC, Tesco, woolworths and WH Smith as they all sold DVDs. Hunting for the best price on release date, it was great.

For me, I am absolutely gutted about Hmv closing its doors. Since the dawn of DVD I have been searching the stores for bargains and getting stuff on release date and making sure the item is in pristine condition and not leave it to luck with a moron smashing a case into a box way too small and then running over it with a forklift truck only to get lost in the post.

 

[funkydamo]

MVC yeah, was talking with the mrs last week about them. when they opened in Lincoln they GAVE AWAY spiderman videos with every membership.
Other media stores i used to love:
Our Price-was the only place to get cds here for a while. i still dream about them sometimes?? finding rare prince cds, and posters (weird!) then when i wake up i feel a little sad that those days are gone. no more high street music shops.
Andys records- i spent most of my paper-round money in there. used to get anew album every week.
Woolworths-since being a kid went in there every week. from toys, to then cds. i bought my first every cds from woolys (shamen-boss drum, and madonna-erotica) still miss them.
and then WH Smith, the place i care about least has survived. id swap them for any one of the fallen lol.

 

[Munstarz40]

I remember ditching school to go to the wherehouse to browse the latest single cds. I also miss Tower Records which had almost every type of music you can think of.

 

[Ricker]

well I remember going to our local record shop, to pick up a new 45 for only 35 cents. You will all have to ask your grandparents what a 45 is, because it's not a gun.

 

[cooey]

My first job was at MVC and I used to love it!

I used to always get first dibs on sale items too and with the extra 20% off it was even better

 

[sirdizzy]

I remember when dvds first came out very few people had a dvd player and the video stores would only carry like 3-4 dvds. Back then Blockbuster and Hollywood were competing pretty heavily and they would guarantee titles to be in stock. So you could go in Wednesday morning and all the dvds would be gone (they would still have like a 100 VHS copies) so you could get a voucher for a free rental for that movie. I think there was a year after I got my first dvd player I never paid for a rental because of that guarantee war.

 

[ricster]

My first job was at MVC and I used to love it!

I used to always get first dibs on sale items too and with the extra 20% off it was even better

Loved the place. Stay for hours on Mondays nights. Sales were good. MVC membership was weird. £17.99 for MVC members and £18.99 for non members for example