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Posts Tagged ‘Stores’

Out Cold: 12 Closed & Abandoned Dairy Queen Stores

29 Feb

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Chill out, soft-serve ice cream fans, these 12 abandoned Dairy Queen stores aren’t typical of the 75-year-old chain’s 4,000+ locations worldwide.

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Founded in June of 1940, Dairy Queen has carved out a viable, sustainable, and for the most part successful niche in the fast, er, “fan food” industry. Take it from Warren Buffett – the legendary investor’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company has owned International Dairy Queen Inc outright since 1998.

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Though abandoned by Dairy Queen, the chain’s original location on 501 N. Chicago St. in Joliet, IL still stands thanks to its 2010 designation as a city landmark. Originally built in 1895, the building was a DQ until the early 1950s – subsequent tenants included a lawn-mower repair business, a furniture store, a motorcycle shop and a plumber. Since 2007 the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has dispensed The Lord’s message at the historic location, presumably accompanied by chilled communion wafers.

More Like Ender

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“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…” the hope of enjoying some fan food (not fast food), that is. Credit Flickr user haymarketrebel with the above photo of a closed and abandoned Dairy Queen in Tustin, CA snapped on November 20th of 2013.

Grilled, Chilled, Killed

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Traditional fixtures of small-town America, larger and more restaurant-style Dairy Queen Grill & Chill stores began to appear in 2001. The above store, located in Savannah, GA sports the revised corporate logo that debuted in 2007.

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Too big to fail? Nuh uh: Flickr user C-Bunny snapped the shuttered store in April of 2011 and noted the presence of “Closed for Renovation” and “Notice of Bankruptcy” signs plastered to the glass drive-thru window. Which is it, DQ… why not both?

Stuckey’s to be You

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Flickr user Steven Wilson (ezeiza) has the hots for Dairy Queen: his dedicated online album features over 140 photos and counting! Wilson included but a single abandoned DQ; a combination Stuckey’s/Dairy Queen store in Lindsborg, KS that judging by the overgrown landscaping has been shut for some time.

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Out Cold 12 Closed Abandoned Dairy Queen Stores

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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So Long, Suckers: 11 Closed & Abandoned Candy Stores

28 Dec

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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When it comes to abandoned candy stores like these 11 examples, sweet has turned to sour quicker than toothache sufferers turn to their dentists.

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Whipsawed by the varying vicissitudes of a changing retail culture, macroeconomic trends and good old urban blight, traditional Mom & Pop candy stores are circling the drain and nobody’s standing by with a plug. Flickr user Bartosz Brzezinski (JohnnyGotHisGun) captured the sour state of one such example – the long-abandoned K&M Candy Store in Detroit’s McDougall-Hunt neighborhood – on December 30th of 2013.

ReSCue Me

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Remember the days when stores thought they’d last forever and thus spent lavishly on brand-specific frontages? Maybe Flickr user JJ’s (My Blue Dragon) shot of the abandoned Russell Stover Candies (“RSC”) store on Linwood Blvd in Kansas City, MO will jog some memories – if not a few fillings. Ironically, the KC Royal Blue & White tiled facade has held up remarkably well, which is much more than we can say about the store itself.

Store-gasm

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Contrary to any and all expectations, LA Greens Candy Store is neither green nor is it located in Los Angeles – 5477 Chene St. in Detroit, MI is where the abandoned store can be found. It also doesn’t sell candy anymore. The windowless and unoccupied (at least, not officially) building was snapped by Flickr users Gary Tucker and Modesto Speed (ClevelandSGS) on July 24th, 2013 and March 17th, 2002 respectively.

Candy, Tickets and… Things

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Methings the 100th St Candy Store in the heart of Manhattan’s East Harlem shoulda maybe stuck to its core competence… that being Candy. Kudos to Flicker user Jake Silby for snapping this shot of the abandoned store’s all-inclusive sign on November 28th, 2011.

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So Long Suckers 11 Closed Abandoned Candy Stores

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Blue Lights Out: 10 Closed & Abandoned Kmart Stores

29 Nov

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Attention Kmart shoppers… would the last one out the door please turn off the blue lights? These 10 abandoned Kmart stores have rung up their last receipt.

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The first Kmart opened on March 1st, 1962, in Garden City, Michigan – one of 18 Kmart stores to open that year. It wasn’t long before “Attention Kmart shoppers!” and the Blue Light Special entered the realm of pop culture. All good things must come to an end, however, though the end for Kmart has been especially long and messy.

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Down to 979 stores (as of January 2015) in 49 states and territories, Kmart’s decline has left hundreds of abandoned buildings in its wake including the one above, abandoned since 2008 in Defiance, Ohio. Kudos to Flickr user Nicholas Eckhart for snapping and posting the images above.

Z-Mart

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Sign of the End Times? The Walking Dead of retail? This disturbing “Kmart from Hell” sign stands (as of January 31st, 2013) in front of the abandoned former Kmart Super Center at Winchester and Riverdale in Memphis, TN. Built in 1995, the store only lasted ten years before management threw in the towel. Flickr user l_dawg2000‘s photo highlights “some sort of lo-jac device (bottom left on the sign) to discourage stealing it!”

Close the Palm Bay Doors

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Call it a combo of dedication and obsession: Flickr user Albertsons Florida Blog photo-documented the decline and fall of Kmart #3710 in Palm Bay, Florida (opened 1979), in 217 photos (and two videos) dating from January 28th of 2014 through September 9th, 2015.

Because of Winn-Dixie?

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Too big to fail? Nope! Flickr user Ryan (RetailByRyan95) brings us this abandoned Big Kmart (complete with enticing K Cafe) department store at 5432 Glenside Drive in Richmond, VA. The store opened as a regular Kmart in 1977; in 1998 it expanded into the space formerly occupied by a neighboring Winn-Dixie supermarket that had closed the previous year.

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Black signs don’t matter. Newly incarnated as a “Big Kmart”, the store soldiered on until August 2012 when the doors slammed shut for the final time and the sign was blacked out.

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Blue Lights Out 10 Closed Abandoned Kmart Stores

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Taped Shut: 15 More Closed & Abandoned Video Stores

18 Oct

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Since you can’t rewind time, these 15 abandoned video stores sit paused in retail limbo waiting for hipsters to spark an unlikely VHS cassette revival.

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Now you see it, now you don’t… a phrase that applies equally to video rental stores AND the movie cassettes they rented. Take Tape Headz Video in Washington D.C., which appeared to be a thriving concern when Flickr user jm3 snapped its brightly-lit overhead outdoor sign in May of 2005. Fast-forward to July of 2006 and, courtesy of Flickr user Daniel Lobo (Daquella manera), we note that Tape Headz Video has joined countless other video rental stores in retail limbo. Hope you returned that tape… well, never mind.

25th Hour

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Looks like time finally ran out for 24 Hrs Video, a picturesque yellow-painted video cassette sales & rental store in beautiful Brooklyn, NYC. Flickr user TIA (This is Awkward) snapped the sad but somehow soothing scene on September 2nd, 2013, a short time after the official notice of lease termination was taped (ironic, that) to the store’s front door.

Video Empty

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Video MD in Passaic, NJ appears to have died of natural causes: Netflix and Redbox, to be exact. Talk about yer Prognosis Negative. Flickr user Jeffs4653 snapped the storefront (complete with abandoned shopping cart and overflowing trash bin – stay classy, New Jersey) on August 6th, 2010. Still no cure for Snookie.

Desire To Expire

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The delightfully-named “A Video Store Named Desire” made quite an impression on tape-renting Angelenos, though whether said impression was positive or negative depended much upon one’s dealings with Mike, the Santa Monica Blvd store’s oft-crusty owner. The vast majority of Yelp reviews bemoan the store’s closing in the summer of 2015, however, and note the loss of a beloved local film-culture icon.

Pat’s Passed

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We’re not sure how long Pat’s Video in Carrollton, Kentucky was in business but that sign wouldn’t be out of place a century ago… except for the “video” part, of course. Flickr user Joey Harrison captured the lonely state of this abandoned video store in November of 2011.

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Taped Shut 15 More Closed Abandoned Video Stores

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Pizza Hurt: 12 Stale & Crusty Abandoned Pizza Hut Stores

12 Oct

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Pizza Hut has over 11,000 restaurants worldwide but it once had even more… until these dirty dozen outlets were abandoned like a leftover stuffed crust slice.

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Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 but it took a while for the chain to morph into the familiar red-roofed, trapezoid-windowed icon of fast food pop culture. Thousands of the Richard D. Burke-designed “red roofs” remain though the chain continues to move away from the old dine-in formula in favor of home delivery.

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According to Michael Wayne of Past/Lives, the “sad, wide, expressive eyes” of this drearily over-painted and graffiti-tagged former Pizza Hut restaurant in suburban Sydney, Australia “stare out at the busy King Georges Road rushing by, just like they have every day for the last 40 years.” That was in July of 2012… by early 2013 when Wayne returned, the store had vanished lock, stock and birch beer barrel. “Why couldn’t it have happened to Dominos instead?,” mourned Wayne. S’truth, mates.

“Gimme a C! Gimme an L!”

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Today on Wheel Of Misfortune… an abandoned Pizza Hut restaurant just off U.S. Highway 50 in Rocky Ford, Colorado, “where a cantaloupe-borne listeria outbreak which killed 33 people is said to have originated in 2011,” according to Tessa Cheek of The Dry Sea. That’s not going to be good for business… that’s not going to be good for anybody.

Brownout

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Some say that when a red-roofed Pizza Hut closes, a special corporate team rushes to the location and paints the roof brown as part of the “de-identifying” process. Sorta like airlines painting over their logo when one of their jets crashes. The more you know!

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Flickr user Ryan (RetailByRyan95) snapped this recently browned-over Pizza Hot restaurant in Williamsburg, VA on December 27th of 2008 and then again on June 30th of 2009. Wow, you’d never know the place used to be a Pizza Hut.

Spotless

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Whoops, looks like the Browning Brigade didn’t get the memo on an abandoned Spotsylvania County, VA Pizza Hut captured by Panoramio user Dan R. Mills in October of 2014. The entire sad scene screams of neglect from the building’s faded red roof to vegetated pavement cracks competing with ghostly yellow parking lines. One can only imagine what the food was like.

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Pizza Hurt 12 Stale Crusty Abandoned Pizza Hut Stores

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Instagram stores higher resolution images

07 Jul

After its recent app update it seems Instagram has further improvements up its sleeve – the mobile image sharing platform has started storing higher resolution images on its servers. In the app and on the web interface images are still displayed at the smaller 640 x 640 pixel size, but a look at the website source code reveals that images are now actually stored at 1080 x 1080 pixels. Read more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photo Finished: 12 Closed & Abandoned Camera Stores

22 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Point, click, shut! Camera stores are rapidly fading into obsolescence as smartphones take the place of mass market cameras, film and paid photo processing.

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Now here’s a developing story… NOT! The long-abandoned Foto Hut on Forbes Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh sold cameras, film and greeting cards while promising to develop film in an unknown number of “hour” – well, either “one” or “24”, it’s hard to tell from the red rectangle on the Kodak Yellow sign. Kudos to Flickr users strawbrryff and john (J Blough) for capturing this frozen-in-time, eternally bankrupt abandoned camera store in November 2010 and February 2011 respectively.

Chick Clinic

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Once a one-stop-shop for Louisville, Kentucky’s photo fans, Schuhmann’s Click Clinic opened in 1946 and its eye-popping animated signage dates from the early 1950s. Schuhmann’s kicked the bucket in 2001, however, and the sign out front was modified to advertise the store’s new tenants: the Show-N-Tell Showgirls Lounge. No cameras allowed, we’re guessing.

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Takes a licking and keeps on clicking? Both the club and the subsequent owners, the circa-2013 Meta bar, cleverly modified the front signage while completely ignoring the former camera store’s other sign, mounted on the back of the building overlooking the parking lot.

Foto Finis

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Flickr user Who Cares? (busy.pochi) snapped this abandoned Photographies camera and book store in February of 2011, and it didn’t take long for graffiti taggers and handbill posters to take advantage of the stores neglected status. One would think a city as photogenic as Paris could support at least a few camera stores.

Morgue & Camera

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A Hollywood landmark since the 1930s, Morgan Camera Shop finally gave up the ghost a few years into the twenty-first century. Boasting an idyllic location amongst Hollywood’s iconic tall palms and a sign influenced by Bauhaus architecture, Morgan Camera played a large roll in introducing 35mm photography to the United States from Europe.

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Morgan Camera exists in an odd sort of limbo – closed to be sure, but otherwise left pretty much alone inside and out thanks to the efforts of the Morgan family, members of whom who still own both the shop and the building.

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Photo Finished 12 Closed Abandoned Camera Stores

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Wundershine smart frame prints, displays and stores your favorite images

05 Feb

Dutch startup Wundershine has re-imagined the photo frame with Makerframe, a wooden frame that can print and display your images thanks to a built-in inkless thermal printer. Still in the development phase, the system is controlled via Android or iOS app. A simpler model called Reframe that doesn’t include the printer is also in the works. Read more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Empty Chambers: 10 Closed & Abandoned Gun Stores & Shops

06 Oct

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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If your business involves getting fired, going off half cocked or triggering bankruptcy, you just might be one of these 10 closed and/or abandoned gun shops.

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“Chet” sold guns (and gun accessories) in Highland Park, Michigan for a very long time – his weatherbeaten but still-legible store sign appears to predate the neon era. Eventually, economic conditions and crime got so bad in Detroit that even a gun shop couldn’t make ends meet. Remarkably, Chet’s Gun Shop has been reborn into the world of online gaming – you can find it (or a representation thereof) at Second Life, for instance.

Guns & Butches

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Someone better buy Butch’s Gun Shop (just $ 499,000!) before the rest of the letters decay. One has to wonder why Butch’s couldn’t cut the mustard… maybe it was just too wild & woolly for today’s Seattle. Then again, who wouldn’t want to get a haircut at a combo gun shop / pawn shop?

House Of Gunja?

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When Washington state’s started taking applications for retail marijuana stores, prospective operators found they had to clear a number of regulatory hurdles. One of these was a requirement that such stores had to be more than 1,000 feet from day care centers and similarly classed facilities. As the Trike Stop Infant Care Center was just 381 feet (as the crow flies) from the former House Of Guns, an application to open a “pot shop” in the abandoned gun shop was rejected. Selling guns less than 400 feet from a day care center was perfectly OK, though.

Last Meal

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Was the “Hollywood” in Grants, New Mexico a gun shop or a diner… OR BOTH?? Flickr user Robby Virus came across the tattered remnants of the odd old establishment’s sign while traveling through Cross County in December of 2010. What would it have been like to enjoy a meal at the Hollywood? It seems we’ll never know but one thing’s for certain: it was probably the WORST place to try a dine & dash.

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Empty Chambers 10 Closed Abandoned Gun Shops

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Boom To Bust: 10 Abandoned Fireworks Stores & Stands

01 Sep

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Fireworks sales are “fly by night” on several levels, and when boom turns to bust the colors fade faster than the aftermath of a bombshell in a moon-washed sky.

Take the outstanding image above of an abandoned fireworks stand outside Savannah, Georgia. Flickr user Mike Garde employs HDR to tease every last photon out of the corrugated sheet metal shack helpfully painted in explosive yellow and red by its builders. By the way, is “Cheap Fireworks” really the way to go when purchasing explosive materials intended to entertain one’s loved ones up close & personal? Just wonderin’.

Faded Glory

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Fireworks were invented by the ancient Chinese and Americans have used them to celebrate momentous occasions since, well, since before there even WAS an America. By the looks of it, this long-abandoned wholesale/retail fireworks emporium near, um, Emporia, VA opened its doors not long after John Hancock signed his, er, John Hancock. Kudos to long-time Flickr user Lawrence Beals for capturing the ramshackle edifice in 2006 in all its gritty glory about three years before it was torn down.

Red, White & Blew

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Ever since the first shell slammed into Fort Sumter, America’s proud southerners have loved the sight, sound and smell of explosions. The length and breadth of the former Confederacy is crammed with shotgun shacks selling all manner of fireworks – some open, others not. The 5,000-odd residents of Piedmont, Alabama alone have at least a couple of fireworks stands and credit Second Period Industries with capturing a couple of the more patriotically decorated ones for posterity.

Abandoned Fireworks Warehouse Is Where?

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We won’t tell you where this beautifully desolate abandoned fireworks warehouse is because, well, if we (or BrightBird, where its image can be found) did, it likely wouldn’t look as striking as it does thanks to squatters, vandals and taggers. For this moment captured in time, at least, we all can enjoy the sight of Mother Nature’s own fireworks taking back what’s rightfully Hers.

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Boom To Bust 10 Abandoned Fireworks Stores Stands

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