We already have a thread on Ohio Department Stores.  What about the fallen discount stores in the Buckeye State?

 

Akron

Click/Acme Super Center

Miracle Mart

Twin Valu

 

Cincinnati

Swallen's - closed

Rink's - closed

 

Cleveland

Atlantic Mills/Spartan Atlantic

Clarkins

Giant Tiger > Gaylords

Mr. Wiggs - only based in Cleveland

Uncle Bill's > Cook United > Cook's

 

Columbus

Hart's > Big Bear Plus - both chains closed

 

Dayton

Concord City - now part of Value City

E.F. MacDonald - closed

Goldman's - closed

 

Toledo

Arlan's

Bargain City > Rink's - closed

Ontario - closed

Topp's - closed

 

Youngstown

Almart

 

Also, let us not forget the regional and national discounters that left Ohio when the parent chain closed: Best Products, G.C. Murphy/Murphy Mart, Gold Circle, Grant's, McCrory, Service Merchandise, S.S. Kresge, Twin Fair, Woolco, Woolworth, Zayre

 

A few details about some of the stores:

Concord City - the commercials were kind of a cultural landmark in Dayton.  Four copies of owner Jerry Cohen would appear onscreen, each taking turns describing what's on sale.  At the end, all four of them would say in unison "See you. Pleeeeeeeeease."

 

Goldman's - one of these, in Moraine, was quickly turned into a Kmart in the early 80s.  There was also a larger one with a gabled roof bearing the store's name, located on the north side of the former traffic circle at N. Dixie Drive and Wagner Ford Rd. and I-75.  I think that one became a flea market.

 

E.F. MacDonald Co. - In high school, I asked a schoolmate where he got the neat new boom box, and he answered "MacDonald's".  I was like, "Huh?"  Who knows, the discount chain may actually have been popular in Dayton before the golden-arched bearer of a similar name came to town.

 

Swallen's - Commercials out of Cincinnati used to sing "You'll find it at Swallen's!"

I dont know the particular regions but...in cleveland area

Best

Ames

Hills

JJ Newbury

 

 

I must be too young... I don't know those Dayton stores.

 

Either that or it was my high-class upbringing. :-D  (I need some kind of snob smiley to use here!)

 

P.S.  Welcome to the forum, Mike!  It's good to see the Dayton contingent here slowly growing.

Click... ah, that brings back memories.  It was like a smaller scale version of today's Super Wal-Marts.  They sold everything from grocery's to shoes/clothes, pets, toys. 

 

I remember how me and my sister would always get lost in the toy section and my mom would have to have them announce our names on the P.A. system to come to the Customer Service desk.  Man, that seems way back.

I am really liking Mike From Daytons intel on the boom years in Dayton.  There was another discount store (I think) called Rightmayers (sp?) or Rightmeyers...in Kettering off at Stroop and Marshall.  This would have been the 1960s. 

 

Arlans was in Louisville too.  They had a good art supply section, oddly enough.  They also used these big supergraphics to spice up the blank store wall that had a more public face (like facing a freeway).

 

Topps was elsewhere in the Midwest as well..they where in Chicago and in Louisville, during the 1960s.  I think they went under in 1970 or a bit later. 

 

I think with the advent of K-Mart there was a big boom in the 1960s of other companies getting into the early big-box discount store market.  Although Wal-Mart is whats big now, the concept of the suburban big-box retail store dated back to the 1960s at least.

Has anyone else ever heard of Big Wheel? There used to be one where I lived, and I never knew there to be another one. I used to like having my mom take me there and begged her to buy me legos.

Big Wheel rocked!  Except when people found out your clothes came from there.  It's amazing how small it would seem compared to the modern discount chain.

 

I was also a big fan of Gold Circle.

I remember shopping with my parents at Gold Circle & Fisher Big Wheel both in Suburbian Cleveland and Columbus

There were several Gold Circle's in Dayton; one on Gettysburg near Cornell and the other (that I can think of) was where the current/dead Circuit City is in Trotwood.

Oh man, Gold Circle was the shiznit!

Is anyone familiar with the name Cook's?  I have searched the internet but have come up with nothing. 

 

The building in Norwalk that used to house Cook's is now part of a junkyard (I think the building has been vacant since before I was born, 1985).  And of course it is the first thing one sees driving into town on the northside!  It is definitely an eyesore that doesn't represent true Norwalk.

One store I remember while growing up in Celina was Barr's.  It was pretty much your typical downtown five-and-dime store in small-town Ohio.  Being a kid at the time, the two things I remember most are the toy department that was located in the basement and the old-fashioned candy counter.  I think they probably went out of business in the early to mid 90's.  I'm not sure how big the chain was at its peak or demise, but I do remember that they were owned by a parent company with a different name when they closed.  I've searched, but haven't been able to find any information online.

 

Another store that I was reminded of recently was The Sundry Store.  While I was home not too long ago, my mom got something out of the attic and it was in a Sundry Store bag...never would have remembered it otherwise (probably because they didn't have a toy department).  It too was a chain of stores in small towns in Ohio...the bag had the list of locations on the bag, but I didn't look closely.  I think it was more like a pharmacy, but without the actual pharmacy.

Cleveland:

 

Bernie Schulman's (which became Marc's)

Apple's

Just Closeouts

Revco

Fox Drug (this place was awesome!)

Gillombardo's (which became Giant Eagle)

Stop 'N' Shop (which became Giant Eagle)

Finast (which became Tops)

Oh man, Gold Circle was the shiznit!

 

I was home for a weekend in Cleveland visiting my parents and I was doing laundry and at the bottom of the laundry basket were Golden Circle stickers, I had to ask my mom what Golden Circle was. Also, does anyone remember Best?

I remember Best in Dayton (Trotwood to be exact)...it was similar to Service Merchandise if I remember correctly

I seem to remember a commercial with a silver man...was the store Silverman's?  Also I remember Northeast, Fretter and Sun TV for electronics and appliances.  Miller Sales was a catalog showroom in Akron/Canton.  Gray Drug and People's Drug.  D&K stores seemed like they were in every downtrodden downtown business district, with a bunch of random shit heaped in bins.

 

Is Acme/Click out of business?  I thought at least the Acme grocery stores were still around as Akron's version of Heinen's.

There was a Best in Parma (a suburb of Cleveland) and I used to go there as a child. The logo was a big "B" smaller "E", even smaller "S" and the smallest "T". My parents sometimes refer to Best Buy as Best, forgetting that those are 2 different companies.

 

BEST

I remember Best in Dayton (Trotwood to be exact)...it was similar to Service Merchandise if I remember correctly

 

There was also a Best in Centerville and Huber Heights.  Do you also remember Hills?  There was one off Salem Avenue in Trotwood and in Huber Heights.  One of my favorite memories though was the old Stumps Grocery Store, where they would bring out the groceries to you while you had these hideous 2x3 boards that would dictate what you wanted.

 

Oy...the days...

Best, or Best Products, was a well-known discount store in the format known as "catalog showroom".  You browsed items in a showroom, and made a note of what you wanted to buy.  Then you took it to a service desk who sent the order to an onsite (upstairs) warehouse (sometimes via pneumatic tube!).  You then had to wait until you were paged to the "Main Checkout", then you picked up your item at the pickup area -- a long inclined conveyor belt from upstairs.

 

The Best stores I was familiar with had a toy/baby goods department in a separate compartment on the left, but they used the traditional store setup.

 

Service Merchandise was also a catalog showroom store, but I think there were some later stores that were traditional off-the-shelf.  Both chains are gone now.

 

Before the B-E-S-T logo in different sizes, they had a stylized "B" with red, yellow, and blue coloring in its loops.  Best was also known for building these post-modern stores that looked like they were somehow damaged, though none were in Ohio.

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0403/bst/notch_op051_t.jpg

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0403/bst/BEST_int_ext04rev_t.jpg

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0403/bst/BEST_hialeah_built01_t.jpg

 

The Best in Toledo was at Westgate; there's now a Home Depot on the site.

The Best in Trotwood was on Salem Ave. near the mall.  The building still stands as a church, last I checked.

The Best near the Dayton Mall was on SR-741, east side, south of the mall.  Not sure what's there now.

There was a Best inside the Charleston Town Center mall in WV.

 

Someone mentioned mixing up Best and Best Buy.  Actually the former was built right to the latter in Annapolis, MD back in '97 or so.  They finished building the Best just in time for the chain to call it quits.  Whole thing reminds me of where at the Westland Mall in Columbus, there was a Wendy's Bridal shop right next door to a Wendy's hamburger restaurant.  That, I say they had to have done on purpose.

Cleveland:

 

Bernie Schulman's (which became Marc's)

Apple's

Just Closeouts

Revco

Fox Drug (this place was awesome!)

Gillombardo's (which became Giant Eagle)

Stop 'N' Shop (which became Giant Eagle)

Finast (which became Tops)

 

Actually, Apple's is still around with grocery stores in Elyria, Lorain , and Norwalk

Cleveland:

 

Bernie Schulman's (which became Marc's)

Apple's

Just Closeouts

Revco

Fox Drug (this place was awesome!)

Gillombardo's (which became Giant Eagle)

Stop 'N' Shop (which became Giant Eagle)

Finast (which became Tops)

 

I think Fox Drugs became Revco for a brief period before turning into CVS- at least my neighborhood Fox became Revco and then a CVS. Also, Stop 'n' Shop merged with a lot of Rini Rego's (which had merged with or absorbed Fazio's grocery store). A Rini or Rego's family market still exists on Lake Road in Rocky River.