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#1
Current Restaurants / Re: Steak 'N Shake
Last post by TheFugitive - Yesterday at 10:58:43 AM
My favorite Steak and Shake restaurant near Century III Mall has been torn down and replaced with a Raising Cane's chicken fingers location.
#2
It's official.  The demolition of the huge, rotting mall on the outskirts of Pittsburgh is finally getting underway.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/first-phase-of-demolition-set-to-begin-at-century-iii-mall/

The mall's owner, Moonbeam Capital Partners, was finally forced by a judge to begin demolition or risk forfeiting their property to West Mifflin Borough so that they could demolish the nuisance mall. 

I spoke with my son-in-law who lives in West Mifflin and he is overjoyed by this news.  The empty mall was just deteriorating and becoming a magnet for urban explorers, drug users, squatters, and various criminal elements.  It was draining a lot of resources from their public safety bureaus too as just in the past year they've had a fire and they've had to arrest dozens of trespassers (one of whom suffered a serious spinal injury after falling through the roof).  Famously the Dixie Square Mall in suburban Chicago became this sort of nuisance and remained that for decades before finally being torn down.  Nobody in West Mifflin wanted to see a repeat of that.

Century III will live on in the fond memories of a lot of Pittsburghers.
#3
Ames / Re: Ames Returning in 2023?
Last post by TheFugitive - March 27, 2024, 08:51:34 AM
Quote from: Retail Regents on March 26, 2024, 05:04:02 PMAnd this whole charade continues...

https://www.wpxi.com/news/trending/ames-department-stores-open-35-brick-and-mortar-locations-across-us/QZAL5CYT65HZJPV25VA62HPNAM/

I'm laughing out loud as a Pittsburgh resident thinking about all of the shoddy acts of "journalism" I've seen from this station for 52 of my 60 years.  This whole Ames reopening sham seems to me a project by some grad students to prove just how much journalists do NOT check-out their stories in the 2020's.
#5
Price Chopper is closing both the Clay, NY and Taylor, PA stores, effective April 19th.

https://www.syracuse.com/business/2024/03/price-chopper-to-close-one-of-its-onondaga-county-stores.html
#6
All remaining Freihofer's Bakery Outlet stores in this region have finally closed.

https://www.news10.com/community/restaurant-rundown/freihofers-bakery-outlets-in-the-capital-region-close/
#7
Television / Videos of Russian supermarkets...
Last post by TheFugitive - March 22, 2024, 10:49:37 AM
I've noticed in surfing around YouTube that it seems to be overrun these days with videos giving tours of supermarkets and hypermarkets in Russia.

The tours are generally guided by an English-speaking expat from Britain or Australia or someplace and they walk you through aisle by aisle to show you the assortment of items being sold and their cost.  The stores are amazingly similar to Aldi or Costco here in the US and show an abundance of product (food especially) that a guy like me who lived through the Cold War could not have imagined being available to average people in Russia.

In some cases the prices being quoted were significantly lower than what you'd pay for these items in the U.S.

It is generally thought that this surge of videos of Russian supermarkets is part of a propaganda effort by the Putin government to demonstrate that they aren't really being hurt much by international sanctions that have been imposed on them due to the invasion of Ukraine.  After all the Russians do have a long history of that sort of thing, so there is probably some truth to this.  Although there are so many of these videos out there from so many different regions of the country it's hard to imagine the stores have all been pimped for the benefit of a global audience.

The main thing you notice that is likely the result of sanctions is that well-known American brands like Pepsi have disappeared from the shelves and have been replaced by domestic Russian brands.  Though not all.  I did see some Nescafe coffee and Heinz ketchup in a couple of these videos.

#8
Holidays / Re: Surprising number of chain...
Last post by TheFugitive - March 22, 2024, 08:57:40 AM
Quote from: BillyGr on March 21, 2024, 07:03:48 PM
Quote from: TheFugitive on March 21, 2024, 09:06:09 AM
Quote from: BillyGr on March 20, 2024, 06:14:37 PMNot to mention the likely number of people upset that they would be open on the holiday. 

Maybe not as much as Thanksgiving (being that is a more secular and national holiday), but I'm sure there would still be some out there.


One of the many criticisms I've made of my former retail employers is that basically in nearly all cases upper management didn't give a damn whether their decisions would upset anybody. It was all about the Benjamins. The tight labor market seems to have forced a revision in their thinking.  A welcome development in my view.

And possibly also those upset customers who then opt not to shop that store on other days as well.

Yes you probably will see a bit of that.  It seems there has been an uptick in customers boycotting retailers for various reasons in recent years.
#9
Holidays / Re: Surprising number of chain...
Last post by BillyGr - March 21, 2024, 07:03:48 PM
Quote from: TheFugitive on March 21, 2024, 09:06:09 AM
Quote from: BillyGr on March 20, 2024, 06:14:37 PMNot to mention the likely number of people upset that they would be open on the holiday. 

Maybe not as much as Thanksgiving (being that is a more secular and national holiday), but I'm sure there would still be some out there.

One of the many criticisms I've made of my former retail employers is that basically in nearly all cases upper management didn't give a damn whether their decisions would upset anybody. It was all about the Benjamins. The tight labor market seems to have forced a revision in their thinking.  A welcome development in my view.

And possibly also those upset customers who then opt not to shop that store on other days as well.
#10
Holidays / Re: Surprising number of chain...
Last post by TheFugitive - March 21, 2024, 09:06:09 AM
Quote from: BillyGr on March 20, 2024, 06:14:37 PMNot to mention the likely number of people upset that they would be open on the holiday. 

Maybe not as much as Thanksgiving (being that is a more secular and national holiday), but I'm sure there would still be some out there.

One of the many criticisms I've made of my former retail employers is that basically in nearly all cases upper management didn't give a damn whether their decisions would upset anybody. It was all about the Benjamins. The tight labor market seems to have forced a revision in their thinking.  A welcome development in my view.