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Home » The Water Cooler – A Store/Restaurant From Your Childhood That You Would Bring Back

The Water Cooler – A Store/Restaurant From Your Childhood That You Would Bring Back

by CLAYCORD.com
44 comments

The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.

The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday in the noon hour.

QUESTION: What’s one store/restaurant from your childhood that you would love to bring back?

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Talk about it….

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Please bring back Meryvin’s clothing store and Gemco department store and longs drug store. I love the Federated electronic store back in the 80s

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Did you have a Fred-it charge card?

Who remembers “OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!”?

I can’t name just one, there are a few that I liked. The Emporium in San Francisco on
Market St. always had a great selection of goods, and free carnival rides on the rooftop.
During the holidays, they had the best and most elaborate Christmas displays in the city. Another store was Woolworth’s on the corner of Market and Powell, also in San Francisco. When I was a teenager, there was a record store called The Music Box, they had several
small booths with a record player inside that would seat four. You can take records from
the shelves and play them in the booth. We’d sit there for hours listening to records, and
then decide which ones we wanted to buy.
There was a small “hole in the wall” Mexican restaurant that served homemade food made from scratch, my dad loved their tamales, and he would often take us there to eat.

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Happy Steak

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Longs Drugs

29

Radio Shack

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Agree, Radio Shack Mims books were of great help in me passing training classes. These days most are available on the web for those wanting to get basics. If anyone has kids or grand kids who show an interest in electronics share the URLs with them.
Would like FRYs park n shop store back.
.
https://tinyurl.com/yvjyvj43
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https://archive.org/search?query=Forrest+Mims
.
Others
https://tinyurl.com/3jw82k6p
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https://tinyurl.com/mt4spvav
.
https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2019/09/relay-symbols.html

Bring back:

  • Alidinos Pizza in Concord (also the slot car place that used to be next to it)
  • Evie’s Burgers in Walnut Creek
  • Bring Game Stop and Taco Bell back to the Clayton Valley shopping center
  • Block Buster, obviously
  • There used to be a really cool internet cafe for gamers in the same shopping center of Captain’s Chest and Trader Joes that stayed open 24/7 on the weekends and had gaming competitions in counter strike and stuff, that place would be nice to have back
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Gemco, Scott’s and Velvet Turtle restaurants, and the sporting good store on CCC Bl in PH where the consignment store is now (it was a real sporting goods store)

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Hogan’s

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That’s it! Thanks!

My pleasure

Hogans was the best!

Hogan’s was great!

Simon’s Hardware.
Morgan’s Machine and Marine.
Senor Pico in Ghirardelli Square.
FAO Schwarz in San Francisco.

14

The Little Professor bookstore over by Aladinos pizza in clayton.
TCBY yogurt on Bailey and Clayton Rd.
Lous Pizza in concord.. The BEST pizza to this day that i have ever had. I miss that place ALOT!

I miss CC Ole’s. Their food was so good. Never had anything I didn’t. Enchiladas Del Mar and Chicken Chiliquiles. YUM!

17

Shams Pizza Pacheco..Great Pizza, Burgers, Hot Sandwiches, Plus Coldest Beer in Town. Lombardis Italian Fried Chicken Treat and Clayton Road,

CC Ole’s
Blondie’s Pizza
Stanfords

Bradley Video
Hollywood Video
Matt’s Game Exchange
Funcoland
Capri Theater / Dome Theater / Starcade
Ooga Booga Beach
Second Deck
Bill’s Drugs / Macfrugals
Diablo Lanes
Mervyn’s / Copelands
John T’s Unique Gifts (Sunvalley Mall, my first job in high school)

H. Salt Esq. Fish & Chips

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Hot dog stand at Shea Stadium at the mezzanine split. 1971-1975.
Don’t want to know what they were made out of.
But damn, I’d pay $50 for one right now.

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Phair’s in Orinda

So many – but I’ll go with Spenger’s.

Grew up in Pleasant Hill in Poets corner in the 60’s so I remember riding my bike to a variety store on the corner of Patterson and Oak Park to buy baseball cards. Wish I knew what happened to all those cards. Don’t remember the name of the store though. Might of just been called the variety store. Hogans also brings fond memories since that was where my father took me to buy my first shotgun. Remington Wingmaster. Still have it. Better times for sure

Walked to that store all the time, to do the same thing. Remember them selling cards in larger packs, deck of cards size.
101 Marvin Drive- Walked to PH Elementary in kindergarten. Can you imagine kids doing that now?

When I was a kid, there was restaurant named St George and the Dragon. Never went in, only drove by, but the sign of St George and a dragon fighting was so cool to see as a young lad. I no longer live near there, and the place shuttered when I was in my early teens (I think), but that sign, just perfect.

Bella Roma Pizza(with the original owner).
Shams Pizza.

Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant! Had the best thick chocolate shakes with the overflow in the long silver glass!

Mama Mia’s Pizza in the Palos Verdes Mall
Payless Drugs
Monument Cyclery
The Red Barn
Hogans, of course.

Doggie Diner

El Charro: jalapeno chicken enchaladas!
Lettuce Romaine Friends in the CV shopping center.

Whole Earth Access

Since I grew up in a different country, this really isn’t applicable to me. However, I can name some from when I first arrived here. Westport Ct, had a very charming Ice Cream Parlor, they had a great Walnut Maple Sunday. Denmark has great ice cream, very creamy, but we didn’t have all the flavors the US does, I love butter pecan, anything with coffee. When I moved to NYC there were a chain called “Chock full of Nuts”, they were quite inexpensive, the had a dark walnut raisin bread with cream cheese, that was great with coffee, there coffee had a hint of chocolate. As for clothes stores there were so many, Macy’s, Bloomingales, Lord and Taylor, there were one store on 5th Ave, Arnold Constable (not sure if it’s the right spelling) they had a good selection for someone my age (twenties) and very reasonable prices.

I am sure there were stores and restaurants in Denmark (it was Denmark, correct?) Hanne, where the description could be interesting to see what you experienced there.

When growing up in post WWll my parents and most others where I grew up didn’t go out to eat much. People entertained more at home. My parents had friends that had a car and when the weather was nice we would often on Sunday’s take a drive in the country. Sometimes we packed a picnic lunch, which by American standards were very elaborate, or we would stop at a cozy country in for lunch. When I worked in the nearby town as a teenager, we had American theme places to eat, not really a restaurant, it was a teenage hang out, cheap, jukebox and serving hamburgers, ect. Later when I lived in Copenhagen, there were nice cafeteria’s and the food was quite good, the main shopping street had a Chinese restaurant my friends and I liked, I think it was called Shanghai. Copenhagen had several nice department store, some very upscale, a few others more reasonable priced. Magasin was kind of like a Danish Macy’s, very popular, not the most expensive nor the cheapest. Whenever I returned to Denmark for vacation, I always had to visit “Magasin”, and often bought clothes there, in the late sixties, early seventies, the price for clothes was about the same as the US, a little more, but the quality was better.

Pied Piper on Tice Valley Blvd

Lipperts Ice Cream Shop

Was it Lipperts or Lapperts? There is a Lapperts near Poipu Beach in Kauai.

And… Mr Steaks where Sake is now.
Scott’s WC
Berkeley Farms, best banana split

Elephant bar

It did smell good in many ways if you know what I mean.

Brennan’s in Berkeley. Loved that place.

Fong Ling

Fong Lin Cheng’s on willow pass road.

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