I remember the old PayLess Drug stores and that is a good description. They had a lot of categories that went away or were scaled way back under Rite Aid such as apparel in some stores, electronics, automotive, hardware, sporting goods, garden centers, just to name a few. In rural areas they often were the only store that had these items in the pre-Walmart days, and PayLess was owned by Kmart for a while.storewanderer wrote: ↑January 27th, 2024, 10:09 pm
Out west in the 80's and 90's the drugstore chains Longs and Payless were exactly that: a scaled down K-Mart type of a store. Osco/Sav-On and Thrifty were not... they handled fewer categories... and more of a focus on consumable food/liquor.
I never saw a Woolworth in the urban shopping districts. I think those were mostly gone by the 90's. The ones I saw out west were either downtown or mall stores. They also had an "express" format which was smaller and in at least a couple of CA malls in the early 90's. It was missing things like clothing.
The Downtown Reno Woolworth flooded and was very damaged in the period right before the entire chain closed (both Reno locations survived until the last of the chain closed). They promptly repaired the store from the flood damage. The store was about to have a grand reopening right as they announced the chain was closing. The store was "modernized" during the renovation with some different categories present, converting the restaurant to a deli/frozen yogurt format, and rearrangement of the store (it had a basement). Decor was still rather sterile but the gray and red walls gave way to lighter colors. The store reopened in liquidation sale on day 1 of reopening.
As for Woolworth, they decided to remain in downtown Longview, WA even as the Triangle Center opened in the 1960s (which evolved into a small, enclosed mall which had Newberry's) and as the Three Rivers Mall opened in the 1980s. Three Rivers Mall did have a smaller Newberry's for a while but it did not last long. Woolworth remained in Longview right until the chain folded (and as the JCPenney across the street and the Sears next door moved to the newer mall), and it is now a pawn shop. However, it retains the Woolworth's name in the concrete outside the entryway, and the lunch counter, while not serving food, is still mostly intact.
