Retail Watchers

"Not to mention the fact that attitudes changed for the worse when Chase took over WaMu."

Possibly more important than the attitude is the fact that Chase happened to be solvent at the time

Meanwhile in Surprise, AZ there is a bank that was converted into a Wendy’s In Boise, there is a Wendy's that converted into a Chase about 20 years ago (3550 W State Street). A new Wendy's went in just down the street (closer to an intersection). Chase and Wendy's could have a cross-company team th...

There is currently a conversion of a former Burger King into a Chase happening in Corvallis. They completely gutted the Burger King but did keep the shell. Transaction mixes at bank branches are changing. Just think about yourself. 25 years ago you probably went to the bank twice a month to deposit ...

Similar to physical branches with a counter inside of banks, I think cell phone stores will be with us much longer than many of us deem a reason to visit them often (or at all). This is going way off topic now, but that's another one I don't understand. Meanwhile when other banks are closing many o...

Storewanderer, I don't disagree. But when your business plan is based on international citizens evading taxes, border closure or changes to border regulations ought to fall under the category of entrepreneurial risk. I've been in this store. It has a Canadian flag in its logo, is called "Intern...

The Corvallis location became Max's Food and More (apparently a Mexican concept -- I've never gone there) sometime last year.

This one bothers me. This is a business that exists primarily to support tax avoidance on the part of Canadians, with a secondary benefit of serving a small community with a much larger grocery store than they would otherwise have. They aren't doing anything illegal (who is to say if the person buyi...

I noticed today in the local ExtraMile/Jackson's that almost all of the store-brand goods are back to Jackson's. This is a store in Oregon. For a while they seemed to be trying reasonably hard to transition everything from Jackson's to ExtraMile. Today the only ExtraMile-brand goods I saw were mugs ...

This chain has fallen dramatically. 20 years ago I would have considered staying with them. Today, not a chance. I have stayed at hotels near the Newport Shilo a couple of times and walked through out of curiosity. It is depressing. One time they had a bunch of rooms with grills in front, presumably...

The Boulder City, Nevada, Vons / Haggen was empty for a while and may still be. Something called "Medolac Labs" comes up in that location on Google Maps right now. I have no idea if that is temporary or permanent or if they are taking the whole space. Albertsons really scored a nice monopo...