Due to the early morning news of Fry's Electronics shutting down, this article was fast-tracked. Please enjoy the article and comment below.
Fry's electronics is no more. Late last night, leaks started online about the sudden closure of all Fry's locations nationwide at the end of the day on 2/23/2021. The Facebook page was shut down and their Twitter page was put on private at about midnight central time. At 4am central time the website made the closure of the company official. All of the stores are now closed to the public. At the moment, there are no plans to liquidate the merchandise because a lot of their inventory was there on a consignment agreement. I hope they will have a fixture sale in the future because a lot of their displays were really awesome. If you have any memories of Fry's please share them below.
Little did I know at the time, but this would be my last visit to Fry's Electronics.
During my visit, half of the store was in the process of being cleared out.
Nearly this entire half of the store was empty. Only a few random items were still out on shelves here and there.
One of the car speaker testing rooms.
Formerly TV's
Speaker wall
Empty TV area
The murals across the walls were so awesome.
A few random products in this nearly empty part of the store.
You can see one of the shopping carts in the background. Carts were all over the store to move merchandise out of this half of the store and fill shelves in the other part of the store.
The home theater rooms.
It is hard to see, but the sides of the entryway had astronaut mannequins.
The cinema room, locked still.
This is the half of the store that the inventory was getting moved to.
Another view of the cinema entryway.
A wide view of the cafe.
Here are the appliances. There were very few display models left.
Such an awesome sight.
The signs above the shelves did not match the products anymore. Everything was thrown into this half of the store.
Some aisles were filled up with products.
The large TV selection was pretty bare.
Computer displays were also mostly empty.
Fry's had gotten a shipment of these generic TV's in various sizes up to 40 inches.
As you can see, even in the parts of the store where products were being stocked there were still large empty spaces.
The back wall had a lot of empty spaces.
A peek into the stockroom.
The front corner of the store had a lot of empty shelves. There were some shopping carts floating around here and there to load up some of the empty spots.
The computer parts counter.
The computer component side of the store was pretty empty in comparison to the back of the store.
The Covid aisle, more on that below.
Computer repair area, Fry's version of the Geek Squad.
Now for the Covid aisle. Tons of masks, sanitizer, face shields, gloves, cleaning wipes, gowns, and everything except for lysol spray. The brand names on these products I had never heard of. This was one of the best stocked aisles in the entire store.
Now we will see more random products across this area of the store.
Back to a lot of empty shelves. These are close to the entrance of the store, not a good look at all.
Batteries
Not sure what happened here, but it looks like a part of the display fell down and was moved here. It was a strange spot to have this sitting at since it is one of the first things you see when walking into the store.
Fry's had this small Christmas product selection tucked into one of the empty areas near the old computer parts. This should have been placed near the entrance since this was Christmas season and a lot of those aisles were empty.
Toys and outdoor sports.
As seen on TV and more sporting goods.
Video games, well what was left.
Cafe 34
Music and movie selection.
More video game stuff.
Cell phone stuff.
Checkout counters.
This was the music department at one time, you can see the records dangling from the ceiling.
The famous cologne and perfume aisle.
Kitchen and housewares.
More views as we head out of the store for the final time.
Fry's will certainly be missed. February 23, 2021 was the final day of business for the 31 or so remaining stores. I am not sure how accurate the store list was just before the website changed last night.
I wish all of the hard working employees of these stores the best of luck, and for a better future.
So much for possibly being able to visit a Fry's one day. I suppose the writing was clearly on the wall, however. A sad end to the business.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely a sad ending to a once great store. We are seeing way too many of these places die out these days.
DeletePart I:
ReplyDeleteIt was certainly very sad, but not surprising, when I got the news on this blog last night that Fry's was ending their retail operations. It's sad in a way that there won't be a liquidation sale, but in some ways, their last several months has been a slow liquidation sale kind of like what is happening at Sears and Kmart stores. It's usually never a good sign when stores start downsizing and roping off part of their stores. I knew the end was near for Service Merchandise around 20 years ago when they started doing the same thing to their stores.
As I mentioned in a reply in one of the Fry's posts from last year on the blog, I visited the NASA Fry's Electronics about a month ago in late January/early February 2021. At that point, all the merchandise was out of the left side of the store and everything was moved to the right side of the store. The left side of the store was walled off in a way similar to what the Mall of the Mainland was using to close the mall off from the Movies 12 when the Mall of the Mainland first closed in 2014. As many inventory problems as Fry's had at that point, they did have lots of variety of blank optical media on hand at that time and I did buy some of it. One of those Imation cake box spindles of CD-Rs that is visible front & center in your photo of the media aisle is sitting in my closet, lol.
I did notice while I was there that sale tags were several months old and almost all the aisles were incorrectly marked on the sign boards. They never bothered to change that after they moved things around.
I visited the Greenspoint area Fry's when it first opened in around 2000. While there were other electronics stores I went to that had a 'wow!' factor like Fry's had, most of them didn't have the low prices that Fry's had. I bought a lot of things from the Greenspoint and NASA Fry's over the years. It was a great place to shop and the prices were, for the most part, very good. I remember being excited to see the Friday newspaper each week in the 2000s to see what Fry's had on sale. I would often drive out there during those days. Only in the last few years has the selection at Fry's started to become mediocre.
On the topic of Fry's fixtures, I wonder what will become of the classic Ford truck from around the 1920s that the Greenspoint Fry's has and used as a decoration near the cafe. The last I saw of it, it had a Texas registration sticker from around the year 2000 so it must have been roadworthy around the time the store opened.
I see a Spyro Gyra music CD there in the photo of the music racks. If I had known that was there, I might have bought it if the price was right. I like their music.
I had noticed before that Fry's had a lot of KLH speakers. KLH was a great brand of American speakers at one time. In the 1990s and 2000s, they became known for making cheap speakers that were okay, but not great. They then faded away before resurfacing in the last couple of years as a serious maker of acoustic suspension (non-bass ported) speakers. Since most people are now used to bass-ported speakers, the KLH speakers got rather middling reviews and I don't think they sold that well. Still, they probably sound good and Fry's had a lot of them. I wonder if KLH put them in Fry's on consignment since they weren't selling at other stores.
I had been putting off going to Fry's again, and I am disappointed that I missed the final days. I really would have liked to have seen that side of the store closed off, but I made it just in time to document that space before they closed it off.
DeleteService Merchandise pretty much killed their business when they got rid of their electronics, toys, and sporting goods. The product lines besides their jewelry just didn't attract customers anymore.
That is a pretty cool find in the photo. That may be a first on my blog, documenting the exact product that was purchased by you.
Fry's would lure me in with those ads as well. A lot of our earlier computer accessories had mail in rebates. It took several weeks to get the rebate, but they were really good deals. Some components were free after the rebate. I bought so many movies over the years from them as well. Almost every visit we left with impulse buys even if they didn't have what we were looking for. Going there was a big deal and a fun time.
I am pretty sure the truck and the fixtures will be sold off at some point. The issue is getting them down and out of the store. It is going to take a lot more than the handful of employees that are probably boxing up the inventory to send back.
Sounds like KLH was in a similar situation to Fry's. A company that had their best days years ago and was looking to revive their business.
Part II:
ReplyDeleteThose Silo TVs are probably consignment TVs or maybe Silo was the only TV company willing to deal with Fry's in their depressed state, lol. Oddly enough, Silo was the name of a pretty large electronics store chain that was mostly in the Midwest that went out of business in the 1990s.
I actually have a Sharp stereo shelf system similar to the one that is in your photo. Mine is the exact same model, but without the subwoofer that the the Fry's one has. I bought that from Sears in 2012 and they're still being sold today (the newer ones have Bluetooth that the older ones didn't, but otherwise they are identical). Those larger Sharp systems have a cassette player in them. Those Sharp systems have some limitations, but if one can live with those limitations, they do sound pretty good for what it is.
This particular Fry's did have some maintenance issues as one can see in the car audio room with all the fallen acoustic tiles and also the falling insulation in the vestibule that was visible in your previous Fry's post.
I'm not sure what will happen with these buildings. I can see the Greenspoint location being subdivided and turned into more stores for the powercenter there, but that shopping center was already expanded a few years ago so I don't know how much demand there is for even more retail space at that center given current trends. I can't really speak about the SW Houston location. Maybe a furniture store or someone will want the NASA location. It's in a prime location so I'm sure someone will want to do something with it. Maybe Mattress Mack will buy it, open a Gallery Furniture down there, and keep the decor. Who knows.
At least those of us in Houston still have Altex and MicroCenter for computer part needs. Computer shoppers in some other cities aren't even that fortunate. Still, it's sad to see yet another electronics retailer fade away even if Fry's fate has been totally predictable during the last couple of years.
New Orleans had a Silo location I believe. Those TV's were new to Fry's, they didn't have them back in 2019.
DeleteThere were a lot of random items at Fry's on my last visit from a lot of companies I had never heard of. I would not have felt comfortable buying anything like a stereo or TV even though I could use both right now.
You are right about the prospects of the empty buildings. I think there is a good chance that the SW freeway location sits for a long time. The nearby Texas Instruments land is still very far away from being fully developed. A lot of the nearby shopping centers have large vacancies as well. The NASA location will be a great spot for a warehouse once the highway construction is finished there. West Rd. is a prime spot to be broken up for smaller retailers. That shopping center has been very resilient over the years.
I am very sad to see Fry's go, but now I have extra motivation to visit the other options out there.
Back in the very early 2000s, I was into assembling computers and Fry's was a must stop place for getting interesting parts at good sale prices. At that time, MicroCenter was a great store, but they had not quite gotten into the build-it-yourself game and so Fry's was really the only chain store serving customers like myself. There were some independent shops on Harwin Dr. at that time that also had great prices and selection of PC parts. Those Harwin shops were so hidden that you'd only know about them if someone who was really into computers told you about them being there. One or two of those Harwin shops may still exist, but I think online shopping and MicroCenter have rendered most of those shops useless.
DeleteI do remember the mail-in rebates on computer accessories. I certainly had my share of those. All the major retailers selling computer parts at the time, CompUSA, OfficeMax, Best Buy, and so forth had a lot of stuff with mail-in rebates. During that time, simplified online rebates like the Staples Easy Rebates didn't exist and it was always iffy if the rebates would ever come back. At least the days of cutting out UPCs and mailing them in are mostly over, lol.
I looked on Wikipedia and it mentions that not only did New Orleans have a Silo store, but they had a ~60,000 sq. ft. warehouse outlet that would have been much larger than a typical Silo store that maxed out at 25,000 sq. feet. I'm not sure if New Orleans also had regular Silo stores in addition to the warehouse store. I never went to a Silo, but I have heard about them. They were a pretty prominent electronics store in parts of the country.
I probably wouldn't trust that Silo TV or a lot of the stuff Fry's was selling towards the end. Some of those shelf stereos they had were pretty good things from known brands like Sony and Sharp.
Lol, yeah, KLH and Fry's of the last few years had a lot in common. Thus, perhaps it's no coincidence that KLH's speakers ended up at Fry's. A lot of people have favorable opinions about acoustic suspension speakers like KLH makes, but most of those people like ~1970s speakers back when acoustic suspension designs were popular and maybe KLH made a mistake in judgement determining how many people would actually buy brand new acoustic suspension speakers for $500+ versus buying used ones and fixing them up.
Yes, this probably is a blog first in terms of me finding the exact product I purchased in one of your photos, lol. That's kind of neat in a way. There was a strange moment many years ago on the blog where we ended up at the Greenspoint Mall Goodwill (in the former Circuit City) on the same day by accident and we both saw a 1980s cassette deck there that ended up being a Sears branded model. I had already purchased it before you sent me the heads up about it, lol. Of course, that was a little different in that the cassette deck wasn't photographed for the blog. The funny thing is that I've only been to that particular Goodwill maybe twice so it was odd that we both randomly ended up there on the same day.
I accidentally lost my previous reply, so I will try this again.
DeleteI have a ton of memories of my Fry's visits in the early 2000's. I also forgot to mention the video and computer games we bought from them. Even if they didn't have what we were looking for, there would still be some impulse buys. The remaining products will be shipped to other places now, who knows where the KLH speakers will pop up next.
There is still a need for electronics stores, but the enormous size of Fry's is too much.
I remember the coincidence at the Goodwill. I haven't been to that store in several years.
I think that Silo had the store/warehouse near Clearview Parkway. There was a line of large warehouse sized electronics and furniture stores with tons of neon lights back there.
Great photos, I went around to all the Houston locations during the various stages of closure. It was a weird journey, they were able to switch suppliers quite a few times before shutting down. Obviously almost none of it was computer related by the end. I knew it was getting really bad when they weren't selling any name brand computers except what I could only assume were older trade-ins.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the props. Will you be making an article for your blog as well?
DeleteI should have visited the stores at the beginning of the year, my little bit of free time for the blog was spent documenting the Sears in Pasadena. I was thinking Fry's would have lasted a bit longer.
The Silo in New Orleans was just off Clearview Parkway between the Earhart Expressway interchange and the HP Long railroad viaduct. I remember it being about the size of a typical Circuit City or Best Buy. As far as I know this was the only Silo in the New Orleans area and was the only Silo I ever visited.
ReplyDeleteAlso there was a Levitz Furniture in the same area that remained until the late 2000s I believe.
Also this Campo I photographed was in that same area. https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2010/01/campo-electronics.html
DeleteThat whole line of stores had a lot of neon signage back in the day. There is an episode of cops from the 90's where you can see some of those buildings as well. The arrest happened at one of the restaurants on the viaduct side of the road.
I never thought to watch old episodes of Cops for vintage retail footage, but I suppose there's sure to be some old retail pictures on there, lol.
DeleteThere was a very large Levitz Furniture store near Town & Country Mall at what ended up becoming the Beltway 8 & I-10 intersection. There were some great electronics stores near that intersection as well including Federated near the old Builders Square/current HCC (or was it Highland? I can't remember for sure and maybe both of them were there) and CMC Stereo which was by the old Radisson Hotel that was in front of the mall. The Sage store was at that intersection as well and became dilapidated just when Town & Country was trying to attract upscale customers. T&C just had many challenges during that time.
Levitz ended up opening a very short-lived location in the old Phar-Mor location at the Willowbrook The Commons. The Room Store ended up taking that over. I think they took over the old I-10 location as well.
I remember Levitz having a store here, but I could not remember where the location was. I guess a lot of large cities had some kind of electronics row back in those days.
DeleteI really appreciate for nice photos of Fry's electronics and I get benefit from wyze discount code yesterday
ReplyDelete