Place: Shakey's Pizza
Lunch: Lunch buffet, Shakey's draft root beer
If you told me ten years ago that the Shakey's name would still exist, let alone that I'd be eating in a brand new one, I wouldn't have believed it.
But here we are. It's in a strip mall. It's a dedicated buffet format, though you can order take-out. There's a game room too. The buffet has three pre-made salads (a Caesar and two mystery salads...all three are pretty good), a few pastas, Mojo potatoes, a couple of soups, and pizzas. Think Cici's, but a little nicer, and a little pricier. And it's Shakey's pizza, which is a good thing. There are optional sides you can order, but they cost extra. Table servers introduce themselves and deliver the appetizer orders. They don't seem to do drink refills. I've been getting my own. I think they want tips anyway. Maybe. I doubt they're getting any tips, which might explain why they look so frustrated.
The decor focuses on retro. The old Shakey's logo is painted on a brick wall. Old ads are framed on the walls everywhere. The place just screams "Look who we used to be!".
But, as a friend of mine pointed out, "it's not what it used to be. It's a buffet." And while Shakey's has done the buffet format in various forms since the late 1980's, he has a point.
While a nearly dead old brand experiences a resurgence, yet another big box retailer is going away. Borders is going to liquidate. I can't begin to describe how little this will affect my life.
Some of you may think of Borders as the big book store that was nearly identical to Barnes & Noble. But Borders has also been the parent company of Waldenbooks, the mall book store chain you've known far longer, since 1994 when then-owner K-Mart merged the two chains.
Waldenbooks is the brand name I'll keep memories of. The book store in a mall slot that had a seemingly magical ability to cram tons of titles into a relatively small space. And they'd order stuff for you they didn't have. The local mom-and-pop bookstore of my childhood, a monopoly that charged 5 percent above retail on everything just because they could, really hated to be bothered with such things. Usually, they'd just lie to you and say the title was out of print.
Waldenbooks had a store design that could be installed in an empty mall space in nine days. Waldenbooks also had the far cooler name. It just rolls off the tongue. Wal-den-books. Hard to believe somebody could screw that up.
I suppose nobody really did screw it up so much as the business model is obsolete. The big Borders stores were designed for book lovers who liked to browse, sample, feel the paper. But in the age of the iPad, Kindle, and Nook, who needs cumbersome paper books, magazines, and newspapers? Besides...the people who have a love affair with paper books tend to be snobby people who shun chains in favor of independent stores. The music and movie sections were almost completely pointless. Prices were ridiculous.
When our local Borders opened (well, relocated into the modern format...we had an older, much smaller Borders for years before that), I shopped them for their extensive selection of magazines and Sunday newspapers from around the country. Both of those became less important as the internet evolved, and I ultimately had little use for Borders besides Christmas gift shopping (I'm not much of a book reader). The last time I shopped there was about a year ago when I discovered online that the local store had an out-of-print movie in stock that I really wanted. I had to pay full price for it...but I got it.
When the local store closed, more people were excited than sad because rumors that Whole Foods Market were going to take its place immediately spread. This proved to be inaccurate, but Whole Foods IS coming...to another part of the same shopping center. Apparently, the Best Buy in the center is downsizing and Whole Foods will take part of their space, plus some neighboring space.
Best Buy downsizing?
Wow.
