If you grew up in the ’90s, you spent all your time with friends walking around malls in baggy Jenco jeans and Vans sneakers. Your parents would take you and your friends in the family’s Honda Odyssey, and you’d use whatever allowance or loot you got selling Pogs to buy CDs, Manic Panic hair color, and nose rings. You’d most likely head over to Scream for some ridiculously wide-leg jeans and ginormous hoodies, Sam Goody for a punk rock or hip-hop CD single, Sun Coast Video for a VHS of a Tarantino flick, and then wrap things up with an overpriced pretzel at Auntie Anne’s. Indeed, these ’90s stores were everything.
And once you spent what little money you had left on an overpriced goth T-shirt at Hot Topic, you’d swing by a Sbarro in the food court. The day would ultimately end with you finding a payphone (Google it), calling collect to your parents, and saying “Come pick me up” so as to save them the cost of the call. But today’s Gen Z kids know not the struggle and glory that came with experiencing life in a world without e-commerce, smartphones, and social media.
With Amazon taking over everything, running a brick-and-mortar business — especially on a large scale — are all but obsolete. Hell, not even Toys “R” Us could be spared the death grip of Jeff Bezos. And due to the pandemic, a staggering number of beloved stores have closed for good. Although legendary 1990s stores have closed for good, they’re living rent-free in the minds of elder millennials and Gen Xers.
These are the ’90s stores from our childhood that we wish would come back.
Cover Photo: Star Tribune (Getty Images)
90s stores
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1. Spencer's Gifts
If you were in the market for a novelty sex toy or blacklight weed poster, Spencer's was your No. 1 destination. This place was the bastion of infantile Michael Scott jokes and gags.
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2. Waldenbooks
Before there was the Kindle and even before Barnes & Noble existed, there was Waldenbooks. Waldenbooks was a shopping mall-based bookstore chain and a subsidiary of Borders Group that offered some real nice finds for your mandatory summer reading list.
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3. Sam Goody
No self-respecting '90s list could ever be complete without mentioning the almighty Sam Goody. If you grew up in the '90s, you know all about parental advisory labels on your favorite hip-hop albums. Luckily, the people that worked there could give AF and sold them to you anyway. After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006, all Sam Goody stores shuttered their doors—and the remaining ones became FYEs.
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4. Sharper Image
While all the nerdy dads flocked to Radio Shack in the '80s to mid-'90s, all the rich and douchey dads saddled up at Sharper Image. Of course, us kids had no intention of purchasing their super futuristic massage chairs, but they were fun to flop on in between trips to the food court. In 2008, Sharper Image closed all of its retail stores and liquidated its remaining inventory, living on only via the internet.
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5. K.B. Toys
Screw the tawdry commercialism of Toys "R" Us! K.B. Toys was far better, especially when it came to action figures. Alas, the company was forced to file for bankruptcy and eventually went out of business in 2009.
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6. Delia's
In the '90s, this store was the calling card of every teenage girl looking for a halter top or pair of platform shoes. Every teenage girl pretty much blew her babysitting wad at Delia's. Alas, its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2014 and all brick-and-mortar locations went bye-bye.
