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Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

latimes.com

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Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#91

Post by aembleton »

jedberg wrote: post #84

One of the things I loved most about Fry's was that clearly an engineer designed their checkout line. It's the only retail checkout line I've ever seen that fully embraced queueing theory. They had one long line that everyone got into, and a load balancer up front that would direct you to an open check stand, and at least at the store I went to, in their hayday they had 30 registers open at once!

Aldi in Market Street, Manchester, UK had that for many years. It worked really well. I think it might have put some people off when they saw the length of the queue, but it moved so fast, and you never felt like you'd chosen the wrong checkout as there was only one queue.

Unfortunately, they redesigned the shop a few years ago and got rid of that.

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#92

Post by ghaff »

corysama wrote: post #89
hbarka wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Computer Shopper magazine. How it was 3/4” thick full of content every edition just amazed me.

5/8” of that was ads. But, before the consumer internet, those ads were as interesting and valuable to readers as the articles.

The articles in Computer Shopper were pretty much fairly low effort filler. Not that there weren’t tons of ads in things like PC Magazine but the articles/columns/reviews were of pretty good quality for the most part.

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#94

Post by Tempest1981 »

jedberg wrote: post #84

One of the things I loved most about Fry's was that clearly an engineer designed their checkout line. It's the only retail checkout line I've ever seen that fully embraced queueing theory. They had one long line that everyone got into, and a load balancer up front that would direct you to an open check stand, and at least at the store I went to, in their hayday they had 30 registers open at once!

Which gave the checkers a 20-30 second break as the customer next-in-line briskly walked from the queue, past register 30, 29, 28, past more impulse items, ... down to register 4.

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#95

Post by CalRobert »

pimlottc wrote: post #53

I just recently learned from the last Not Just Bikes video [0] that these big box stores tend to be very hard to reuse (even when they don't include a giant spaceship). 99 Percent Invisible has a good article [1] on some of the challenges and a few success stories, but it takes a major effort. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-e_yhEzIw 1: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/ghost-boxes-reusing-a...

As sad as seeing the spaceship go makes me, I think even Jason Slaughter would approve of the fact 800 new homes are going in where Fry's used to be.

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#96

Post by paradox460 »

kevinpet wrote: post #60
taggart wrote: post #14

While attending the University of Arizona in Tucson in the early 90s, I got very confused by posts on Usenet talking about buying computers at Fry’s. You see, the Fry’s grocery store chain still existed in Tucson at the time, so I could not figure out where a grocery store would stock computers! Needless to say when I moved to the Bay Area after college graduation, I wasted no time visiting the closest Fry’s Electron…

I was confused when I moved out to Phoenix especially because the logos are pretty similar. Turns out Fry's electronics was started by the sons of the founder of Fry's food.

Phoenix used to have two Fry's electronics too

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#98

Post by walterbell »

CalRobert wrote: post #95
pimlottc wrote: post #53

I just recently learned from the last Not Just Bikes video [0] that these big box stores tend to be very hard to reuse (even when they don't include a giant spaceship). 99 Percent Invisible has a good article [1] on some of the challenges and a few success stories, but it takes a major effort. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-e_yhEzIw 1: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/ghost-boxes-reusing-a...

As sad as seeing the spaceship go makes me, I think even Jason Slaughter would approve of the fact 800 new homes are going in where Fry's used to be.

Proposed development, https://la.urbanize.city/post/burbank-aero-crossings-2311-ho...

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#99

Post by whalesalad »

Damn. I grew up in Glendale and used to visit this store all the time. I’d take the bus if my parents couldn’t take me. Which was actually 3 buses and probably 4 hours of travel to get there and back. My dad worked at Lockheed Martin and the credit union was right across the street so that was always an excuse to drop-in after a bank visit.

Got my first WRT54G there, my first managed switch, power supplies, misc parts for RC building (heat shrink, soldering accessories). Was always fun to visit “the pit” with all the motherboards and processors unboxed and on full display. Felt like the NYSE with people lined up to look at the board and grab a processor. It was always so active like a bee hive. Visiting more recently it was just a shell of its former self.

It’s still my favorite store with the alien attack vibes and all the army jeeps.

Re: Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank

#100

Post by unclebucknasty »

01100011 wrote: post #49
unclebucknasty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And each one of those items would somehow have a dead pixel.

I loved Fry's and shopped there often in the 90s and 00s but it did seem like half of the things I bought there had to be returned for one reason or another.

>for one reason or another.

Exactly that. It was never that it straight-up didn't work. It was just that there was some issue.

I first encountered it with a TV that literally had a dead pixel. From there, the next 3-4 purchases featured something wrong. Monitor's built-in settings menu didn't display, cordless phone speaker issue, etc.

Dead pixels.

No way it was random. Funniest part was they'd get snippy with their return policy, like you were the problem.

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