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OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Printable Version

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OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Papa John - 02-24-2021

Fry's Electronics closed all of its stores overnight last night. The company started in 1985, and folks may remember their radio ads playing during Bay Area sporting events: "Your best buys are ALWAYS...at Fry's!"

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - terry - 02-24-2021

Sad, but not surprising. It was a long, slow death. Fry's had been declining for years.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Leftcoast - 02-24-2021

Once it was a great and geeky place to shop.  I had friend from overseas that would either search on line or have me send pictures of their full page advertisements so they could geek out over a new high speed SATA drive or high capacity memory stick and plan their US shopping accordingly.  

Plus each store had its own unique design theme - Western in Palo Alto, Egyptian in Campbell, Posh in Santa Clara, and so on.  This also disappeared over time but for a brief time it was nice to not have a chain without the cookie cutter stores.

So, what replaced Fry's?  I suppose Amazon?

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - BobK - 02-24-2021

My company used Fry's a lot for transistors etc. Great place in it's time.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - 82 Card - 02-24-2021

The computer I am using is one I slapped together from parts I got at Fry's and ones I salvaged from the old rig when I woke up one morning to  a dead computer. Not top of the line but pretty good for the money I spent. I'm not sure if that would have been possible in the most recent iteration of Fry's. The parts department in the Concord store had become slim pickings but I suspect I could at least have gotten something that would work. I suppose if I had the same emergency now, I would have to get a cheap laptop so I could order parts. If I need a new cable, my choices will be waiting for delivery or overpaying for inferior stuff at Best Buy.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Goose - 02-24-2021

I will miss Fry's. If you absolutely needed something RTS, Fry's was a option. Before that, it was Zack's on High St. If you were still at Stanford you could go to the stockroom in ERL. The internet certainly killed Fry's, because internet prices were generally lower. If you really need electronic components, Digikey or Mouser can get it to you fairly quickly (a few days) or tomorrow if you can "pay the freight". Doesn't help if you need it today. What will all the "door Nazis" do now?

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - oldalum - 02-24-2021

Darn -- did I miss a Going Out of Business sale?

Probably spent more time in that store in the past 30 years than any other non-grocery store--a great place to browse and learn

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - BrevinsBest - 02-24-2021

(02-24-2021, 02:05 PM)oldalum Wrote:  Darn -- did I miss a Going Out of Business sale?

Probably spent more time in that store in the past 30 years than any other non-grocery store--a great place to browse and learn

I believe the Palo Alto location closed a few years ago. Sounds like corporate stopped stocking shelves at the other locations awhile ago.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - CompSci87 - 02-24-2021

Central Computer was good for major computer components last time I was there, but of course not for general electronics, etc. Weird Stuff Warehouse is another place whose demise I still mourn.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - martyup - 02-24-2021

RadioShack, Good Guys, CompCity, Circuit City, Fry's, Tweeters, Highland Superstores, Fretter, Crazy Eddie, Gateway Country, The Wiz, Ultimate Electronics . . . all gone.  Who is next? -------> Best Buy

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - 82 Card - 02-24-2021

(02-24-2021, 02:05 PM)oldalum Wrote:  Darn -- did I miss a Going Out of Business sale?

Probably spent more time in that store in the past 30 years than any other non-grocery store--a great place to browse and learn

I don't think they owned much, if any, of their stock. More than a year ago, they switched to a consignment model. I guess all the vendors have to reclaim their merchandise, unless they can perhaps get together and have some company liquidate the stuff for them.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Mick - 02-24-2021

(02-24-2021, 02:07 PM)BrevinsBest Wrote:  
(02-24-2021, 02:05 PM)oldalum Wrote:  Darn -- did I miss a Going Out of Business sale?

Probably spent more time in that store in the past 30 years than any other non-grocery store--a great place to browse and learn

I believe the Palo Alto location closed a few years ago. Sounds like corporate stopped stocking shelves at the other locations awhile ago.
 

It's true.  I went into the Campbell store regularly, and inventory had not been restocked for months.  Sad.

Very interesting history.  Charles Fry started it as a supermarket in Contra Costa 1954.  it grew to 41 food stores in California, Arizona and Nevada by 1972, when Fry sold it to SaveMart that year.  He stuck around to help manage it until 1983.  When his family was fully out of the supermarket business, Fry's sons John, Randy and David opened the electronics store in 1985.

It's a good read:  http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/fry-s-electronics-inc-history/

This page (also a redirect from www.outpost.com, their online version) is sad:
https://www.frys.com/

Incidentally, John Fry

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Phogge - 02-24-2021

I used to shop at Fry’s Market in Concord during visits to my grandmother. They had everything.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - qwerty49 - 02-24-2021

Are Fry’s supermarkets also closing? There are 2 of them in Yuma and one of those is our go-to gas and food stop halfway on the road to Phoenix.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - CompSci87 - 02-24-2021

I don't see why they would be. In a post above, Mick says the family sold the grocery chain to SaveMart in 1972 and started the electronics chain in 1985. So there is no financial connection.

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Spiny_Norman - 02-25-2021

(02-24-2021, 03:45 PM)martyup Wrote:  RadioShack, Good Guys, CompCity, Circuit City, Fry's, Tweeters, Highland Superstores, Fretter, Crazy Eddie, Gateway Country, The Wiz, Ultimate Electronics . . . all gone.  Who is next? -------> Best Buy

Matthew's - top of the hill, Daly City!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsPTgYMjNcs

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Phogge - 02-25-2021

Zacks On Market. Open bins. Market Street, real army surplus. Outfitted at age 5 with WW2 steel helmet, cartridge belt, M1 rifle (no firing pin), musette bag, leggings. We could play war all day on the sandlots that covered the Sunset District. Crystal Palace Market and it was so magical that I can’t describe it today. Second run theaters showing flying saucer movies and cartoons.Street cars With conductors mid car punching your youth cards at a nickel a ride. Finally the Emporium with roof rides during Christmas season. A great town to grow up in. Now nobody but rich dilettante techies can afford it and crime rages.

And Oakland still sucks Marty!

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - 82lsju - 02-25-2021

(02-24-2021, 02:07 PM)BrevinsBest Wrote:  I believe the Palo Alto location closed a few years ago. Sounds like corporate stopped stocking shelves at the other locations awhile ago.

it officially closed in Dec 2019

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/12/27/the-era-of-frys-electronics-comes-to-an-end-in-palo-alto

RE: OT: RIP Fry's Electronics - Mick - 02-25-2021

Nob Hill Food Stores.  Used to be the highest-grossing privately owned company based in Silicon Valley.  My dad went to high school with Mike Bonfante, the owner.  Bonfante saw the wave coming and sold out.

I worked in my dad's store in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  His vision was similar to that of Whole Foods at the time.  Not a commercial supermarket (though offered a lot of commercial goods) and not a health food store (but had all the health-related items).  Profitable as a high margin/low gross sales store for a few decades.  Sold the store to the local management after two decades, they ran it into the ground in two years by reducing the margins and increasing the volume.