Kiwi retail chains that are no longer with us today

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#3029835 31-Jan-2023 08:38

vexxxboy:

no it is where the city focus was but that corner is interesting because they all failed due to not doing what they were told to do in regards to geothermal gases underneath the site.

Thanks, I've often wondered if that was the issue. Very thermally in that area.

Mike

Handsomedan

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#3029871 31-Jan-2023 09:46

unowho08:

I remember men's clothing retailer Hugh Wright having (slightly) better quality clothes than Hallensteins during the 90s, but they went into receivership in 2002 after surviving for 98 years.

Hill and Stewart were another casualty in the appliance retailing space, although they were at least acquired by JB Hi-Fi in 2006 with the brand being retired in 2010.

It was a sad day as a kid when the Toy Warehouse was acquired by Deka and then Deka shutdown (after merging with Farmers). The Toy Warehouse had a huge range of toys by NZ standards.

I remember Hugh Wrights as being a "slightly more upmarket" Hallensteins. If you wanted a polyester suit - go to Hallensteins. If you wanted a Polyester and wool blend suit, Hugh Wrights was your go-to.

Ah...good memories.

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FineWine

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#3029888 31-Jan-2023 10:35

Handsomedan:

unowho08:

I remember men's clothing retailer Hugh Wright having (slightly) better quality clothes than Hallensteins during the 90s, but they went into receivership in 2002 after surviving for 98 years.

Hill and Stewart were another casualty in the appliance retailing space, although they were at least acquired by JB Hi-Fi in 2006 with the brand being retired in 2010.

It was a sad day as a kid when the Toy Warehouse was acquired by Deka and then Deka shutdown (after merging with Farmers). The Toy Warehouse had a huge range of toys by NZ standards.

I remember Hugh Wrights as being a "slightly more upmarket" Hallensteins. If you wanted a polyester suit - go to Hallensteins. If you wanted a Polyester and wool blend suit, Hugh Wrights was your go-to.

Ah...good memories.

Bought my first suit, for a wedding in the mid seventies, from one of those stores in Palmerston Nth, when I was based at Ohakea.

Don't laugh but it was a very stylist powered blue safari suit plus a light powered blue, wide collar, frilled front, shirt and I even had the platform shoes to match- OMG 🙈

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

MarkM536

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Ultimate Geek

#3030071 31-Jan-2023 19:35

Payless plastics.

Maybe even the 'Norman Ross' next to it too.

elpenguino

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#3030077 31-Jan-2023 19:52

FineWine:

Bought my first suit, for a wedding in the mid seventies, from one of those stores in Palmerston Nth, when I was based at Ohakea.

Don't laugh but it was a very stylist powered blue safari suit plus a light powered blue, wide collar, frilled front, shirt and I even had the platform shoes to match- OMG 🙈

Well that was an interesting set of google results.

Hope you've still got it cos apparently they're back in fashion. Still, would like to see a jpg :-)

For me, I miss the music retailers, HMV, Chelsea in Manners Mall, Alan's CDs and the Morris CD chain, in fact, just all music retailers.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

quickymart

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#3030090 31-Jan-2023 20:41

Tower? Disk Den (Dunedin)? Roundabout Records (Chch)? - I loved visiting the latter whenever I was in Christchurch 🙂

There was some music chain that had outlets in the four main centres but the name escapes me. I think their name was written in bright pink. They had a lot of new and second hand music/CD's/cassettes. The name escapes me though...

Edit: might have been Echo Records?

hotsupes

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Master Geek

#3030873 2-Feb-2023 11:57

tchart:

The Gamesmen - still appears to be a thing in Oz

I remember going there to play games for free because I couldn't afford to buy them!

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ARIKIP

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#3030969 2-Feb-2023 14:27

There used to be "Martins Toys" where i used to buy Plastic model kitsets plus glue and paints in the 70s as a Kid. I remember they had a store on K Rd Auckland and also one in downtown across from the Old Post Office thats now Britomart.

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thermonuclear

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#3030985 2-Feb-2023 15:28

Handsomedan:

Bee: Uncles,

mmmm.....Uncles.

As a very young man, I remember driving to Hamilton with a couple of mates and having an Uncles takeaway in the main street at a ridiculous time of the night.

Fond memories of the toasties and chips.

Also as a young man, I was a resident/inmate of Grafton Hall Of Residence while at Auckland Uni. I have very fond memories of many of us forming a platoon and heading off to Uncles K' Road in the dead of night to purchase some munchies.

There used to be a guy that worked there, not much older than us, and his memory for orders was incredible. He never appeared to write anything down, we would be 10-15 strong in number and the goal would be to try and get him to make a mistake. You'd yell your order across the counter and away he'd go, never saw him get anything wrong in all the visits I made.

Wish I knew who he was and what became of him. Sad to walk past there these days and not see that hole in the wall that kept me fed when I was 18.

Speaking of food places, another big one for me around that time was the Pizza Delivery Company. You got a solid, good value pizza from them back in the day. Many trips to the one up on the corner of Balmoral and Mt Eden Road.

One more from my Uni days, the Record & Cassette Warehouse. They had a 2-3 branches in the Auckland CBD IIRC. The main one was in Lorne St, still got my laminated discount card around somewhere. Didn't they have the big on-going promotion on two albums for $40 in the days when that was a decent deal. Records were going out and CD's were starting to appear, good times!

freitasm

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#3031568 3-Feb-2023 23:49

The only time we bought something at Deka in Lower Hutt was when we moved to New Zealand. We bought a couch and a weekater had to contact the store. They were liquidating and not even making deliveries anymore. The couch had arrived and if we wanted it we had to go to the store right now to collect it - or lose it.

So we got friends to help us with a trailer for that "adventure".

A day later the store was closed and so the entire chain.

quickymart

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#3032564 6-Feb-2023 19:29

I thought of a few more:

Lifestyle Sports (what happened to these guys?)
Pie World - anyone remember this one from the mid 90's?

unowho08

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#3033071 7-Feb-2023 20:31

quickymart:

Lifestyle Sports (what happened to these guys?)

Is this the same Lifestyle Sports you are thinking of?

https://lifestylesports.co.nz/pages/about

quickymart

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#3033094 7-Feb-2023 21:21

Weird, I thought they were nationwide previously. Must have just retreated to being Wellington-only.

elpenguino

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#3038585 18-Feb-2023 13:47

Whatever happened to these guys ? They were everywhere.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

FineWine

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#3038605 18-Feb-2023 15:46

My brothers best mate and Best Man worked for them as a store manager in central Auckland. He used to keep my old Canon going. He is a great photographer and knows his cameras. He is a Liverpudlian by birth and started off on cruise ships out of the UK, big and small, all over the world, then settled in Auckland and started doing school and weddings then gave up on that sort of wrangling work and went to for work for Camera House. Don't know what happened to him after that business closed but he will be in his mid seventies now.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

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