Thoughts on the Closure of Fry’s

After moving to Los Angeles in 1996, I still remember my first trip to a Fry’s. I needed a new TV, so fellow GameFan staffers Mike Griffin, Michael Hobbs, and I took a trip to the location in Woodland Hills (Alice in Wonderland theme). I was blown away by the place.

We have a place here in Omaha called Mega Mart (electronics sub-store for Neb Furniture Mart) that’s kinda similar, but I’d never seen a store so large that was dedicated solely to computers, electronics, and media. As someone who loves all those things, it was like heaven.

Every trip that I had the chance to make to a Fry’s was magical. I remember going there when DVDs were first coming out. I remember going there for Mac OS 8 launch day.

When I moved again to LA in 2008, the first place we lived was Woodland Hills—two blocks over from that same Fry’s I’d originally visited. I mostly worked from home, and my wife needed our car to go to her job, so for a while much of my life was what was near us. Such as Fry’s.

Even 12 years later, the store felt like something special. I’d walk over whenever I needed something for my computer, wanted to hunt for cheap games (the deals I got on NDS games from Fry’s, oh lord), or was just bored and wanted something to do.

It may sound silly, but it was fun to check out a Fry’s we’d never been to if we were in the area, since each had its own theme. There was the alien invasion in Burbank, the forest one I went to one day before visiting Konami, the technology one out in the San Gabriel valley.

When our twins were born, I didn’t have the chance to really go all that often. Once ever now and then, when I had a bit of free time, or we needed someone new to get out of the house. I remember one trip our local one (Burbank) when it felt like the games section wasn’t as stocked as it usually was. A few shelves were low, but it wasn’t all that bad.

The next time I went, things were really different.

Those last couple trips were sad. It was clear the store was dying a slow, ugly death, but it wasn’t just that store. I’ve long worried about the death of local retail, but Fry’s was especially sad—came after losing numerous other electronics shops like CompUSA and Circuit City.

Fry’s was the type of place you always thought would just be there. Until it wasn’t. (Just like Sears. Just like Toys R Us.) And it sucks knowing the chance of having a new chain come in to fill that hole will be slim to none. I’m sad that I’ll never get the chance to go to a Fry’s again, or be able to take my children to one so they can possibly feel the same sense of wonder I once did. But I’m also kinda glad to not be around to see the body finally go cold.

Yeah, they’re just stores. But they were also stores that broke up the reputation of the same handful of chains that dot the landscape with something fun and different.