Buh-Bye, Frys Electronics

[T.B.]

After a long, protracted death spiral, Frys Electronics shuttered all their stores nationwide today. Back in the 90's through about 5 years ago, the chain was the go-to place if you were looking for *anything* electronics related, especially if you custom built your own PCs. Each store was "themed" - the one in Burbank had a giant flying saucer sticking out of the front entrance.

You could see the writing on the wall if you visited any of their stores the past couple years. A few years ago, they stopped carrying "name" brand electronics (Samsung stopped selling their products there due to unpaid bills) and seemed to have whole isles of bare shelves in an otherwise massive warehouse store. The last few years, they started carrying more and more cheap, no-name Chinese junk toys and appliances.

Still, right up until last month, I'd drop in to the Fountain Valley store occasionally mostly to browse the DVD/Blu-ray section. One thing that was still cool about Frys right up to the end was they stocked a *lot* of niche Arrow and Blue Underground blu-ray releases that you wouldn't find at any other retail store.

[Brett]

It’s been heading that way for a long time. The stores were ghost towns for a while.

[billy007]

shame. I had to shop at one in Silicon Valley a few times - seemed like a good place for stuff, but then again, so didn't CompUSA! Not sure what the theme was of the Silicon Valley store as I didn't notice it