Toys R Gone... But the Food's Still Whole

 It should be an easy guess what two stores we'll feature today, but as usual we've got some stuff to go through before we get there. Let's get started!

Colonial Theater, Phoenixville, PA

If there's one building in Phoenixville you might recognize from something other than my photos, it would be this one. And that would mean you've seen 1958's The Blob. It opened as a playhouse in 1903, and switched to film in 1928. Occasionally a new movie makes it in here, but for the most part they show classics and have concerts here now.

Rec Room, Phoenixville, PA

Across the street from the theater, in what I am almost certain was an old 5-and-dime (From the 80's until a couple years ago it was a variety store), Conshohocken Brewing has opened up the Rec Room. It's about what you would expect, primarily restaurant/bar space, but with a few shuffleboard and ping-pong tables in back.

Rapps Dam Bridge, Phoenixville, PA

This old covered bridge was originally built in 1866. It is well maintained, mainly as a result of morons in trucks damaging it to the point where it needs to be repaired. It was closed for several months in 2011 after one particularly heavy truck snapped the wooden beams under the bridge (PennDOT wound up replacing them with steel). It's closed in these photos because a truck clipped the corner of the exit.

The covered part is still mostly original, and has no shortage of vintage graffiti. The oldest I found was 1904.

The bow beams on either side were originally structural, but with the new steel underneath they're more decorative at this point.

Burger King, Phoenixville, PA

Every time I post a Burger King in Chester County, I always remark on how low their count has gotten. And it seems to be lower each time. Currently this 80's location is one of three left (Westtown and Coatesville being the other two), now that downtown West Chester's has closed. If I were to bet what the next to go will be, I'd have to say this one since it's the least updated of the three.

Old House, Phoenixville, PA

Zillow's assessment, which tends to be a very rough estimate, indicates this was built in 1850. Even though it's totally overgrown, it's still in decent condition. It looks occupied in the 2012 streetview, albeit with some landscaping issues, but jungle by 2017. A car is left in the driveway, making me think the owner here must have passed on or moved into assisted living without anybody to take care of the property. It is a nice house in a desirable area, so I'm sure they would have no trouble selling it if the owner could only list it.

Mack Oil, Berwyn, PA

Of the places around here I would expect them to develop into luxury housing, this heating oil facility was not one of them. But it happened. 18 sizeable homes now sit here.

This old house sat at the other end of the property. Original plans for the development called for this to be demolished, but in a refreshing change of course they opted to fix it up instead. It looked pretty abandoned so I was going to hop out and take a closer look, but I noticed a light was on inside so I backed off.

Isaac's, West Chester, PA

I first mentioned Isaac's to you a few posts back with a picture of the former Exton one. To my knowledge, West Chester was the only other one they had in Chester County. It closed at least a decade ago, but the farm-to-table restaurant that replaced it kept their funky blue stripe and diamond-shaped lights.

Babies R Us/Lidl, Exton, PA

Exton used to have all three of the R-Uses. Kids R Us was naturally the first to go, and was in the batch sold to Office Depot. That spot is now a TJ Maxx. This 2001-built (though I'm fairly certain it replaced one where the Exton Staples is now) Babies R Us was second. They were on the first of TRU's bankruptcy closing lists. As for the actual TRU, keep reading the post. I dropped the ball here and I don't know how. I go to this center pretty often and I try to keep up with store openings around here. But a few weeks ago I came back here and saw Lidl was up and running here. Not only did I miss the news, but somehow the whole construction process too?

Sports Authority/Homesense & Sierra Trading Post, Exton, PA

Since the center had redone their façade only 5 years prior, I was expecting them to make some minimal changes to split this space into two. Instead, they ripped the entire thing off. It looked pretty dramatic. It also reminded me that Sports Authority's ceiling was once blue. They repainted it white in the mid-2000's, probably the same time they switched out their mercury lights for fluorescents. It used to look something more like this.

The facades for the new stores were built in the same style as the rest of the center, but the one notable difference is that the mortar does not really match. It all looks more like the middle part of the wall on the right. The brick at the top and bottom is left over from the old façade and I guess was hard to match.

Some Changes at Giant

The Giant in Lionville, like most Giants at this point, switched out all the 2x4 Fluorescent lights with LED's. For a while, Giant was only changing those kind of lights and not the mercury and fluorescent strip lighting over the main sales floor, most likely since these are so easy to pop in and out of the ceiling whereas with other ones they'd have to do a little more work. More recently though they've begun changing out all the lighting.

Whole Foods, Exton, PA

We're seeing the Exton Whole Foods opening week here, and it's been almost exactly two years since the Kmart that stood here before it closed. I hate to say it but can't deny it, it's a huge upgrade. Aside from having a beautiful store, I was pleasantly surprised to see Whole Foods carried much more than tofu and granola... though there is no shortage of hippie ware either.

Their décor is refreshing too. The walls have very little dead space and practically no gray, both of which are way too abundant in other stores' designs.

The store is about as wide as a normal supermarket, but does not go as far back. It's still massive compared to the Whole Foods' I'm used to though.

They have an impressive selection of bulk candies and nuts. It's enough to put Wegmans to shame.

The "health" department is a reminder that despite all the other cool stuff, we are still in a Whole Foods. It's got a limited selection of actual medicines compared to a wide assortment of holistic supplements and essential oils. Maybe this isn't the place to go if you need something other than chicken soup for your cold.

I'd say this is my favorite department signage in the store. The lettering itself is cool, but I really like the color and texture they gave the background.

Meat & Seafood, or Butcher and Fishmonger as they call it, have the least exciting signage in the store, but even there it's still backlit lettering mounted on a painted brick texture, which is better than what a lot of stores are doing.

If you were wondering, they do sell normal milk here- In addition to the various organic nut and grain varieties you would expect to find here.

The butcher shop keeps some of their equipment in this glass room so customers can watch them cut the meats. It's a cool feature, and based on the number of people I've seen just standing here staring at it I'd say the rest of the clientele agree.

The bakery department doesn't have much in terms of actual signage, and relies on the décor, which is a bunch of vintage rolling pins hung on the wall, to get the message across. I also think this is a neat concept, even if it doesn't attract the same audience the meat room does.

There are many snarky comments I could make in reply to that sign. It doesn't really scream "this is the A La Carte counter" either.

The store has their own coffee shop, which doubles as their alcohol sales register. They've got another one on their roof deck too, which is where those stairs lead. It has a great view of the mall, which for me is a good thing.

They have a secondary entrance opposite where we started the tour. The pitched roof does not carry over this far, which makes it a little less impressive and therefore I'm calling it secondary.

Maybe it's to handle the opening week rush, or maybe they are really going above and beyond for customer service. That's a lot of registers open.

Let's finish up this tour with some exciting merchandise- not generic store-branded or even town-specific stuff, but merchandise made specifically for this store location!

Toys R Us, Exton, PA

Exton's Toys R Us outlived the Kids R Us and Babies R Us in town, but ultimately shut its doors as TRU announced all remaining stores would close. It had been here since the center opened in 1992. Big Lots bid on this during the bankruptcy auction, but lost out to Raymour & Flanigan who opened an outlet here to supplement their full-line store down the road. Unlike what happened with the Sports Authority we saw earlier, R&F kept the façade mostly intact, only moving the entrance to the middle.

As a kid I used to come here all the time. Even though I hadn't been here for several years, this trip still brought back some memories and to be honest hurt a little.

This was in March, so pretty early in the sale. Some items were already selling out, particularly Legos. Those probably don't go on sale too often, so I understand the rush.

There's not much notable in terms of décor here, but I got a bunch of pictures just for nostalgic purposes. Here, we're looking down the side actionway on the entrance side of the store.

The stockrooms here weren't fully walled off, there were just some partitions you could see over the top of. It looks a little dark and creepy back there.

I don't know if the baby department was always here or if they retrofitted it in after Babies R Us announced their closure. Like I said, this was my first visit in about 10 years.

The lighting here curved in a U-shape around the main actionway and radiated off over the aisles. It's an interesting touch... or at least more so than straight fluorescent strips across the entire store.

Unlike the Lego section, other departments were still fully stocked. It was early enough in the sale they could have still been stocking shelves as they were emptying out the warehouses.

We've got RC cars and sports equipment here... they really covered just about everything under the toy umbrella here. That, coupled with the fact they were still opening new stores, made their bankruptcy and subsequent closure a real surprise. Years of reckless spending finally caught up with them. There's really nothing that can fill the market like they did.

They even had an electronics department! Back in maybe 2006 I got my first video game here. It was some Fairly Oddparents PC game. If you were wondering about this time, I bought two small things while I was here- a fidget spinner (it was still a fad then), and a mini stuffed animal I gave to my sister.

The center's renovation didn't touch the back of the store, which was still displaying the old logo up until the end. This wasn't the logo the front had pre-remodel though. Prior to 2013, it had the yellow star logo.

DanDan, Devon, PA

DanDan's first location in downtown Philly opened in 2014. It was an instant success, so the owners opened this suburban outpost in 2017 (and in the past year opened yet another in Ardmore) in what was formerly Ella's Bistro. I had heard good things, and with there being a location closer to home I figured I'd give them a try. I was blown away. I would go as far as to say it is the best Chinese restaurant I had ever been to.

Devon Kmart Updates

At the other end of the center, let's check in on Target's progress ripping apart the old Kmart. The ceiling is still in place, but the back room have all been removed. The flooring is also gone, which was likely taken out during the asbestos remediation as I am positive it had been here since day 1 as a JM Fields.

The security sensors are still hanging around somehow. The vestibule wall tile is also sticking around... for now.

Checking over at the Auto Center side, we can see the walls around the center have been taken out, and the new dividing wall between Target and the vacant space that became Edge Fitness earlier this year is up now.

It makes sense putting up the dividing wall is the first step, but I'm still surprised they did that before any of the façade work. 

A few Kmart shopping carts are still kicking around! They'd be useful to have on the jobsite, but I doubt the construction people would take them so there's a chance Edge Fitness still has them in back.

While almost all of the old interior walls were demolished, they kept this second story room for some reason. Maybe it had a break room for the workers?

The block wall here is exterior; the garden center sat in a notch taken out of the corner of the store. Edge's entrance is where the door between Kmart and the garden center was on the wall perpendicular to this.

And speaking of notches taken off the corner, that's what Target is doing here. Kmart's loading docks were on this corner, but since they weren't really designed for modern trucks, Target knocked down this corner to fit in a larger dock.

Today happens to be the first day of summer, which I think calls for some yacht rock!