Today I was in a part of town I never have before.
I saw a store JUST for badminton.
Rubber stamp store. Just shelf after shelf of rubber stamps and rubber stamp accessories.
Childhood me gasped. We loved stamps!!
The royal we?
Me and my twin. I just use we a lot cause of that.
Wouldn’t be a surprise somewhere in Japan, but still pretty cool!
Screws. A whole shop especially for screws and nuts, and you could buy bigger boxes, or smaller boxes, or only one or two, and they took their time to give advice, always with the same friendliness and helpfulness, whether you left a few cents or some real money.
I wouldn’t go in there often, but I’d be grateful for it when I did.
Würth?
I came across a very narrow, 5 story store in Japan, a bit off the beaten path in Akihabara, selling exclusively N scale model trains. They had a floor or two dedicated just to the models, another one for scenery, and at least one just for repair parts for your trains. It was really cool to get to see a store that was pretty clearly a passion project for the owner(s) apparently doing well, and filling quite the niche in the hobby (I imagine)
I think my favorite is Nothing Bundt Cakes that sells Bundt cakes. It’s a chain, and yes I only like it because of the pun.
An entire store full of african-american romance novels. In a VERY white area. It did not stay open long 😞
The existence of that store feels more like a statement than a business decision
What statement do you suppose they were trying to make?
https://youtu.be/ilsef7LrrYw?is=HrIRX-yHF2gJ8dxa
In all seriousness, I didn’t take the time to really think it through before, but: the store chose a narrow market and went out of business rather quickly, so it didn’t have a good business plan; but it would make an interesting statement to see that store close so fast compared to bookstores which sell romance novels with characters likely to match their clients’ race, which might reveal a sort of widespread casual racism. Or just that readers prefer characters they think they will relate to more strongly. It’s an interesting conversation point whichever way you look at it, is my point.
I’ve been in a Christmas store that all year long only sold Christmas stuff.
There are at least three of them in Germany.
I used to live in Lancaster, PA and the outlets had one of these. I’ve only ever seen the one, but I was given to understand they are a chain.
In Turkey we have shops that only sell pickles!
I could be into that. A good pickle is something to behold.
Those stores that only sell Rubber Duckies come to mind.
There are several, for some unknown reason, in Amsterdam.
It’s because of the river, duhh
We live at the same river, but I have yet to find a rubber duck store anywhere closer than Amsterdam - which is hundreds of kilometers from here.
I was being facetious, because otherwise there would be rubber duck stores at every river. Also it would be an environmental disaster if the ducks were for the river
It’s very recently closed its doors, sadly, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more specific shop than long-time Edinburgh landmark, Borland’s:
My town has a mushroom shop.
Bah, Morrowind has a ton of shops in mushrooms too, a lot of cities have several
spirit halloween seems just the place for a certain one night event.
For some of us, Halloween is not a night, but a way of life.
indeed. that’s how the store stays alive 😄
Cycling clothing. No bikes, no helmets, just more lycra than a gimp convention.
I used to live across the street from a ballbearing shop.
Must take some balls to open one of them.
It’s not super specific, and makes sense for where I saw it, but I’ll never forget the Wisconsin tourist trap I drove past as a kid that has a big sign out front advertising “Cameras, Cheese and Guns”.
There used to be a store in my town called “Just Socks” that sold, just socks
If there’s still one around somewhere, should open up a competitor across the street that deals only in cheap counterfeits of the brands they sell and call it Unjust Socks.
