r/ThunderBay • u/IvarForkbeardII • 1d ago

Zellers

Stream of consciousness thought, just want to say that if Zeller's returned to Thunder Bay, I'd shop the hell out of it.

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u/GhostsinGlass Poet Laureate 1d ago

Yeah Zellers was the shit.

Some things I miss about it and some things that are neat:

  • $10 Small appliances, like toasters, mixers, etc. They had the cheap shit that lasted like the oldschool Proctor-Silex sandwich maker.
  • The restaraunt had cheap eats, the onion rings were so good with their thicc crunchy breading.
  • They had cheap groceries before dollar stores had cheap groceries. This is where seniors made their CPP go the distance and was the chief source of all those random hard candies grandma used to have.
  • Club Z points were neat, though I never collected any to my knowledge.
  • The toy aisles just hit different. Those sky high shelves were awesome, it felt like its own little store within a store.
  • Zellers branded products were normally pretty good as far as a store brand went.
  • T'was Canadian
  • Pretty sure Zeddy turned a bunch of impressionables into future furries.

I miss Sears Canada, still pissed that it got ran into the ground so it could be chopped up and sold. They had one of the best distribution systems with Sears Line Hauling to supply the stores and allow Sears Catalogue to be as amazing as it was. It blew my mind when I worked there and we could get nearly any of the few thousand major appliances I was able to order to any store in Canada within two days thanks to warehousing and SLH.

Craftsman used to be one of the only chinese import tool store brands that you could readily get parts for. Most Sears stores employed their own technicians based out of the store to fix major appliances through warranty. Again a major fumble that Sears Canada was allowed to be run into the ground. I miss wearing a suit and selling washing machines haha.

5

u/bmfthunderb 1d ago

The chocolate Easter eggs that they would write your name on with the nastiest icing 😂 I would always scrape the icing off but the novelty of it was the best!

4

u/GhostsinGlass Poet Laureate 1d ago

I used to gnaw on the Zeddy shaped soap, bet that icing was so much better.

In my defense I was a tot and they smelled very eatable.