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!
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)
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.
We have a ‘Mr Gwint’ shop in my city (‘gwint’ means ‘thread’ in Polish, and the word is probably familiar to The Witcher players). They mainly sell various fastenings, but also tools and other related stuff. They have a big note on the door ‘Only wholesale, no retail. Only full packaging.’ But whenever I went there and asked for some screws, they would sell me much less than the full package. Friendly (to the Polish standards, that is) and helpful, unlike the sign on the door. But I wouldn’t dare asking for just one or two basic screws.
Würth?
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.
A good pun will get me in the door every time.
And the delicious cakes will keep you coming back.
I have read it is ‘nothing but burned cakes’ and thought, that this quite specific and weird.
In Turkey we have shops that only sell pickles!
I could be into that. A good pickle is something to behold.
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.
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:
I used to live across the street from a ballbearing shop.
Must take some balls to open one of them.
My town has a mushroom shop.
Bah, Morrowind has a ton of shops in mushrooms too, a lot of cities have several
I had to go to a store that only sells custom made stirrups as my kid needed some for their horse. I was absolutely overwhelmed about how many differences there are about them. Kid was happy.
Cycling clothing. No bikes, no helmets, just more lycra than a gimp convention.
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.
Batteries + Bulbs.
They sold nothing but batteries and lightbulbs.
I went there once because I needed a specific type of light bulb. But it wasn’t in their inventory. So I don’t even think of that place anymore when I need bulbs. Anyway they’re rather small stores. How could they possibly stock all the millions of varieties of those two specific things? Spoiler: they don’t.
I never went in for bulbs, but they certainly had a wide range of batteries. They were more reliable than Walmart or other places when I would need a random button style battery, like a CMOS or watch battery.
I don’t know about yours but I had a very similar store near me years ago, which was exclusively batteries but then eventually expanded into bulbs as well.
There’s a bunch of oddball stores in the Pike Place Market in Seattle but the Left Hand store was the most specific place. All left hand tools and stuff. Lots of different scissors.
I visited Pike Place in 2005 with my best friend and his wife, I had a horrible head cold and could not enjoy anything about the place. Sounds like I need to get back so I can visit the Left Hand store.
there are a lot of things to smell, like its a lot sometimes. especially if you arent feeling very well. they have expanded the market. No more car traffic on the street outside it and they expanded and built up the area closer to the waterfront, because the viaduct is gone. Many of the old school stuff is still there though. Make sure to give yourself a full day to explore, its a massive and confusing place
