Shopping has always been popular in Cleveland, whether during the era of the giant department store or later on, when those department stores were closed but we kept shopping because it’s the Midwest and we’re bored.

The landscape has changed, with big box stores and strip malls and Amazon dominating all, and while there are still plenty of local shop and stores to patronize, here are the ones that have closed that we’ll remember most fondly.

Vidstar 1836 Coventry Rd., Cleveland Heights In 2009, after 26 years in Coventry Village in Cleveland Heights, Vidstar Video closed. At its peak, revenue hit close to $400,000 a year and the beloved store even survived the Blockbuster takeover of America, but was eventually squeezed out by streaming. What we would give for one more stroll through the eclectic collection and one more rec from a staffer. Credit: Vidstar Video/Facebook
Record Rendezvous 300 Prospect Ave., Cleveland Along with Alan Freed, Leo Mintz was instrumental in making Cleveland the Rock N’ Roll capital. He opened Record Rendezvous in 1938 and the shop was one of the first record stores to put them into bins for customers to browse. He was a big supporter of Freed, which led to the infamous Moondog Coronation Ball, otherwise known as the first rock concert. He ran Record Rendezvous all the way until he died in 1976. There were five locations of the store at one point. Mintz, not Freed, is actually believed to be the one to coin the term ‘Rock n’ Roll’ in order to sell records. Credit: Cleveland Memory Project
Brooks Brothers at Tower City 230 W. Huron Rd., Cleveland Brooks Brothers, the upscale men’s clothing store that was one of the original tenants at the Avenue at Tower City, closed in 2020, three months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 1990, when the former Cleveland Union Terminal was dramatically transformed into “The Avenue” shopping mall at the hands of Forest City Enterprises, Brooks Brothers was one of the swanky tenants that signed early leases. Alongside Gianni Versace boutique, Gucci, Bally’s of Switzerland, Harve Benard and the Los Angeles men’s clothier Politix, Brooks Brothers fit squarely with Forest City’s plan to create a high-end, specialty retail destination for Cleveland shoppers. Brooks Brothers had been the only retail outlets that remained from The Avenue’s original tenant list. Credit: Phillip Pessar/Flickr CC
May Company 200 Euclid Ave., Cleveland May Company department store opened 800,000 square feet of space in Public Square in 1915 and was the third largest store in the nation when it opened. The store contained everything from fancy clothing to homeware to furniture and more. There was also an auditorium, a barber shop, a playground, a daycare and more than 2,500 employees at its height, when there were nine other locations. Many closed in the 1980s and 90s and the downtown store closed in 1993. Kaufmann’s took over the other stores that were still open. Credit: Cleveland Memory Project
Eastgate Coliseum 1285 SOM Center Rd., Mayfield Heights Located at the Eastgate Shopping Center in Mayfield Heights, the Eastgate Coliseum, where Target currently is, had it all. Opening in in 1961, the Coliseum had a game room, mini golf, a martial arts room, bowling, an olympic size swimming pool, a banquet hall and lounge with two stages for live music. It closed in the early 1990s. Credit: Eastgate Coliseum/Facebook
Forest City Multiple Locations Started by Charles Ratner in 1922, Forest City Enterprises eventually became a multinational corporation with interests in real estate, shopping malls, office buildings, hotels and much more. But on the retail side, Forest City was known as the Home Depot of its time, and their stores peaked in 1983, with seven retail spots in Cleveland and 20 total around region and Detroit. They sold their 18 home improvement stores in 1987. Credit: Google Maps, Former St. Clair Location
Gold Circle Multiple Locations Founded in Columbus in 1967, Gold Circle was a discount chain department store that sold anything from clothes, bedding and jewelry to electronics, home goods, hardware and furniture. They had 76 stores at their height, including multiple in the Cleveland area. Local locations included Severance Town Center, Lorain, Garfield Heights and more. Credit: Public Domain
Higbee’s 100 Public Square., Cleveland Higbee’s Department Store was originally founded in 1860 as Higbee and Hower Dry Goods. The store relocated to Public Square in 1902 and was acquired by the Van Sweringen Brothers in 1929, at that point moving to the Terminal Tower. Several other Higbee’s opened in the 60s and 70s in the suburbs and in the Akron-Canton area, but by 1984 Dillard’s would swoop in and acquire the compnay, marking the end of an era. Credit: Cleveland Memory Project
Randall Park 20801 Miles Rd., North Randall Known for its unique design — with sculptures, ramps, art deco features and artisanal floor tiles — Randall Park opened in 1976 with a whopping price tag of $175 million. Beloved on the east side, it closed in 2009, was demolished in 2017, and an Amazon distribution center now fittingly sits on the site. Credit: Eddie-S/Flickr CC
Silverman’s 6601 Harvard Ave., Cleveland In 1946, Silverman’s opened on Harvard Avenue in Cleveland. The department store, which carried a wide variety of goods, closed for good in 2015, but its fans still remember the good days. Credit: Silverman’s/Facebook
City Buddha 1836 Coventry Rd., Cleveland Heights We were never sure how a store, with a pretty large footprint, survived all those years by selling mostly Buddhas. But this Coventry Village store did just that. After nearly 25 years, 12 of them on Coventry Road, City Buddha sold its last buddha in 2021.
Rosenblum’s 321 Euclid Ave., Cleveland While Higbee’s and May Company are definitely the better remembered department stores of downtown, Rosenblum’s was just as popular for a time. The store opened in 1910 and moved to its main location on Eucild in 1920. A Parmatown Mall location was added in 1967 and a Southgate Center location in 1980. The downtown location closed in 1981, followed by Paramtown in 1990 and Southgate in 2006. Credit: Cleveland Memory Project
MC Sports Multiple Locations Founded in 1946, MC Sports had 24 stores when it closed in 2017, with 11 of them in Ohio. Before Dick’s was the only option, there was this regional gem, which felt less imposing and built for the average player. Credit: Dwight Burdette/Wikimedia Commons
Euclid Square Mall East 260th St., Euclid With 92 stores, Euclid Square Mall opened in 1977. The Dick Jacobs project would, like other area malls, slowly slide into oblivion but, as opposed to others, find a brief second life as a home to some 24 churches in 2013. An Amazon outpost now fills the site, of course. Credit: Mike Kalasnik/Flickr CC
Big Fun 1827 Coventry Rd., Cleveland After a 27 year run, the beloved toy and joke store’s Cleveland shop closed in 2018. (The Columbus location is, however, still very much alive.) Big Fun regularly won the “Best Toy Store” category in Scene’s annual Best Of issue for good reason. Located in Cleveland Heights’ Coventry neighborhood, the independent store stocked a slew of hard-to-find toys from both the past and present. If you were looking for Star Wars, Transformers and G.I. Joe figurines, the place had you covered, because it was basically a toy museum. And it wasn’t just a local favorite. Playboy once named Big Fun one of the “coolest stores” in America. A satellite store was opened in Pinecrest at one point but it is now closed. Credit: Big Fun/Facebook
Halle Brothers Co. 1228 Euclid Ave., Cleveland Halle Brothers, also known as Halle’s, opened all the way back in 1891 in Public Square and operated all the way until 1982. The high-end department store started as a fur business and eventually turned into a six-story department building. It was the highest selling department store in the first half of the century until Higbee’s and the May Company surpassed it in 1950. The company expanded to the suburbs, with locations at Summit Mall, Westgate, Shaker Heights and others in 1948. It was sold to Chicago’ Marshall Field in 1970 and closed for good in 1982. It’s also the namesake for Cleveland-bred actress Halle Berry. The building is now home to upscale apartments. Credit: Mark Souther/Flickr CC
Seitz-Agin Hardware 2285 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights After 56 years, Seitz-Agin Hardware shut its doors for good in 2011. The hardware store was originally opened in 1958 and sold to Joel Borwick in 1973. The store turned into Mitchell’s Fine Chocolates, which is still there. Credit: Mitchell’s Fine Chocolates/Facebook
Uncle Bill’s Multiple Locations Founded in 1955, Uncle Bill’s was a discount chain with multiple locations around the Greater Cleveland area. The chain started as a home goods and wares store and added clothing and furniture in 1961. The chain was sold in the mid 1960s. Credit: Google Maps/St. Clair Location
Richmond Town Center 691 Richmond Rd., Richmond Heights Once the largest mall in Ohio, Richmond Mall opened in Richmomd Heights in 1966 and was developed by the Youngstown-based DeBartolo family. The anchor stores included Sears, JCPenney, a Loews movie theater and Woolworths. The mall’s decline began in the 1990s, when occupancy fell to 40 percent. Barnes and Noble and Kaufmann’s were later added, along with changing Loews to Regal Cineams. LifeStorage, located in the former Macy’s, and Planet Fitness, in the Barnes and Noble site, remain open on the site but the rest of the mall has been closed since 2020 and is scheduled to be demolshied to mak way for apartments. Credit: Richmond Town Square/Facebook
Zayre Multiple Locations Zayre was a discount chain originally founded in 1919. There were a few in the Cleveland area, including on Lakeshore Boulevard, in Warrensville Heights at Garfield Mall, on Dennison and Ridge and a couple other locations. The parent company merged with T.J. Maxx in 1989 and in 1990 all the stores closed or became Ames. Credit: Joe+Jeanette Archie/Flickr CC
Record Revolution 1832 Coventry Rd., Cleveland Heights After 55 years, Record Revolution, the beloved Coventry Village record store, shut its doors in late 2022. The store carried everything counterculture you could think of from used vinyl, bootleg live albums, band t-shirts, pot paraphernalia, band t-shirts, tapestries and even sold Doc Martens at one time. In the 1970s, the store was a mainstay for in-store appearances and was visited by artists like Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, the Who and Patti Smith. Credit: Shawn M. Winterich
Unique Thrift 3333 Lorain Ave., Cleveland The Lorain-Fulton thrift shop was the poor man’s Nordstrom for Cleveland’s hipsters, twentysomethings and just about anyone who looked at their bank account, looked at retail clothing prices and realized they better not spend that money. The beloved thrift shop, which won numerous ‘Best Thrift Shop’ titles from us, closed in 2016. It was open for over 20 years. Credit: Scene Archives

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