“Our retail location of the past 35 years, at 500 S. Broadway in Denver, closed on Sept. 11, 2016. But we will be reopening in early December as Caboose at 10800 W. Alameda Ave. Lakewood, Colorado,” the store’s website states.
Note that the store will be known as “Caboose”, not Caboose Hobbies
So … Caboose Hobbies is not rising again. Did they not get rights to the name “Caboose Hobbies” after all?
What it appears is this is a totally new hobby shop with a new name and bears little if any resemblance to the shop many have known for over 3 decades.
Hello all,
I won’t judge until I visit the new store.
Just glad I don’t have to go all the way to Colorado Springs for a brick and mortar store.
Hope this helps.
Well, the OP could be a little clearer. I read it as the original owners are reopening under a different name at a different location, but I could be wrong.
Perhaps they sold the rights to the name “Caboose Hobbies.” Some clarification would be helpful, OP.
CG
And the website is?
Here is the Caboose Hobbies Facebook link;
https://www.facebook.com/caboose.hobbies.9/?fref=nf
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
Hello all,
If you read the notice on the Caboose Hobbies website it states that it is now under new ownership.
The original owners decided to retire and sold the business.
Hopefully the new owner(s) will carry on the decades old tradition of a great hobby shop.
Hope this helps.
Yes, I read that. I also read in the post above, that the name is now going to be simply Caboose, with no explanation. The owner, whomever they are, would do well to post some details. Vagueness breeds uncertainty, and uncertainty is bad for business. Just look at the other replies in this thread.
Edit:
After rereading the first post, I am not sure if the OP is connected to Caboose or not. I assumed he was, but maybe not. More uncertainty.
CG
Hmm. Seems odd to (partly) walk away from such a time honored name as Caboose Hobbies unless they want to make a clean break in expectations in terms of size, inventory, and staff. There may be reasons of which we are unaware for why they are not using the good old name. Like having to pick up unemployment compensation for those who lost their jobs in the shut down? – that is pure speculation by me by the way.
Caboose just does not seem distinctive. There is of course a Caboose Industries which makes ground throws. http://www.cabooseind.com/
Not to mention Caboose Stop, Red Caboose, Doc’s Caboose, a brass engine dealer called “The Caboose,” Loose Caboose, and just a host of dealers, shops, and manufacturers with the word caboose in their name.
Dave Nelson
Generally, businesses are purchased in order to get something the business owns, such as trademark, physical plant, manufacturing capability, patents, goodwill, inventory, etc.
It seems strange to buy a business which has sold down its inventory and whose only assets seem to be name and goodwill, then throw away the name (which is where the goodwill attaches).
CG
If you look at the Home page for the Caboose Hobbies web site, it is entirely contradictory.
Featured prominently is a detailed statement about the purchase of the business and the re-opening as Caboose Hobbies.
Then, in small print on a sidebar, it states that the business is re-opening as Caboose. The Caboose trademark is cut off at the top like a bad hair cut.
The whole thing seems confusing. This does not appear to be a re-creation of the former Caboose Hobbies.
Rich
My take is that there are probably a couple of dedicated model railroaders who have decided to take on the challenge but they lack a certain marketing savy.
Before we write their obituaries, let’s give them a chance. Right now I doubt that they are getting much sleep.
Hopefully they are reading the forums.
Dave
Does it matter:
Hopefully this is a case of "If they (re)build it they will come.
From a photo I’ve seen, the new location is a former Auto Parts store with an impressive amount of square footage in a clean area.
Hopefully things work out for “Caboose”. Always good to root for our endangered brick-and-mortar stores.
Best wishes and success to them [Y][:D]
Joe:
Yes, it matters to me. I wish people success in their endeavours. One of our club members has decided that he wants to start a model railroad business. Unfortunately he seems to know next to nothing about model railroading. That doesn’t preclude me from wishing him success. Regardless of the outcome, he’s got more gumption than I do.
Dave
Exactly. We don’t know what we don’t know about this transition and some of it is none of our business.
Unless the new owner is doing this for fun, he doesn’t have the money to polish the web sites for a store that doesn’t yet exist. He has to establish credit with the distributors, finish the interior of the store, perhaps buy all new display counters, desks, computers, storage racks, exterior signage and replace much or all of the inventory. Then there is insurance, accounting, employees and advertising. Being a model railroader and knowing how to stock a MR store are two very different things.
Everyone is freaking out about the name change, but after 70 or 80 years in the business, MB Klein became known as Modeltrainstuff.com. Was that a bad move?
In realty who cares what the name is? In 40+ years I have never used caboose hobbies and most likely never will.
Now if it is your lhs then you may care, but it is a small group on this board. Besides it is none of our business what the new owner calls it. It’s his shop and he can call it anything he wants.
I’ve seen businesses change management/ownership over the years, and one advertising ‘trick’ that seem to help with the transition, particularly when keeping the same name or something very similar, is to fade out the old and fade in the new. That is, to open the new store with the familiar Caboose Hobbies sign and logo. Then gradually decrease the size and prominence of the word ‘Hobbies’ and gradually increase the size and prominence of the word ‘Caboose’. Or maybe gradually change fonts or something. After a while (maybe a year or two) the word ‘Hobbies’ will get so small and so insignificant that it can be dropped entirely and the new name will stick and nobody will notice.
Might work. Might not.
Robert
On the net, yes. But locally their retail store is M.B.Klein and that’s what you’d look for to get the store address: http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/MB-Klein-Retail-Store-s/1207.htm
Maybe the website for the new store will be caboosestuff.com. [8D]
Rich