Went by the store today and the train shop closed, what happened?
Do you mean permanently closed? I haven’t shoped there for a couple of months but did not hear they were closing.
The train store at Larry’s is not closed- they have consolidated the store space because the rent was raised on them by the strip mall owner. The train counter has been moved out of the adjoining pad that it used to be housed in and into the main store front with the RC cars and model planes- it’s on the right side of the store along the wall now. Walk in through the main doors and turn to the right and there it all is- they don’t have as much space as before, but they still sell trains at Larry’s.
We have a local hobby shop here in the southwest suburbs of Chicago that is faced with the same problem, rent increases that have forced a relocation to another spot.
In fact, just a few years ago, we lost three major LHS in the southwest suburbs, and all three of the closures were due to rent increases by strip mall owners. That, as much as anything, seems to be the reason that so many LHS close.
Rich
My LHS is located in a small, out-of-the-way strip mall. Of all the stores on that row, the LHS and the liquor store are the only ones that seem to remain. The barber shop is now a sub shop, and various real estate offices and nail salons have come and gone. I suppose that’s good for the shop, as rents seldom go up much when there are vacant storefronts nearby.
But, it’s good to hear that Larry’s in Houston is still making a go of it. I’ve never heard of the place, but it’s better to hear that than the old “another one bites the dust” refrain.
Hi,
Larry’s is my main LHS, and I’ve been a customer for the last 30 years or so. The store was a “double wide”, with trains filling the left side store, and the right side filled with planes, boats, cars, etc.
The model train section was very popular and well stocked years ago, but gradually went downhill (with the advent of online shopping IMHO). Of course this route is more normal than not and has been cussed and discussed many times on this forum.
Definitely sorry to see this happen, but I am not surprised at all.
I was former customer at Larry’s and knew Jim, the train manager, pretty well. When they closed the train side and moved it over to the car side, i was told the owner had been undermining the store according to the employees. The move was made in August of 2012, Jim quit September 1st and moved on. The new location for the train store in the car department then closed in July of 2013, and the entire store closed for good on October 10, 2013. After a run of somewhere around 30 years, a really nice train store and hobby shop were gone.
All is not lost though. Jim started a small business from his home, KMJ Model Trains. He is taking orders and I just pre-ordered a BLI T&P 2-10-4, a brass hybrid model. His prices are great and you can check him out through his facebook page and his website, KMJ Model Trains, a dot com site.