What kind of store would you have? A thrift store, a bargain basement, a boutique, a mall? What would you sell?

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

Answers

A conspiracy bookstore. That's what I would call it, but I would also sell books on Watergate, the Kennedys, the Presidency, the 60s and 70s, and good novels.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

Have to be an office supply store. So I could buy the fifteen bajillion pens I *need* wholesale. Or maybe I'd have a Container Store. I simply can't pass up the opportunity to buy fancy storage containers to "hide" the clutter in, which in turn become clutter to an exponential power themselves. Or maybe a hardware store. I can spend hours in a hardware store, and yet only useful tool skills involve a ratchet screwdriver and a PVC cutter.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

A bookstore. I already have the inventory. Between my husband, my eight year old son and myself, books are slowly taking over our entire house. We all love to buy, read and keep our books. Book pack rats, if you will.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

I would sell clothing for tall women. And I would stock shoes beginning at size 9 and up.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

I know where I'd shop for pants, then! That would rock.

Alas, although my feet are impossible to fit because my arches are so collapsed, they're still size 8 for now.

I think I'd get bored selling just one thing, but if I owned a store with all my favorite weaknesses in it, I'd live there and never regret it. So it would have to be a little mini-mall place so it could have an ATM that didn't charge any superfluous fees. The stores would have books, used records/CDs, art/craft supplies, toys, pet supplies, fun clothes, appliances/computer stuff, tools/linens/household gadgets, a perfume store, a pampering salon/spa with hair care and cosmetics and massages, candle/incence/smelly things store (set off to the back so people with allergies didn't pass out), and (of course) there'd be a store with a thousand perfect shoes/purses/belts. There's be one drugstore/grocery and one "oddments" store, where you could find thrift bargains, antiques, and (if you hunted just long enough) weird stuff like X-Files 3-D "Lone Gunmen" placemats (if that's your sort of thing) and Sanrio sex toys (if that's your sort of thing) to keep or re-sell on eBay later on.

The 'food court' would have just one place but it would have a menu that appealled to almost everyone. It would have a section devoted to a cybercafe setup and it would sell reaonably priced and tasty semi-gourmet comfort foods and hard-to- find drinks. Like chai, Earl Grey tea, exotic soft drinks, that sort of thing. If you wanted tiramisu or some homemade mashed potatoes or stir-fry or soft-serve or a steak or whatever, the little store would have it and make it for you for cheap. And it would be REALLY tasty. Of course, you could take it home or you could eat there, and you could sit upstairs on the balcony where you could people watch or read the books you just bought or open whatever toy you can't wait to get home to tear into, or you could sit downstairs in the cozy and eclectic lounge-like inside areas with lots of rooms and nooks and crannies for private conversations so you could eat in front of a fire or on a big poofy couch or you could even dine al fresco near a fountain with koi fish in it, if the weather was nice. All the waiters and waitresses would be funny and friendly and cute and they'd clean up all the mess so you wouldn't have to do dishes.

And there wouldnot be ANY piped-in holiday music until the week before Christmas, and there'd be valet parking (free) and a play room with nice elderly nannies and/or free arcade games for the kids if they wanted to play instead of go shopping. Pets would be allowed in the pet store and in the kid area if they were well-behaved. Husbands would love to go here because there'd be all sorts non-intimidating male wardrobe stores with clerks that looked cool like Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan advising them on sharp outfits while telling entertaining stories about their days in the Secret Service, and there'd be tons of cool gadgets in the gadget store (think "Sharper Image") or, if they were traditional stereotypical husbands, they could even go to the electronics store if that was their thing and sit down in front of the bank of TV sets with a beer and watch sports. In my electronics store, you would be encouraged to try before you buy and weary husbands would get the softest of soft-sells while they enjoyed 'Baywatch' on the 70-inch projection TV with a cool frosty one in their hands.

All of these places exist where I live, but they aren't anywhere near each other, and they tend to be hard-sell and kid- and pet-resistant and I doubt they let people drink beer and veg in front of the TV sets anywhere. If I could mush these ideas all into one location and make it easy for other people to enjoy their shopping experience, I'd be wealthy. And we'd be online: www.pipedreammall.com. ;)

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

I would have a combination coffee house and "Check This Out!" store.

I'd leave beanbags all over the place and play lots of music I like, and to enter the store they'd have to walk through a bead curtain, and then a friendly salesgirl would slap a nametag on her, and all of the customers would have to be friendly to each other, cuz if they weren't, I'd be pissed and kick them out.

I'd have Celebrity Poetry Night, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon would recite sonnets to us and then we would draw a name out of a hat, and some lucky girl would get a chance to do Seven in Heaven with them in a special closet filled with lava lamps and Depeche Mode playing softly in the background, and the customers would get pissed off because somehow, my name is the only one that gets picked, night after night.

On Open Mic Night, it wouldn't be all that open. Just the cool people would show up, like the Beastie Boys and they'd do Paul Revere and it would be like vh1's Storytellers, except we'd let them booze it up beforehand.

My Check This Out stuff would be things you need to grab the person next to you and show. Like kaleidoscopes and black velvet paintings of the devil sitting on the toilet, smoking a joint, and holding his tail up so it doesn't fall into the water. I've seen that painting in Juarez. It exists.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

id defanetly have a kathie lee store! everyhting in it would be kathie lee. have you herd her new cd?? its sssssssssssoooooooooo good! i play it all the time!!!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

Definitely a store that sold lots of things made out of Armadillos like purses, and stools and ashtrays and bootjacks etc and cool clothing made out of soft tanned doe-skin. Suede and chrome tanned. Real "jake" jackets with fringe and skirts and leather hats. There'd be a tub of ice filled with bottles of long necked beer and a real expresso coffee machine and the refreshments would be free. I'd have all kinds of mismatched, overstuffed chairs everywhere so you could sit a spell. And plenty of ashtrays. And neat imported pipe tobacco and wood plank floors. I'd give away sacks of fresh-boiled peanuts and there'd be hard stick candy for the kids. And cool music. I'd call it Bubba's 'Dill-Doe store just to keep the bible-dwarfs at bay. There'd be a poster of Gracie Slick eating a banana behind the cash register and dogs layinging around. Kittens would sleep on the counters. My business motto would be "BUBBA'S, the place you can get sloshed,wired, play with a young pussy and get 'dill-doed all under one roof." When the ambulance went by, all the dogs would howl in sympathy. Yeah, ya'll would come to see me. I know my group. Decidedly bent.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

And, oh, I forgot. I'd hire Floosie to run the cash register.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

Bubba, You are missing chocolate. And when is this store going to open :)?

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

I would have a French-style Dog Allowed Bed and Breakfast with a Cafe Attached. I just read that it's fairly common in France for dogs to be allowed everywhere, even really nice restaurants, provided they're well-behaved. Plus, I think it'd be nice to have a place to sleep over night where you could take your dog (besides Motel 6). I've always wanted a B & B.....

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

Bubba and Nicole, you guys need to get those stores open now. I mean, right away. Just do it. Why are you still reading this? Get going!

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

Right, Vicki! Big, pure chocolate kittys like the Eater bunny ones. (I'll leave it up to your imagination how I'd advertise THAT.)

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

"Eater" bunny! Hey, did I have a fruedian brain-crash or what! I even got myself laffing.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

My college roommate and I always schemed about opening a hamburger joint we'd call "Frisky's". And our slogan would be "A big piece of meat makes it extra Frisky!"

Hee. I don't know why we thought that was so funny.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

My friends and I actually talked about opening a store together, but naturally we could never agree on what to sell. We decided on a 3- part store. In The Divine Binky's corner we'd have a bakery and chocolate store. I mean, everything chocolate. Everything. If we didn't have it, we'd order it, make it, or at least give you a nice glossy picture of it. TDB would also bake delicious bread, cinnomon rolls, cupcakes, homemade brownies, every kind of cookie ever...Now Naomi, The Fabulous Britney, and I would split the other 2 sections. One would be a costume store. Everything. All my favorites, naturally. It'd be hugely popular. I'd go to work every day in a flapper or medievil maiden type. The last part would be the dirty, dusty old bookstore with all those hard to find volumes as well as the classics. Good God. I wish it COULD happen. Me huddling with some crummy looking old book dressed as a flapper eating a brownie. Mwah.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

An old hardware store. The kind that would make Bob Villa drool. With a photography gallery and old time cafe attached. And a bookstore in the back with books that you can't find in a Borders. And it would have a foreign film section with some racey french porn movies. james

-- Anonymous, October 14, 2000

I've often thought about what I'd do if I somehow didn't have to work for a living, like if I won the lottery or something. I would love to renovate the inside of some old building, preferably brick, ala Denver's Lower Downtown, and turn it into a coffeehouse/moviehouse catering to college kids and younger. It would be cozy and calm, and I'd only show old silent and otherwise black and white movies (comedies, I think). And I'd try hard to make it a cool place for cool young kids who don't necessarily fit in with the other crowds (sports crowd, drinking crowd, etc.). I would try to run it as efficiently and productively as I could, but I wouldn't put "making a profit" as my highest business goal. And I'd start it with all my own money so I wouldn't have to convince some fucking suit-and-tie at the local faceless bank that it's a good idea so please loan me some money. So anyway, I'd either locate it someplace like a downtown area, or better yet any place that's easy to get to and makes sense, like in the quaint old historic part of a college town near campus, you get the picture (no pun intended). Oh, and the coffee drinks would be the usual prices you find at other places, but I'd try to make the movies super inexpensive, or possibly free. With lots of comfy places to sit and/or lounge around little round tables, all easily shiftable to face the screen when it came time to roll the film. This would be an especially happening, inviting and friendly face on snowy Colorado winter nights. Mmm... I want to go there right now.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2000

It would be a laundromate that would also sell books and CDs (mostly used) there would be a "corner store" element to it because I would sell small amounts of household necessities at a slightly marked up price.

There would be armchairs and sofas and tables and hard chairs and people could drink a little something while they read, and wait for their laundry.

There would be large wide clean tables for laundry sorting, one table per washing machine. This laundromat would also have a servicel side to it - wash and dry and fold - but for a much higher price. We would out-source the dry-cleaning.

My book & CD inventory would be computerized and I would also do ordering for my customers.

I would have at least 2 bulletin boards. One for people to post their own notices (housing, classes, rides wanted, plagroups forming, etc) and one for my business where I would post information on the latest products and what new books had come in, etc.

It would be open from 8:30 am until 10:00 pm, Monday-Friday and 9am-9pm on Saturdays and 2pm-11pm on Sundays.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2000

One already exists. It's called Borders. james

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2000

I once went to a Borders in Chicago, but I didn't see anyplace to do laundry there, or drop off the dry cleaning. Have they expanded?

- Tory

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2000

Tony--we don't have an all-in-one laundry and used book/CD store, but here in Atlanta, we do have "Book Nook" right next to a laundromat. It's almost as cool. :) And a few laundromats here offer food/beverages and a place to sit or are right nextr to restaurants.

Smart marketing, yo.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2000