Demolishing the Fry's Electronics in Burbank
116 comments
·April 14, 2025pjs_
classichasclass
Sandwiches, too. Ate at the cafe a fair bit. When my buddy was living on Victory and Hollywood we hit Burbank on a regular basis.
Of the Burbank, Fountain Valley, San Marcos, San Diego, Anaheim Hills, Roseville, Sacramento, Fremont, Las Vegas and Sunnyvale locations, I think I liked the San Diego one most for selection (it was a former Incredible Universe), but the Roseville and Las Vegas ones had the wildest themes, even more than the Burbank UFO. But the Fremont location when I ended up there in 2019 was deader than a doornail, and it was like waiting for the next hit to kill them. The next hit came sooner than I thought.
Cerium
I used to stop by the Fremont location for a sandwich when traffic on the Sunol grade was bad.
donio
And a decent tiramisu.
JKCalhoun
When I first moved out to the Bay Area in 1995 and discovered Fry's it was wire-wrapping tools, sockets, enclosures, electronic components, porn magazines, junk food, soft drinks, Computer Shopper magazines....
hbarka
The Computer Shopper magazine. How it was 3/4” thick full of content every edition just amazed me.
corysama
5/8” of that was ads. But, before the consumer internet, those ads were as interesting and valuable to readers as the articles.
AStonesThrow
You could literally purchase a bag of chips (SIMMs) on one aisle, and a bag of chips (Fritos) in another!
I must admit that “Big Boob Babes” was my favorite CD-ROM purchase in 1994. No, it was not a DVD
This morning, I was just watching the video of “The Distance” by Cake, and I vividly recall when that was released and played on my car radio, and the metaphor of corporate slavery was not lost on 24-year-old me.
My favorite store was the one with the Mesoamerican temples and stuff.
Also, remember Weird Stuff Warehouse?
JKCalhoun
I have an extension cable that still has the bright orange Weird Stuff Warehouse sticker on it. I will never remove it.
bwfan123
if you looked hard, you might even find the offices of the American Institute of Math at a fry's location... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_of_Mathemat...
Animats
Fry's American Institute of Mathematics built and operated a 192-acre golf course in Morgan Hill.[1] There was some suspicion that was the real purpose of the Institute. They'd been trying to build a large clubhouse (er, "headquarters") on the site, built to look like the Alahambra castle and equipped with guest rooms, a wine cellar, and "a gourmet-industrial kitchen with master chefs from a San Francisco seafood restaurant and a Napa Valley resort." That was not, apparently, built. Here's what it was supposed to look like.[2]
[1] https://www.greenfoothills.org/pga-tour-eyes-frys-course
CalRobert
Not to mention the history of having been an Incredible Universe on Tandy drive in the case of the Sacramento one
unclebucknasty
And each one of those items would somehow have a dead pixel.
01100011
I loved Fry's and shopped there often in the 90s and 00s but it did seem like half of the things I bought there had to be returned for one reason or another.
flomo
Once I was returning something at the Palo Alto Fry's and the couple ahead of me had a laptop where someone had removed the battery and replaced it with a sandwich. Only at Fry's.
unclebucknasty
>for one reason or another.
Exactly that. It was never that it straight-up didn't work. It was just that there was some issue.
I first encountered it with a TV that literally had a dead pixel. From there, the next 3-4 purchases featured something wrong. Monitor's built-in settings menu didn't display, cordless phone speaker issue, etc.
Dead pixels.
No way it was random. Funniest part was they'd get snippy with their return policy, like you were the problem.
LeoPanthera
Don't forgot the knock-off cologne!
rmason
Whenever I was out in the Valley I'd visit one or more Fry's. Then there was Weird Stuff Warehouse and Computer Literacy Bookstore. There probably wasn't any area the size of Silicon Valley that had stores that even remotely compared. Always spent more than I budgeted but never felt bad about it.
Gibbon1
There was Halted and this other one I liked better Alltronics? run by an old amateur radio guy. Originally it was in Los Gatos. But then moved north new Zanker Rd.
Just being able to look at all the various components was a good education.
MrTrvp
porn magazines! haha man
aresant
Drooling over PC part reviews in magazines that I could never afford, checking the weekly printed Fry's ad in the local paper to find deals, convincing my parents to drop me at the electronics-nerd-utopia for a lazing weekend afternoon - "Won't you get bored?" . . . "No Mom!"
Iconic building, nostalgic time.
johnvanommen
> convincing my parents to drop me at the electronics-nerd-utopia for a lazing weekend afternoon - "Won't you get bored?" . . . "No Mom!"
I had a traveling job for a while, I was away from home every single week.
When you first start doing a job like that, you imagine that you'll be doing all kinds of sightseeing. I thought I'd be traipsing through Central Park and eating Cubanos in Miami.
None of that happens IRL; you're so busy working, by the time you have a few hours to kill, all you want to do is space out. Doing tourist stuff gets to be WORK.
After a few months of this, I started to just obsessively spend time at Fry's.
I didn't even really need anything from Fry's. It was just this place I could reliably visit at any tech hub on the west coast. Doesn't matter if you're in Burbank or San Diego or Sacramento or Portland or Seattle: if it's 2010, there's a Fry's you can wander around in for a couple of hours.
I've never been to The Space Needle in Seattle, but I've been to Fry's Electronics numerous times.
taggart
While attending the University of Arizona in Tucson in the early 90s, I got very confused by posts on Usenet talking about buying computers at Fry’s. You see, the Fry’s grocery store chain still existed in Tucson at the time, so I could not figure out where a grocery store would stock computers!
Needless to say when I moved to the Bay Area after college graduation, I wasted no time visiting the closest Fry’s Electronics. For me, that was the original Fremont location - the one in an office park off Mission Blvd with the space theme inside. I never see that location mentioned any more. It was closed after Fry’s bought the Incredible Universe stores and they moved the Fremont Fry’s to the IU store on Auto Mall Parkway.
topato
Fry's grocery is still the branding of Kroger in the PHX area
kevinpet
I was confused when I moved out to Phoenix especially because the logos are pretty similar. Turns out Fry's electronics was started by the sons of the founder of Fry's food.
paradox460
Phoenix used to have two Fry's electronics too
jrapdx3
I remember when Fry's opened in the Portland, OR area (actually ~15 miles south). It occupied the former Incredible Universe site. We considered it a notable upgrade.
Fry's was like a museum of common and obscure electronic parts, devices and strangely miscellaneous stuff (mundane office supplies, home appliance accessories, etc.). It was definitely the go to place for computer building blocks and related supplies.
It was amazing what could be found there. One really great thing was relay racks and all kinds of shelves and attachments for them. Too good to pass up I bought one. It was used in my office (for webserver and LAN) and still houses my home server.
Like everywhere else Fry's closed unceremoniously. I guess the chain couldn't withstand the growing online competition and waning interest in desktop machines. Too bad they had to go, now and then it would be so convenient if neighborhood purveyors of "exotic" electronics were still around.
vanchor3
I had gone there a few times probably several months before they closed. It was quite sad how empty it was. Product hangers were lined up in a single row with one item on each hanger. The only shelf that looked full was the one aisle filled with just the same two pack of canned air, nothing else.
walterbell
> it would be so convenient if neighborhood purveyors of "exotic" electronics were still around
Speed up electronics prototyping in support of future manufacturing.
jedberg
One of the things I loved most about Fry's was that clearly an engineer designed their checkout line. It's the only retail checkout line I've ever seen that fully embraced queueing theory.
They had one long line that everyone got into, and a load balancer up front that would direct you to an open check stand, and at least at the store I went to, in their hayday they had 30 registers open at once!
aembleton
Aldi in Market Street, Manchester, UK had that for many years. It worked really well. I think it might have put some people off when they saw the length of the queue, but it moved so fast, and you never felt like you'd chosen the wrong checkout as there was only one queue.
Unfortunately, they redesigned the shop a few years ago and got rid of that.
Tempest1981
Which gave the checkers a 20-30 second break as the customer next-in-line briskly walked from the queue, past register 30, 29, 28, past more impulse items, ... down to register 4.
user3939382
My dear dad drove me back and forth between Burbank and Palm Springs 3 times while I figured out motherboard/memory compatibility. Miss dad and miss Fry’s.
dimator
that's so sweet. :')
reminds me of my mom taking me to radio shack, so many times.
thank you for sharing.
otterpro
I'm sad to see it end like this. About 20 years ago, I used to go to this Burbank Fry's after work whenever I could and spend hours just browsing. They had this cool 50's sci-fi alien/ufo movie theme inside. Another favorite is the Fry's in Anaheim where I got pc parts to build my first 486 PC in the early 90's. So many memories. I remember buying my first laptop ever, a monochrome thinkpad with personal check (as my credit card limit was too low) and having to call bank to verify my balance; also the day that I bought a Pentium CPU when it first came out, and the time when I got the boxed Windows 95 OS. Those were the days.
dimator
on top of the selection, the experience of going there is something that doesn't exist anymore: it was just packed with people. i remember more than once deciding to forego a purchase because of the line of people waiting to check out. all those fellow nerds, just wandering the aisles...
those were indeed the days.
mixmastamyk
Similar... spent hours and hours at the one in Canoga Park during the 90s. (Sometimes DAK too.) Believe it had an "alice in wonderland" theme. Can't even remember what I bought but even perused the magazine section while there.
Oh wait, I do remember buying a 20? foot long (several meter) orange crossover ethernet cable! Then I punched a hole thru the drywall in my apartment and connected my two PCs. One of which had dialup internet, so I could access it and my .mp3s from the other. Pre-wifi by about 5-10 years. :-D
jedberg
Canoga Park was indeed Alice in Wonderland themed. That was my Fry's too. When the closed down they actioned off all of the Alice themed items inside.
I came this close to buying a 15ft tall Queen of Hearts.
mixmastamyk
Ha, always thought you were from up north.
LeoPanthera
For those in the bay area, Micro Center is opening a branch in Santa Clara.
https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/santa-clara.aspx
Well, maybe. It's delayed months at this point.
rmason
Loyal customer of the Detroit area Micro Center. Thought I was the furthest customer that day when I bought my last laptop there coming ninety miles. Salesman said he's sold two machines that day to customers from Grand Rapids and one to someone from Muskegon! That Muskegon customer had travelled nearly 400 miles roundtrip to buy a laptop. I'm fairly technical and yet I haven't ever found a question my salesman couldn't answer.
ChuckMcM
Fascinating, I drove by it and thought "Oh look, they forgot to take down the sign when the store closed." It will be interesting to see how they do. For computer stuff, Central Computers has been the 'go to' store for a while. Central also has a store on Steven's Creek (a bit further down toward San Jose).
bsder
When the hell are we going to get an Austin or San Antonio Microcenter?
draculero
According this Reddit thread, it's going to be in the same place as Frys:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1h5r409/microcenter...
fuzzythinker
Thought why would they open one so close to another, until I just found out the 3255 Mission College Blvd one was closed.
cylinder714
Yep. Glad they're coming back.
nickzelei
That link you posted there says 2025! Wow that makes me excited. Big fan of microcenter.
stergios
Nice, and in that same plaza is Harbor Freight.
yellowapple
That sounds like a pretty dangerous combination for my wallet.
null
vmladenov
I read a rumor that they’re aiming for May now
pimlottc
I just recently learned from the last Not Just Bikes video [0] that these big box stores tend to be very hard to reuse (even when they don't include a giant spaceship). 99 Percent Invisible has a good article [1] on some of the challenges and a few success stories, but it takes a major effort.
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-e_yhEzIw
1: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/ghost-boxes-reusing-a...
PopAlongKid
The building which used to house Fry's Electronics in Concord, CA is now an indoor gym/adventure type enterprise.
https://pioneerpublishers.com/old-frys-building-to-see-new-l...
cylinder714
I used to visit that store once a week, just because.
krish98sai
The construction guy in the video said 95% of the building is being recycled. Don't know how accurate that is, but good if true.
ignormies
The comment you're replying to is referring to the difficulty to repurpose these buildings without complete replacement.
Recycling raw materials is important, but ideally we shouldn't be constructing buildings that are single-tenant, requiring a complete demolition just to make the land have utility again.
CalRobert
As sad as seeing the spaceship go makes me, I think even Jason Slaughter would approve of the fact 800 new homes are going in where Fry's used to be.
walterbell
Proposed development, https://la.urbanize.city/post/burbank-aero-crossings-2311-ho...
bigmattystyles
What always bugged me about Fry's at the end was how disrespectful people eventually got to the sample goods on the floor. I swear, every motherboard had their pins smooshed in. Maybe this is `old man remembers` but it wasn't that trashy in its heyday, when admittedly, I was a kid so maybe I didn't notice. Maybe it's because they had to pivot hard to cheap trinkets towards the end and that brought in a different crowd, I'm not sure.
ack_complete
Given the kinds of returns that Fry's would accept, I wouldn't be surprised if those were returns they had accepted that way. The one near me would attempt to resell laptop power bricks that had been returned with no AC power cord, and one time I got "new" RAM sticks that turned out to be actually used and so busted that a quarter of the data bus lines were inoperative.
jallmann
I remember buying a Radeon at Fry's (Fountain Valley, Roman Empire), going home, opening it up and... it was something else, a cheap VGA card. They gave me a hard time about taking it back too, 16-year old me didn't know how to cut through the BS so my dad had to go back with me on a 3rd trip and get it sorted out. What a place.
ack_complete
That happened to me at a CompUSA, opened up box for what was supposed to be wireless keyboard and found newspapers instead. It helped that I had just been there with my dad 5 minutes ago and the newspapers were from a town 40 miles away.
They have to be suspicious because customer fraud is as much of a problem as employee fraud, but it still sucks to be accused as the victim.
coobird
That was my local Fry's and I wouldn't touch any returned item with a 10-foot pole given the stories I heard about them, despite them being on discount. This was back in the late 90s before social media, so it must of been word of mouth through my high school friends.
I had the impression that their return process was very lax so you'd have "customers" returning broken items or worse... And they'd end up on the shelves with the white "returned item" sticker with the discounted price.
parshimers
it's sad to see this location go. it was such an amazing store on the inside. the theme had some great homages to Mars Attacks!, as well as a great many other sci-fi films. this album has some good pictures of some of the more notable sculptures in there, but the theme went even farther than just sculptures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/selfishcauses/albums/721577140...
walterbell
Great photos!
Painting and 3-D scan of Burbank Frys, https://savefrys.com/tributes/ and https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/rip-frys-162eeef6095343ec8b3...
Roman remnants in Phoenix store, https://nickdiak.com/2021/02/an-empire-crumbles-retrospectiv...
Oil-themed store in Houston, https://houstonhistoricretail.com/electronics/frys-electroni...
username_here
The space themed store south of Houston is now home to Axiom Space (https://www.axiomspace.com).
schlauerfox
That's a crime the Valley Relics Museum couldn't get the Spaceship. It has done a really great job saving what can be saved of Los Angeles San Fernando Valley history. If you're ever near the Van Nuys airport check it out. Fry's was a happy place for me. Memories of their old Terminal based stockkeeping system (AS400? AIX? I heard rumors the owner wrote it themselves). The Burbank Scifi theme, the Manhattan Beach polynesian theme, the Woodland Hills Alice in Wonderland Theme. Even the old sacramento unthemed version and the newer train themed one. The memories of building my own computers for several iterations and almost always getting my parts there, shopping first with my Dad then later a relaxing walk on my own. The haunted look of female partners dragged there. The ecclectic selection. It was a okay substitute for an old style electronics store like Electronic City, but had so much other interesting things. So many interesting things lost in LA. DAK2000, TRI-ESS Sciences, OPAMP Books. ALL Electronics surplus.
Where else could you simultaneously purchase through-hole transistors, a gaming motherboard, a 19" rack, a leafblower, a loudspeaker disguised as a plastic rock, pornography, a taser, a sandwich and a decent cup of coffee while surrounded by fiberglass cowboys and aliens... sad to see