Warren's Vintage Queen of Ice Cream

 

    Among the retail community, Warren was likely very well known for years with its dead mall that finally was redeveloped in 2018. While the de-malling of the nearby mall caused all vintage features there to be lost, the topic of this post continues to operate with them- to the best of my knowledge. We of course are talking about Dairy Queen. 

Honestly, I found the vintage features here to be quite charming.

Former Kmart #4090

 NOTE: This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area.

While visiting the western Virginia Kmart stores in May 2017, this particular location in Charlottesville, VA was announced to close just 2 days prior to my visit. This really didn't change my plans, but upon arriving it became clear it would be a bit harder than usual to take pictures. This experience pretty much describes exactly what usually happened for Kmart stores- people coming out of the woodworks to go to the first hint of a store closing sale.  As a result, I was hesitant at first about taking photos out of concern of getting people in the shot, but eventually I decided to take them anyway to document this location. 

Even with that being said, I do think this was a profitable store. From what I remember at the time, it seemed that Kmart's lease was up and the owners did not want to renew it. This was one of the relatively few that got remodeled after the Sears/Kmart merger which supports the suspicion of profitability. The location had a pharmacy (with a walk-up window) and Little Caesars right up to the liquidation, though it appears Little Caesars may have been added in around the time of the 2007/2008 remodel.