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ThinkGeek Opens First Physical Store In Orlando
New submitter Enderxeno writes with news that on September 25th, geek merchandise retailer ThinkGeek will open its first brick-and-mortar store in Orlando, Florida. The store will open in a mall, and the company will be running it with the help of GameStop, who bought ThinkGeek back in June. The new store will have a 3,000 square foot space that used to be occupied by Radio Shack, and it will focus "entirely on collectibles." (Disclosure: Slashdot and ThinkGeek used to share a corporate overlord. We don't talk anymore, but we still like them. Even though they finally took away our employee discounts.)
What? No more discount on ThinkGeek for /. employees?
Man, that's harsh.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
but I have an air freshener in my car and I don't want to get shot
For those who wonder, the Florida Mall is a very busy mall. Elsewhere around the country, the malls are getting thin on customers, but there are a lot of tourists here. The Florida Hotel is in the mall and gets a lot of customers who want to visit the touristy areas of Orlando, particularly on International Drive.
>> What? No more discount on ThinkGeek for /. employees?
I'm more surprised that there are actual SlashDot employees. From the quality of editing and community response we get around here I guess I just thought this place was run by a bunch of unpaid Dice interns.
Yeah, but you can get a *25 cents* in trade-in credit for that signed Babe Ruth card. Don't you want that credit?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Personally, I thought the point where they began their downwards slide was when they lost their FYE and the book store. At that point, it basically became an Apple Store, two Gamestops and a vast array of over-priced clothing and accessory stores. Millennia's better but is inexorably going the same direction. When I'm in Orlando these days (got a family place out there that we used to run as a rental business), I end up driving right up to Altamonte Mall for shopping (which is relatively civilised and has stores that non-hipster males might be interested in).
Parking at the Prime Outlets is almost impossible now, for around 10 months of the year (unless you feel like driving slowly in circles for half an hour first). To some degree they've become victims of their own success.
Do they sell the new BB-8 toy or the Millennium Falcon drone? That's all I give a shit about.
I gots the nerd sweats! MUST.... HAVE!!!
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Florida Mall was pretty upscale - Princess Di used to shop there. But the surrounding neighborhoods aren't all that impressive. And I'm not sure that it's a tourist pull (I'd locate on I-Drive if that's what I wanted).
All the actual "local geeks" I've known were located towards the north and east parts of town - Maitland and beyond to the North is where most of the (non-military) tech jobs are and UCF to the East where the students and research park people are.
Clearly you're not in orlando very often because Altamonte's almost as much of a ghost town as Oviedo and Fashion Square while Millenia's still doing well and has high end retailers like Tiffany's, Brooks Brothers, Allen Edmonds, and Burberry.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
But nowhere that sells books, DVDs, music or anything else that isn't clothing or video games. Depends what you're after, really. Millennia is certainly better in the clothing niche than Florida or Altamonte, but not everybody just wants clothing.
A brick & mortar store selling overpriced shit that you can get online without leaving the house, what could go wrong?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You know what's collectible?
Battletoads.
Will Game Stop finally carry Battletoads?!
all the inconvenience of putting on pants and schlepping to a brick and mortar, now with the added detest of having to enter the state of florida for something.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Both the town and area seem just... wrong... for this.
I used to live in Orlando. And it's hardly a bastion of "geek culture". And what it does have is on pretty much the exact opposite side of town from the Florida Mall... in the Winter Park area that connects UCF and Rollins College. South OBT in general is pretty much a wasteland. And the ThinkGeek demographic, unless things have changed dramatically, doesn't go there.
Imagine all the people...
Florida Mall was pretty upscale - Princess Di used to shop there.
Hernando De Soto went shopping there in 1539, he found that the native human lives were very cheap and he brought home a big bag of skulls.
Like the subject says, not often my home town gets a positive spin story. For all the complaints any local resident will have, this is still a pretty damn nice place to live and work.
But I find the location of the store odd: at Florida Mall, right near the tourist region. I guess they mean for this store to be shopped more by the tourists than residents. Those of us who live here don't usually go to that mall, unless they live relatively close to it. Seems like if they were selling more for residents, they would have put it more to the north of Orlando (Maitland, Altamonte, or Winter Park) or east (near UCF or Oviedo).
-> I dislike sigs...
... up until I got to "will focus entirely on collectibles". Oh well. I'll still check it out. I'll just be a bit sad if I can't walk out with a titanium spork.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Being that I'm from Orlando...not often we get the first of something -__-
Lol, just posted something similar. Agreed with the Florida Mall being an odd location to place this store.