What Was The Best Five And Dime?

The one where Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean whored around.

What? No W.T. Grant?

Woolworth's had delicious fried chicken (a separate stand in the store), great lunch counters, great record departments and in larger stores (usually in malls), an attached Harvest House Cafeteria.

The Woolworths in the town I grew up in on Long Island was such a delightful store filled with interesting items. And, goldfish. It had a lunch counter where one of my sisters worked for a few years in the early 1960s. To my seven-year-old self the store seemed huge, but it wasn’t. Like a good little gayling, my favorite items at Woolworths were the Halloween and Christmas decorations.

Mom went to Ben Franklin all the time to get her notions, but when I was with her it was all about the toys. For some reason our Ben Franklin was the town's purveyor of Matchbox cars (definitely not a 5 &10 item).

I don't think our town had any of the other stores listed.

r2

I always thought WT Grant was a big store. When they were in Chicago they were virtually identical with KMart, who bought most of the Chicago stores when Grant bankrupted

Kresge

Kresge and Woolworth and WT Grant became the same thing

Kresge and Kress were the same

Sprouse-Reitz on the West coast. They had everything. I especially loved the record section. I also remember they sold pet fish and parakeets and canaries. The fish section always had seahorses and little turtles for sale. As a kid I thought it was great but now I fell bad that those poor little creatures were sold as basically throw-away pets for kids.

In our town we had Kresge, Woolworth and Newberry's. As a child I supported each of them for culinary reasons.

Kresge had the best grilled cheese sandwich because they slathered the bread with real butter and the press they used cooked the sandwich perfectly. It didn't hurt that the cheese would ooze and get a little crispy.

At Newberry's they cut the French Fries from the potato according to your wish - thick, thin, etc. They also served their Coca Cola in chilled glasses so there was no need to add ice. You got a full glass of coke that way.

Woolworth's had the best sundaes at their counter. They liberally filled the glass with hot fudge before adding the ice cream. They'd also add more on top together with marshmallow and whipped cream and a sprinkling of nuts.

Amazingly, once they all closed when I was about 19, I went from 237 pounds to 145.

I had to vote for G. C. Murphy since it paid to raise me. My dad was a store manager there from the end of WWII until he retired. They eventually got bought out by Ames Department Stores and McCrory's,