Metropol

Fatty Arbuckle's - now only 1 restaurant left, in Norfolk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_Arbuckle%27s

SuperBowl and MegaBowl - now called the imaginatively titled "TenPin". (Dundee's Megabowl is a separate, unrelated business)

Courts (furniture retailer)

And John Menzies the stationers.

People go nuts for arbuckles round here.

Its in an old little chef right next to a bp petrol station on the a10. Never fancied it myself.

There used to be a Fatty Arbuckle's in a shopping/cinema complex in North Belfast around a decade ago - some web sources suggest it's still trading.

Google also suggests another restaurant with the same name located nearer the city centre - up the road from where a prominent NI Metropoler works, indeed - with what appears to be the same logo/branding as featured on the Wikipedia article.

I doubt either cases are correct, though.

stu wrote:There's a Wimpy in Nottingham hidden in a dated mall that is delightfully stuck in a timewarp (opposite an entrance to some underground caves)

Gotta love the Broadmarsh Centre!

Dr Lobster* wrote:Another brand which just vanished was Tandy. When I was a child I loved going in there and looking at all the gadgets and electronic kits and components. Maplin covers most of now, but I'd still describe their product line as more mainstream than enthusiast .

Tandy was effectively the British branch of RadioShack. The operation was purchased by The Carphone Warehouse in 1999.

Talking of Maplin, they briefly used the 'Mondo' brand for their larger stores.

There was also a shortlived venture called Techno (I think!) which was a joint venture between The Carphone Warehouse and Richer Sounds - in any case it folded in to Jessops in the early-00s.

rdobbie wrote:Deep Pan Pizza Company - anyone remember them? The restaurants were on retail parks and were a similar format to Pizza Hut, but the pizzas were nicer. I remember they once did a promotion with Cadburys where 4 tokens from Dairy Milk wrappers got you any large pizza for free.

I do just about remember them - there was also 'PizzaLand' which I think was bought out by Pizza Hut.

Alexia wrote:John Menzies the stationers.

The retail side was sold to WHSmith in the 90s. The distribution arm continues to this day, and continued to compete with WHSmiths' News operation (now spun off as SmithsNews).

Deep Pan Pizza was great, did Frankie and Benny's buy them out? I know my local one became them.

Our local Deep Pan Pizza was located in Crystal Peaks Shopping Centre, it must have closed around 2008. It was always fairly popular and it's since become some unknown brand cafe.

DJDave wrote:Deep Pan Pizza was great, did Frankie and Benny's buy them out? I know my local one became them.

I think the one in Huddersfield turned into a Frankie & Benny's as well. It's now a Nandos.

There is a Wimpy in Huddersfield, always seems to be full of 'grandmas' taking their grandkids out for a burger at somewhere a tad more civilised than McDonalds.

Did they have full sized John Menzies stores? The only ones I ever knew of where 'travel' branches at bus/rail stations etc.

Alexia wrote:(Dundee's Megabowl is a separate, unrelated business)

and closed down earlier this year. It's currently having the guts ripped out of it for some reason given that the leisure park it lived on is the biggest white elephant in the whole city.

Which oddly enough contains an also closed down Tesco, closed down nightclub, closed down cinema (now rented out to night vision goggle wearing paintballers) and closed down Fatty Arbuckles. Plus a closed down "Busters" with its promise of "fish, chips AND peas!"

John Menzies were as big as WHS in the SW, with stores of equal size and very similar ranges. Used them for record purchases, locally their record departments were stores within stores, which was unusual.

Pete wrote:

Alexia wrote:(Dundee's Megabowl is a separate, unrelated business)

and closed down earlier this year. It's currently having the guts ripped out of it for some reason given that the leisure park it lived on is the biggest white elephant in the whole city.

It defiantely closed down earlier than that- I stayed with a friend in Dundee last September, and it was all boarded up with weeds growing through the paving then!

In reference to other things in this thread- we actually have 2 branches of Wimpy here, one in the town centre, and one in the bowling alley. Not been in either for a long time, the fact the town centre one allowed smoking right up till the ban was offputting, though I've never felt inclined to go in there since anyway.

We also had 2 full sized branches of John Menzies too, one in the town centre, and one that was one of the units in the out-of-town Tesco. The town centre one became a WHSmith around 1999, the Tesco one just became a generic newsagents around the same time (before being demolished when Tesco was rebuilt as a Tesco Extra in 2006). I still have a fair amount of John Menzies branded stationary that I bought when I was at secondary school.

John Menzies also owned Early Learning Centre at one stage I think.