Type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Founded | September 20, 1991 [1] Los Angeles, California |
Defunct | December 31, 2001 |
Fate | Bankruptcy |
Headquarters | Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, , |
Area served | North America, Europe, Japan, Indonesia |
Products | apparel, toys and merch |
Parent | Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WarnerMedia) |
Website | Official website |
The Warner Bros. Studio Store was a chain of retail stores selling Looney Tunes, DC Comics, and other merchandise based on Warner Bros. films, similar in style to the Disney Store. They first opened in 1991. In 1996, Warner Bros. owner Time Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting, which owned Hanna-Barbera and the pre-1986 MGM library, and merchandise based on Hanna-Barbera and other Turner properties were added to the product lines.
In 2001, all Warner Bros. Studio Stores went out of business, although some independently owned locations in Australia continued to operate until 2008. In 2006, Warner Bros. Consumer Products partnered with PMW Retail and reopened the stores in China. Hutchison Harbour Ring's subsidiary the PMW Retail Group Ltd., owned an operated the Chinese store locations from 2006 to 2014.
The first Warner Bros. Studio Store was opened on Friday, September 20, 1991, at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, California by Time Warner. [1] [2] The chain had 130 locations at its peak. [3] In October 1993, a location opened at the corner of 57th St. and 5th Ave. in New York City, the first ever Studio Store in the city. [4] Some of the store's attractions included a glass elevator carried by Superman and the 4D experience Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension, the first ever 3D computer-animated movie produced in the world. [5] In 1996, the chain signed a long-term lease for a three-story building at 1 Times Square and six of its billboards and opened a store on all three floors in 1997. [6]
In January 2001, the AOL-Time Warner merger was completed, at which time the chain was placed up for sale with plans to close if not sold. [3] In February 2001, the flagship location on New York's Fifth Avenue was closed, and on September 11th, 2001, the store at the World Trade Center was destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed. [7] [3] High-profile stores in Los Angeles and Palo Alto were also closed. In July, AOL Time Warner announced that the chain, then consisting of 85 stores, would be shut down by October as the company moved out of the owned and operated retail business. [8] Its three-story, 40,000-square-foot Times Square location started liquidation in July [3] and closed in October. Warner Bros. then placed the building up for rent without the billboards. [6] The last stores closed by December 31, 2001. [9]
From 1997 to 2008 several stores operated in Australia with the flagship location being in Crown Casino Melbourne. These stores, however, were owned by now defunct Paradise Retail Holdings and were run completely independently from stores of the same name internationally.[ citation needed ]
In January 2004, Warner Bros. announced they were opening the first Chinese Studio Store location, after agreeing on a licensing deal with Hutchison Harbour Ring. [10] On March 25, 2006, a grand opening celebration was held for the grand opening of the first Studio Store location in China. [11] In October 2006, the second Chinese Warner Bros. Studio Store location opened in Macau. [12]
In 2016, Warner Bros., with the Thinkwell Group opened a new entertainment center in Macau, which featured a new Warner Bros. Studio Store location. [13]
Warner Bros. Studio Store is currently used as the name of various theme park stores around the world, including at the Warner Bros. World theme park [14] and at the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank. [15]
Yaohan Co., Ltd. or Yaohan; Chinese: 八佰伴) was a Japanese retail group, founded in 1930 by Ryohei Wada and his wife Katsu Wada. Initially a single shop, it was expanded by their son Kazuo Wada into a major supermarket chain with most retail outlets located in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo. It was incorporated in 1948 and listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange. The store was far more established and notable outside Japan, due to restrictive laws in Japan that made it difficult to set up new businesses, such that by the time it opened its first store in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the company was already in a state of decline due to accumulated debts from over-expansion.
99 Ranch Market is an American supermarket chain owned by Tawa Supermarket Inc., which is based in Buena Park, California. 99 Ranch has 58 stores in the U.S., primarily in California, with other stores in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Texas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Virginia. The company also started offering shopping via its website in 2014. In February 2021, the company also launched their mobile app for grocery delivery.
The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell various Apple products, including Mac personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital media players, software, and both Apple-branded and selected third-party accessories.
The Disney Store is a chain of specialty stores selling only Disney related items, many of them exclusive, under its own name and Disney Outlet. It was a business unit of Disney Consumer Products with the Disney Experiences segment of The Walt Disney Company conglomerate.
The World of Disney is the flagship chain of specialty retail stores owned and operated by the merchandise division of Disney Experiences, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Currently, there are four locations that sell Disney products.
Ovation Hollywood is a shopping center and entertainment complex in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.
The Grove is a retail and entertainment complex in Los Angeles, located on parts of the historic Farmers Market. The mall features Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble.
Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialty department stores across Southern California. Many former Bullock's locations continue to operate today as Macy's.
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. In the 1970s, under Federated Department Stores ownership, the chain entered the Chicago, Illinois, and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas. Mary Ann Magnin founded the company in 1876 and named the chain after her husband Isaac.
Lakewood Center is a super-regional shopping mall in Lakewood, California. Lakewood Center opened in 1952 and was enclosed in 1978.
The Glendale Galleria is a large three-story regional shopping center and office complex located in downtown Glendale, California, United States. Opened in 1976 with 1,600,000-square-foot (150,000 m2) of retail space, it is the third-largest mall in Los Angeles County after Lakewood Center and Del Amo Fashion Center.
Don Quijote Co., Ltd., also known as Don Don Donki, is a Japanese multinational discount store chain. As of 2022, it has over 160 locations throughout Japan, 16 in Singapore, 9 in Hong Kong, 6 in Thailand, 4 in Taiwan, 3 in Hawaii, 3 in Malaysia, 1 in Macau and 1 planned in Guam.
Buffums, originally written as Buffums' with an apostrophe, was a chain of upscale department stores, headquartered in Long Beach, California. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles A. and Edwin E. Buffum, together with other partners, bought the Schilling Bros., the largest dry goods store in Long Beach, and renamed it The Mercantile Co. The store grew to a large downtown department store, and starting in the 1950s, grew slowly over the years to be a small regional chain of 16 speciality department stores across Southern California at the time of its closure in 1990.
Watsons is a Hong Kong health care and beauty care chain store in Asia and Europe. It is the flagship health and beauty brand of the A.S. Watson Group, which is majority owned by CK Hutchison Holdings.
Los Altos Center is a regional shopping mall in the Los Altos area of northeastern Long Beach, California along Bellflower Boulevard, 4 miles south of Lakewood Center Mall and 5 miles east of Downtown Long Beach.
Nahas was a chain of department stores owned by A. S Nahas, operating in Greater Los Angeles, carrying clothing, household goods and electronics. They also acquired Rathbun's department store at 5311 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood and cobranded it "Nahas Rathbuns" before the branch closed in 1980. The remaining Nahas stores closed in 1981–2.
Boston Stores, originally and later still often called The Boston Store, was a chain of department stores based in Inglewood, California, just southwest of Central Los Angeles, that operated from 1934 through 1996.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.
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