Off-Topic Forum

When I was a kid I would often go to a local place where they had a bunch of fun things to do.  They had mini golf, batting cages, go karts, bumper boats, an arcade etc.  I was thinking about things to do over the coming weeks while I have some time off work and my son is out of school.  So I thought it would be a good idea to take him there.  I went to the website to see if they had any coupons or specials coming up, but what I found was an unfortunate message.  After over 30 years, they have permanently closed earlier this year.  Another place on the list from my childhood that no longer exists.  It's pretty sad thinking about how all the familiar places from growing up are pretty much all gone now.  From malls, to hotels, to movie theaters, to stores to restaurants.  It's all gone.

Anyone else feel like this is something they notice as well?  I figure this is just a normal part of getting older it seems.  

Also at the risk of sounding overly negative, I feel like when places close down there is rarely anything new like it that takes its place somewhere.  It just seems that these types of things are getting objectively worse as time goes on instead of getting better.

Yup, i am getting a feeling that many of the places i used to visit are going away and the pandameic only sped things up. Its only a matter of time before the local Galleria Mall is finished. I went there this week and it was not crowded at all. Movies are being released on streaming services very quickly now. I have a feeling my daughter will live in a world where nobody leaves their homes...

That is so true. It feels like all the places that people bond and get to know each are disappearing and that there is a conspiracy to keep everyone isolated and doing everything online. Human interaction is very rapidly disappearing. You can’t even interact with the checker at the grocery because  it is mostly self checkout.

I've seen several places around here go under, but it was usually after several years of increasing neglect.  Most entertainment type businesses can stave that off a bit if they just maintain their facilities, but who wants to go to a mini golf place where the windmill doesn't work, the grass is worn out and not replaced, the arcade machines don't work and for some reason part of the course always smells like urine?

We had a theater open awhile back that was briefly the nice one in the area, but the owners almost immediately let it go, and after about 2 years it always smelled like mildew.  I don't want to watch a movie featuring Grandma's Attic Smell-O-Vision.  The local mall was the same way as it began heading downhill.  The company that owned it was not maintaining it, and kept raising the rent on the existing tenants to make up for all the empty spaces, thus driving out the rest of their tenants.  

Landlords often neglect simple maintenance, yet wonder why they are losing money.  How much does it cost to change a lightbulb now and then?  Pressure wash the sidewalk every few years?  

There's been talk of my two favorite things, baseball and rock n roll, dying for decades.  However, they still live on albeit in reduced popularity.  It is certainly sad watching things go, but I guess we need to let some things go to make room for new stuff.  A lot of what we see now is just the effect of making room for the internet.  The internet has surely made us look at everything differently.  I'm sure there was a similar reaction after television was created.  When television was created I'm sure people were asking similar things:  Will anyone go to live events anymore?  Go outside at all?  But they did, and I'm sure they will with internet too... eventually.  

I feel the same way. A lot of the places I loved to go are now gone, and replaced by nothing. Both of my two favorite restuarants closed in 2020, one of which was a locally family owned place and the other was a national chain which all the others reopened...they were like Ned Flanders' parents, "they tried nothing and were all out of ideas"