An Empire Crumbles: Retrospective of the Roman-themed Fry’s Electronics

On Tuesday February 23^rd mega retailer Fry’s Electronics announced it was immediately suspending operations and permanently closing all of its remaining thirty-one stores. While the announcement was sudden, it was not unexpected: Fry’s had been in a death spiral for many years with many speculating its end. Customers, past and present, turned to social media to share their nostalgia of the former titan of electronics and reminiscence over each store’s unique theme.

My first experience with Fry’s was while living in Phoenix in the early 2000s. At the time I was attending a tech school, working on my Bachelors of Science, and the store was a mecca. Myself and many of my friends would go to the Aztec-themed Fry’s on Thunderbird and get lost in the store for hours. This was the era of PC games still being released in big boxes, and niche music labels such as Mute and Metropolis had albums for sale. I greatly rounded out my KMFDM collection at this Fry’s while plucking up computer games and an occasional part or two for my PC. As a tech student, Fry’s was heaven.

I vividly recall my final purchase at this Fry’s: a copy of Persona 2 on the Playstation in the discount bin, which now goes for 100s of dollars on eBay.

When I moved back to Washington, the Fry’s in Renton became the go-to Fry’s for Michele and I. By this time my interests has shifted: I was knee deep in my masters on film studies. While we didn’t visit this Fry’s as much, (and I unfortunately cannot recall its theme), I was always impressed by its massive DVD section: huge aisles broken into genres. I was able to load up on quite a bit of exploitation and foreign films at this Fry’s that I was unable to get elsewhere.

In the 2010s Michele and I moved to Orange CA and the Fry’s in Anaheim became our home base. Unlike the Renton Fry’s, the Anaheim Fry’s was mere minutes away from our apartment. This Fry’s was to say rather lackluster in its theme, which was NASA and Cape Canaveral. What should be a fairly easy to execute theme, this Fry’s was rather bland and generic. It was also quite empty. I recall the Aztec Fry’s in Phoenix in the early 2000s being filled to the brim with customers, with long queues to get in. The Anaheim Fry’s, 10+ years later, a ghost town. Regardless, it was often our place of preference to pick up a last minute movie, or find a cheap video game. By this time, the movie section was obliterated: the genres all gone and everything condensed to simply “blu-ray.” The music section was practically absent. However, I was able to load up on Skylanders figures extremely cheap.

And thus my history with Fry’s Electronics. What does this have to do with the peplum genre? In the very late 2010s the news really started to pick up traction of Fry’s closing down. There were a plethora of articles about shuttered stores and Fry’s that were entirely empty of product. Directly south of me on the border of Costa Mesa and Fountain Valley was a Roman-themed Fry’s. Not wanting to miss out on seeing this Fry’s before it shuttered, in October 2019 Michele and I went and checked it out. What follows below is a gallery of images I took of the Roman-theme Fry’s, highlighting its many embellishments of antiquity while also documenting a store in decline.

There are a few things to note about this Fry’s. First, its address was on Kalama River Ave, which resonated with me for I grew up in Kalama Washington on the Kalama River. Secondly, this Fry’s was 80% empty. Entire aisles were void of product, which you might get a hint of in these photos. However, all of the Roman statues and faux-architecture was still quite a sight to behold, which is what this gallery focuses on. Much like how we behold the glory of a fallen empire by marveling at its crumbled ruins, one can get a glimpse of what Fry’s would have been like back in its heyday.