Abandoned Sam's Club in Manchester, Connecticut

Hey! Welcome back to Retail on the Thames! I'm Simpsonfan311, and I'll be your travel guide as we go across Eastern Connecticut in search of interesting retail sights! Today we're going to be looking at an abandoned Sam's Club in the retail mecca of Manchester. Let's get into it!

INFO: Located just outside of The Shoppes at Buckland Hills, this Sam's club was formerly one of three in the state when it was open. However, this location, along with the Orange location closed on January 26th, 2018, As of this post, there's only one Sam's club left in Connecticut. The remaining location is in Newington, which is next to former Toys "R" Us, as well as a Stew Leonard's that was Formerly a Caldor. Despite it's current vacant state, the Manchester Sam's Club will soon have a purpose. Local outlets just released articles saying that the Sam's Club will be used as a warehouse for supply storage. So the future won't be a long, grim, vacant one for this location.

I'm honestly not surprised this location closed. When it comes to wholesale clubs, Walmart's attempts aren't very popular in the state. BJ's dominates in Connecticut with around 13 locations, and Costco has a bit of prominence in the state with 7 warehouses. Sam's Club currently has 1 mere location. I can understand why it's like this. I've always associated BJ's with this area, not Sam's Club. I mainly picture Sam's Club in the Southeast, and I bet many Connecticut residents either think the same thing, or just don't care. Alright, let's look at some pictures!

I'm pretty proud of these far away pictures, but it wasn't without hard work. This vacancy is huge, and I had to run to the back of the parking lot to get some good pictures of the entire property. It paid off though, since I really like these results. These shot give you an idea of how large the property is.

Heading up to the facade of the building, you see a small labelscar of the Sam's Club diamond, and not much else.

Looking at the inside, it's completely empty. There's nothing to see outside of light fixtures and the building's floor and walls. The entrance and exit signs are super cool though.

Here's the other side of the store, which also required quite a walk to get to.

To give you an idea how hard it was to get those first shots, here's a picture of the parking lot to end this post off.

That's it for this one. I'll see you all next time!

-Simpsonfan311

The Norwichtown Dunkin Donuts Suddenly Closes

Hey everybody. Welcome to another addition to Retail on the Thames. Today we're looking at a newly abandoned Dunkin Donuts in Norwichtown.

As I was running errands today, I drove past this location and was shocked to see that there was a brand new closure in the Norwichtown area. I was pretty excited to snap some pictures of this, since this closing is brand new. I got a few really nice pictures as a result and I also get to show you guys a recent retail vacancy.

INFO: Not much is known about when this Dunkin was opened, but it was around since at least late 2007, as seen in this picture taken by The Caldor Rainbow. The plaza it was a part of was built in 1935, and it's known as the James Plaza, due to the only other tenant being a James Laundromat. This location closed within the last month. This is because right after Hurricane Isaias hit the area, this location appeared to be closed, but it still retained branding and fixtures. At the time, this could have been a temporary closure, but this is now a permanent closure. I do have some pictures of this plaza pre-closure, so I'll show those as well.


Before the Closure:

Taken 5-17-20

Taken 5-19-20

After the Closure

All post-closure photos were taken on 9-19-20

It's really odd to see this Dunkin close. I used to go to this one a lot around 9-10 years ago. Even though I never really went to this one in the past couple of years, I still have a lot of memories from going here. When I took photos of this place, the memories associated with this location started flowing in. I remember waiting in a line around 3 customers long to get chocolate munchkins and whatever else was being ordered that day. I remember wanting to get a Gatorade out of the vending machine while waiting in line no matter what time of day it was. I remember the comfort of sitting in Dunkin's cushioned chairs while eating hot hash browns. Going up to this place feels like it's 8:00 A.M on a fall morning in 2011, and I kind of love that. It's kind of crazy how many memories can come from walking up to an abandoned restaurant, and that makes this vacancy even more fascinating to me.

Despite it being small, seeing the sign Dunkin used without their logo was really cool

The interior was completely empty when I approached it.

 Fun Fact, the houses you see in the reflection are getting demolished for a Burger King. I would tell the story behind that, but I'll save that story for when Burger King opens.

Here's a for rent sign, which is obviously new to the space.

That's it for this one! I hope you enjoyed this post, as I really had fun writing this one. I'll see you all next time!

-Simpsonfan311

Abandoned KFC in New London, Connecticut

Welcome to another edition of Retail on The Thames! Today We're going to be looking at a Twice abandoned KFC near downtown New London. Oh and before we start, a fun fact about this location is that it's across the street from a Former Blockbuster.

INFO: According to property records, This KFC was built in 1967 on US 1 just outside of downtown New London. It opened in 1970 and stayed in business for over 40 years. Here's what it looked like when it was open. KFC closed the location in 2011 for a reason I do not know. By 2015, a local restaurant called Crown Chicken & Grill opened up shop. In addition, they removed the tip of the roof and added a new coat of paint. Just a few years later, Crown Chicken closed, and the building is vacant once again.


PICTURES:

Crown Chicken repurposed the sign instead of adding a new one. When KFC was open, they had used the 2006 logo on the sign.

As you can tell this is an obvious recycle. The fact that it's abandoned makes it even more fascinating. The plants have been overgrowing for the past year, most likely due to a lack of maintenance after Crown Chicken's closure. This made it hard to get a window shot from the front, so I just got those shots from the side.

Heading towards the back, there isn't much to note, but what do you expect? It's the back of the building, which is usually the most boring part. (at least for me)

Heading towards the other side of the building, we can see that there's no drive-thru, but parking instead. To me it's weird that this location never had a drive-thru, but this could be because it's an older building. It could also be because KFC was leaning towards a sit-down environment back then.

Here's the interior. Although I'm unsure of Crown Chicken renovated it or not, I'm guessing they did, since I haven't seen a KFC with this style of interior.

That's it for this one! I'll see you all next time!

-Simpsonfan311