Sadly the age of LHS across the nation are dying off every single day. My last LHS in my area closed up for good due to owner’s retirement - 6 years ago. All is left are Hobby Lobby and Micheal’s. Even those stores are not really “true” hobby stores to cater to the hobbyists such as ourselves.
Sure they’ll have model kits but not a wide variety kind nor the tools/paints. Pretty basic stock mostly. There aren’t too many within an hour’s drive except for one over 2 hour’s drive from me - near my sis-in-law’s town. Went there once and I had a field day there for an hour. LOL!! I’m hoping to get back there soon since it has been over 3 years since I’ve stopped by.
Here in the metro Boston- Southern NH area, I am very fortunate- I have quite a few shops around:
A (typical) Hobbytown USA 2 miles away. Not a lot of plastic, but the close by for paints, glues, etc., and RC bits for my RC scale ships.
Midgard Hobby and Games- A great gaming store about 4 miles away. Lots of Warhammer 40K and other miniatures stuff, with a terrific selection of acrylic paints and other supplies. Started to carry some plastic, too…
ABC Hobbies in Salem, NH. (15 min away) RC shop, primarily planes and cars, some plastic. Lots of RC parts for my ships. Next door to a terrific bakery- a very dangerous place!!
The Comic Store, Nashua, NH. (25 min) Big Gundam and collectibles place- largest collection of Gunpla kits and supplies I’ve ever seen.
Hobby Emporium in Tyngsboro, MA. (25 min) Huge plastic and trains place.
Spare Time Shop, Marlboro, MA. (60 min) All plastic shop with great selection.
Hobby Bunker, Wakefield, MA. (60 min) Gaming and Military hobbies.
Bonus: Both HobbyWorld USA and ScaleHobbiest.com are located nearby- and both allow local pickup of orders! I saved a bunch when I outfitted my bench with the hobbyzone organizers.
I’m still pretty blessed here in the Cincinnati area, having Hamilton Hobbies, Hobbytown USA, and Hobby Villa (right over the border in Kentucky) close by. That being said, since moving here, we did lose Boardwalk Hobbies, Pit Row Hobbies, and Tim’s Trains in just the past 2-3 years. I’d hate to lose another one.
Regrettably, there is no offline RC hobby shop in our town. But now the Internet is very developed, and every time I buy some cost-effective 6s lipo batteries online, as well as some parts.
I’m surprised that nobody in the Seattle area has commented, other than armornut from 300 miles away. Agreed that the Seattle hobby situation has dwindled in the past several years.
Currently, our #1 best place is Skyway Models, in the south end of the area, about 30 miles from me. Otherwise, there are Hobbytowns at Southcenter, Redmond and Everett, and Broadway Hobbies, a small shop in Everett, up into the very north end which has a small footprint for railroad, RC and plastic models. A few Hobby Lobbys and Michaels which may have the odd paint or something.
Last week when I wanted a bottle of flat blue paint I needed to make two trips - first checking places to the south, then the next day going up to the north. It certainly ain’t what it used to be.
The local hobby shop has been dying out for over 30 years, at least, and the example you cite is the biggest reason. As the owners of the hobby shops we modelers in our 50s, 60s, and 70s visited got older, they retired, and found no one who wanted to take over their businesses. There was a younger generation of owners, who ran into the same problem.
Add to that, that there were chains in some areas of the country-we had Allied Hobbies, here in the Mid-Atlantic area, for example-that competed against the smaller sole proprietor businesses, and the rise of the Internet, and those were additional pressures on those businesses that helped to accelerate the process.
And even being part of a chain, or being on the Internet, or both, isn’t proof against a merchant’s own ineptitude, too. We had a HobbyTown franchise here in the Lehigh Valley, for around 30 years. It replaced an LHS that closed when the owner retired. That HobbyTown thrived, but when its owner retired and sold the franchise, the new owner went out of business in about 18 months. He had no head for it, didn’t promote his store the way the previous owner did. And Squadron provides an example of a business that adapted to changes over time, but eventually ended up with management that failed, and they had to close.
Last time I was in the store in Salem, they had a decent selection of plastic, in a/c, cars, armor, and a few floaty things. He bulked up the Tamiya line of paint since MM went out. Has a few of the Vallejo sets.
Was in the store in Corvallis a week or so ago…very few a/c, helo, armor kits. Car and truck selection is way down as well. Few ships on the shelf, but they never stocked many.
Smattering of left over MM, said going to bring in Tamiya, but looks like they are phasing out plastic and going to be almost all R/C.
Yes, Tojo! That’s Trains & Lanes, a little north of and between Bethlehem and Easton. It’s still there, going strong. It’s primarily a model railroad and RC shop, though yes, they have the slot car track, and an outdoor go-kart track. They even have a batting cage on the second floor. They have a good deal of supplies, such as paints and tools, for modelers, but their model selection is just a small part of their inventory. Yes, they’ve survived the changes that have taken place over the past 50 years.
We have another old shop here in the Lehigh Valley, Tony’s Hobby Shop in Coplay. That’s another small town north of Allentown. It’s apparently the oldest, continuously operating hobby shop in PA. Today, it’s Tony’s son Gerry who runs it. Another small shop, in a house on the end of a row. Gerry’s stock is about 50/50 between scale models and model railroad supplies.
In the area that I live we have no local shops. If I want to visit a decent shop I need to drive about 2 hours to the twin cities. There they have several shops that are pretty well stocked with everything. There is Scale Model supply and 2 hobby towns and a few smaller ones that I dont remember there names but were pretty good when I was last in there.
I am lucky where I am at - I have several Hobbytown’s here and each are a bit different. The closest is very much focused on RC and Gamers. Kit selection is ok but not huge. This one has recently been adding many lines of paint since the demise of MM, adding Vallejo, Ak Interactive, MRP, Revell, Mr. Hobby, etc. They also have paints for gamers, RC cars and planes, Gugdam and more.
The other Hobbytown has a decent line of paints, maybe a bit less than the first one, but I did see Humbrol paints there. The kit collection there is second to none (IMO) and the shelves are always stocked. The must be doing well as the last time I was there, they had new flooring, and new lighting that you almost need your shades for!
There are other HT’s here in town but I don’t know a lot about them as I have never visited. They could be typical HT’s for all I know
There is a hobby shop in St. Ignace near me but its very much a RC store with almost nothing in plastic and very little in the way of supply. Not worth stopping in for a scale builder. Fortunitly there is a Hobby Lobby in Sault Ste Marie, Petoskey and Gaylord and thank God for them. They may not have a ton…but they have AirFix and Revell kits and thier prices are unbeatable. They have supplies…albeit not much…but enough to get you through.
What has suprised me after getting back into the hobby is that places like Walmart and Meijers no longer carry kits. I used to buy kits and supplies there all the time in my youth.
FWIW ive had GREAT customer service from Hobbylinc and they have made my re-entry easy peasy.
Well, the store that was in Salem (45 miles) closed up in January. Had modified their hours about three months earlier due to lack of staffing. Mid November, was temporarily closed due to illness, mid December had a going out of business sale, and closed for good on January first. Suspect that the owner passed on after 30 years there.
Always stopped by to get something on my way back from VA appointments in Portland.
One closest has mostly RC, with a decent selection of car kits, not much in other genres.
Next closest is Tammie’s in Beaverton. But don’t get by there much, but that’s going to have to change, even if ten miles out of my normal travel route.