Remember these? 28 Seattle brands worth remembering

Frederick & Nelson, the SuperSonics, Seafirst, and dozens more stopped by

Levi Pulkkinen, SeattlePI

July 31, 2021

Chubby and Tubby Store on Aurora Ave. Gerda Newsheller loads a noble fir that she bought on December 16, 2002 for US $ 17.99.

PHIL H. WEBBER / –

The Seattle area has seen its share of hits related to the brand.

From UPS and Boeing to Costco and Amazon, the region has produced dynamic, influential companies that have shaped the nation and the world. Microsoft is practically an industry of its own.

Some smaller units have left their mark. Jones Soda, Filson, and Subpop may not be household names, but they head their respective groups.

Unfortunately, not all Seattle brands can be winners.

Scroll down to take a look at some Seattle born brands that haven’t stood the test of time. Some were huge – when they looked at you Washington Mutual. Some were popular, like the SuperSonics. Some were hardly there.

They are all gone now.

Gilbert W. Arias / Seattle Post-Intelligence

Chubby & Tubby

This small hardware store chain, with locations on Aurora Avenue, Rainier Avenue, Renton, and West Seattle, had all the things you didn’t really need but couldn’t live without. Kennels, jeans, Christmas trees, silliness. The long-time Seattle retailer closed its store in 2003. One reader wrote at the time: “What a great place for everything from garden hoses to shoes.”

MOHAI

Friedrich & Nelson

Until the end it was Freddy’s class. DE Frederick and Nelson opened their flagship department store in 1918, realizing the plan they had forged three decades earlier to run the best store west of the Mississippi and north of San Francisco. A series of changes of ownership in the 1980s resulted in the shop closing in 1992.

Chicken Chocolates

Incidentally, this was a near miss. Frederick & Nelson had poured out the chocolates, and the collapse of the department store nearly spelled the end of the frango. Instead, as reported by the Seattle Times, a Seattle bankruptcy judge saved the reward by giving it to Bon Marche, who paid $ 2 million to sell frangos. In February 2017, Garrett Brands, based in Chicago and Hong Kong, acquired the Frango brand from Macy’s Inc.

seattlepi.com file

The Bon Marche

This Seattle-based chain grew out of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. It anchored the Northgate Mall and weathered the storms in the downtown Seattle retail core before renaming it Macy’s in 2003.

PI file

Lamonts

It wasn’t the fanciest department store in the Seattle area, but it did fit in a niche for a while. The lower chain grew in the 1970s and 1980s before crashing in the 1990s. Blame JCPenney if you will.

What have we missed and what do you miss the most? Send us an email at citydesk@seattlepi.com.

Levi is a reporter for seattlepi.com