The other Fry’s Electronics stores are all closing

Fry’s Electronics used to be a primarily West Coast-based shopping destination for heads of gadgets of all kinds, but now the retailer is calling it out. On Twitter, Wario64 highlighted a tweet from a former employee and the owner of the AV store noting that employees learned Tuesday night that this was the last night the stores would be open and the website was offline.

Bay Area News Presenter KRON4 confirmed the rumors, saying the nationwide shutdown information will appear on the company’s website on Wednesday morning. Fry’s was founded in 1985 and was known both for stocking any electronic parts you might need and for its notoriously poor customer service. It was the kind of place you could find a mislabeled Nokia N9, watch a midnight game launch, and get ripped off by a demo of the “Monster HDMI quality difference”.

The company’s West Coast stores were also designed with extravagant levels of detail, bringing sci-fi touches to one location, Aztec references to another, and even a NASA-themed Houston location. which featured hourly launch countdowns. The number of locations had been declining in recent years and even before the COVID pandemic shoppers noticed empty shelves and odd product choices that suggested Fry’s would not be in business for much longer.