Zayres Blog

[palitoy]

Pleasant Family Shopping

This blog is pretty interesting as it charts the Zayres company through out the seventies, I had never heard of their toy chain "Spree!" before.

[toys2cool]

That is so freakin' cool,I remember that Zayer location in Miami,I work right by it now

[megocrazy]

When Zayre went down the Ames stores bought up most of them around here. Those have also gone bye bye in recent years. The Zayre near us had a Hit or Miss across the street. Never knew they were affiliated. My Mom and aunt liked the Hit or Miss stores and went there often. I've found some stuff around with Zayre tags on em at toy shows and stuff. I'm sure my mom has some Zayre flyers around the house wrapping up old stored glass stuff or something. I also never saw a Spree store. Wish I had thay look cool. Must have been an older version of KB.

[toys2cool]

When Zayre went down the Ames stores bought up most of them around here. Those have also gone bye bye in recent years. The Zayre near us had a Hit or Miss across the street. Never knew they were affiliated. My Mom and aunt liked the Hit or Miss stores and went there often. I've found some stuff around with Zayre tags on em at toy shows and stuff. I'm sure my mom has some Zayre flyers around the house wrapping up old stored glass stuff or something. I also never saw a Spree store. Wish I had thay look cool. Must have been an older version of KB.

yup,in the 80's that place rocked!! I remember getting my Gi joes,Rambo's,slu's,and He-man there.They had a great toy section.It was like a K-mart or Wal-mart but better toys

it turned into crap when Ames took over,I do remember getting some great deals when it was closing down,we got the Wizard of Oz 12" dolls and Ghostbusters for like 90% off

[ScottA]

Very cool. I remember going to Zayre and then Ames. Great site.

[phil]

My local Zayres store always had strange order.

Aside from that it could be a great place for buying toys.

[phil]

That was suppose to be ODOR.

[Wee67]

I don't remember any Zayres growing up in Philly (but we did have a Hit or Miss), but I find this stuff fascinating. If only it had been for Two Guys

[mazinz]

I loved Zayres. I looked forward to nothing more than seeing their Sunday flier and all the new toys they had. Zayres would get in everything much earlier than other major store chains and they really had a good selection.
Sunday mornings you had to get to the store early or most of what you were after would already be gone by the time you walked in.

They also used to carry plenty of other odd toy line series or ones not from major brands (in fact Zayres was the nly place where I found my long lost toy of Fiddlesticks: World of Mazu)

[Sweep Secondhand]

My local Zayres store always carried really weird toys like the Lion Rock soldiers years before I saw them elsewhere. They also had the last few years of Mego products gathering dust on the shelves long after the company was gone. I was very sad when they closed and liquidated all their merchandise. The last one around these parts that became an Ames went down in 89. It was the anchor store for a low rent mall in a bad neighborhood.

[IMG]C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Pictures\Slides\Zayre.jpg[/IMG]

[LadyZod]

I personally hated going to Zayre with my mom. Because when my mom wanted to go, it always meant I was getting new clothes for school, and quite frankly I didn't want to be that kid with the Zayre clothing. And then there was that chance you would run into some kid you knew who was being forced to undergo that same torture.

Going into the toy section was like the ONLY good thing about going, but half the time the boxes were opened and accessories were missing.

It was like going to the doctor, getting a shot, being given a lollipop as a reward only to find that the lollipop had a hair on it.

Granted not all the Zayres nearby were that bad... a few were good. BUT my om always dragged me to the crap one.

[toys2cool]

I personally hated going to Zayre with my mom. Because when my mom wanted to go, it always meant I was getting new clothes for school, and quite frankly I didn't want to be that kid with the Zayre clothing. And then there was that chance you would run into some kid you knew who was being forced to undergo that same torture.

Going into the toy section was like the ONLY good thing about going, but half the time the boxes were opened and accessories were missing.

It was like going to the doctor, getting a shot, being given a lollipop as a reward only to find that the lollipop had a hair on it.

Granted not all the Zayres nearby were that bad... a few were good. BUT my om always dragged me to the crap one.

I like the Flagler one the best,even though it was always full of Cuban refs they had the best toys in the 80's
The ones on US-1 and Weschester were alright,the Hialeah ones were always as you described