Thursday, December 3, 2009

Retail Fail: A Cautionary Tale

In the town next to mine there used to be a Weight Watchers store front. I seem to recall that at some point this was one of the higher functioning WW outposts. They had men's only meetings, teen support groups, as well as all of the traditional WW support meetings and food offerings.

Then Cold Stone Creamery opened next door to WW. For those who haven't experienced Cold Stone, it is a high end ice cream parlor where they mix in all sorts of unhealthy stuff to their ice cream. I'm not even an ice cream aficionado but realize greatness when I taste it.

I guess it was just a matter of time. WW put up a valiant effort but I figure temptation got the best of most of the WW faithful and they eventually closed the branch. Although there may have been reasons other than Cold Stone being next door that caused it to close, I'm thinking this was an atypical apple in Eden type of deal. Perhaps it was that the rent was going up since there was much more foot traffic due to the "neighbors." Perhaps it was due to an over saturation of WW offices. Perhaps it was due in part to the economic slow down I thought about calling the WW corporate offices but though it would be like putting salt in an open wound.

But it got worse. In the empty store that used to be WW, they opened a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. If you had a SAT question of ice cream is to Cold Stone as burgers is to what, the answer in many geographic regions would be Five Guys. The retail fail was complete.

But this story doesn't end here. If we go in another direction from my town, there is a Jenny Craig outlet. Next door they just opened a Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme had a false start in this area and closed almost all of their donut shops. They retreated and decided on this location as the best place to start again. Even my 11 year old daughter Courtney pointed out that Jenny is in jeopardy.

Beware Jenny, beware. Fight that fight and when the hot donut light goes on, don't think of burgers, shakes and fries because you know what could happen.

Ask the Weight Watcher alums.

PS: Although this is supposed to be body composition Thursday, I haven't gone back on the scale after my "sabbatical" but that is coming soon. I only went to Five Guys once during this time, didn't go to a WeWa meeting and never even entered the parking lot for Krispy Kreme.

4 comments:

Mel-2nd Chances said...

i've always been amazing an 'opposing interest' stores next to each other.... or newspaper ads on the same page

Carolina John said...

the ww center that kelley goes to is in a strip center, right next to a Heavenly Ham and a Jason's Deli. There's also a Lane Bryant store in there, and a New Balance store, so it's an interesting mix. There's also a toys-r-us in there.

Putting a 5 guys next to a cold stone is just convenient. that's genius, i'm coming to your town.

Unknown said...

wow. cold stone next to WeWa does seem like a recipe for disaster. And now Jenny. Sheesh. No wonder we all have such trouble losing weight. Retail establishments are sabotaging our attempts to get fit!

Al's CL Reviews said...

I love 5 Guys Fries.
The WeWa my mom went to was next to a bakery.