From the Globe article: “Traditional corporations tend to operate at one speed,” he said. “We need to operate at the speed a startup would operate at.” Well, they seem to be burning through money like a startup, so they've got that part right.

Actually it was on Carlton, on the south side just east of Yonge during the 80s. I think it might have been in one of the spaces under 45 Carlton but it could have been further west. The very first location was on Queen East (never saw it there; that was before my time), then it moved to Carlton...

That's correct. I've read that the restaurant which replaced it still kept the same menu and that it just wasn't branded St-Hubert, but I'm not sure of that. It's interesting how Swiss Chalet and St-Hubert each retreated to their respective side of the language divide. If I'm not mistaken...

London, ON is another. Medium-sized city, relatively low-cost, and demographics diverse enough to reflect the larger market. Interesting to note that both London and Kingston each have a major university which bring in people from other areas.

As noted above: 1: demographics similar to the larger market 2: isolated, both for promotional cost reasons as well as determining effectiveness of promotion but also: 3: relatively low real estate costs compared to larger cities like Toronto or Vancouver. A company testing out a new retail...

It's not that surprising; many companies have used Winnipeg as a test market for new ideas.

Eaton's decline took decades to reach the inevitable end. Ironically, it was once they made a concerted effort to change that the steady decline turned into a freefall.

Interestingly, the article has been rather drastically revised since it was first posted this morning. The headline now reads "Sears Canada eyes online revamp" and starts off with a bit about how they are planning a "digital turnaround", and implies they are aiming to the make the...

The latest: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/sears-closing-eight-home-stores-assigning-leases-to-leons/article28855057/

My point is not to vilify Sears at all. Sears isn't failing (just) because it has lost direction, it's failing because it is being deliberately dismembered, with the parts sold off to the highest bidder. That's what happens when you treat a major retailer like a hedge fund. I think it's nothing...

Exactly. There might be fewer options in smaller markets, but that doesn't mean there are no other options at all. And given a choice, why would anyone pick the worst one?

Well, the media certainly didn't help. I remember they kept pointing out that people were disappointed that prices were not as cheap as the US stores. I don't know why anyone would expect them to be, when the cost of doing business here is higher all around. And Target was never about the...

They're still open, but rumour has it Simons will be taking over the space at STC.

They already traded their prime locations for cash. Now they want to abandon all the weaker locations. What's left?

For many years (and possibly even now, for some locations, still was the case the last time I went to one) Mr. Sub had no pretense of baking anything at all. The buns came out of plastic bags, already stale once they'd reached the shop. Same style and quality as the cheap hotdog buns you get at...

I've been told that Homesense location was originally intended only as a pop-up location. Sales blew past all expectations, so they made it permanent.

They've been pouring one floor every six days (including weekends, when there's usually not much going on at the site) for the past three weeks. Looks like they might even get two done this week. (Edit: nope. But they'll probably pour again on Monday).

As do I. I think the original Vitrolite was ghastly.

That's pretty much my take on it. It's not that it's the greatest pizza ever as it's merely quite good, what's amazing is that it's made-to-order in three minutes *and* it's quite good. They've really raised the bar in terms of the speed to quality ratio. For not much longer than it takes to get...

No. Just like the missing windows, they've changed the design to make it a permanent fixture.