One of the more interesting facades along Ouellette Ave, belongs to the building now occupied by the Mandarin House at 331 Ouellette.
The building was home to Red Robin Ladies Apparel in the 1950’s and I think prior to that it was home to the Good Housekeeping store.
Anyone out there with any memories of the place? Or what was there before the Mandarin House?
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if i remember right, upwards of 12-13 years go it was vacant for a long long time...at least it looked that way. i think that's the spot where a local guitarist named Tim used to play in the doorway. he'd just sit on the ground under the awning which was a maroon colour at the time i think, and sing and play his guitar.
other than that, i've got nothing. looks like you can still see the marks from the frame of the red robin sign.
what's that plaque there on the right? is it important ?
thanks for the post Andrew!
I was in the restaurant not too long ago, and had to use the restroom. The restrooms are located in the basement and oddly they're at the end of a long hallway with vacant business offices down there. I think the door on the left leads directly to a set of stairs going down.
I remember the Red Robin. My Mom always shopped there. The basement level was also a shopping floor in the store back then. Oddly enough, there was a Coke dispensing machine down there up against the wall along side the goods for sale - 7 cents. By the time we got to Red Robin, I was really looking forward to that Coke.
Can that be the original facade of the building? It seems to me to be a cover-up from the 50s.
I remember Red Robin though it wasn't one of my mother's favourites. remember the vasement but not the Coke machine (but we'd never have bought any).
I thought Red Robin had a split front with display windows on either side of a central "kiosk" sort of display. If I'm remembering the right store, it would have been two of today's stores wide at least and been subdivided sometime since.
Maybe Terry can tell me if it was the Red Robin that had that layout in front? The postcard looks like a single window but it's not showing up on my screen at all now for some reason so I can't examine it. Did they have a second floor as well?
Some of the old stores had second floor display windows as well. They've all been renovated and the windows covered up or changed when they were used for offices. Things have changed so much that I have trouble remembering which stores were which sometimes and I shopped downtown into the seventies I Business Girl and another like it I've just forgotten the name of) when I worked at Ouellette and wyandotte.
Of course it wouldn't have anything to do with my aging brain!
Yes! The pic finally loaded and - on closer observation - I can see the split window as I remembered it!
OK, what was the name of the shoestore to the south? You can see part of the name on the sign above the word "shoes" but I can't quite make it out.
Clare, perhaps it was Wilkinson Shoes.
When I was a kid Good Housekeeping Shop was in the building next to the new T.D. Bank. Another building that has a nice urban feel to it.
Anyone recognize the car. Looks like a GM product, 55-57?