My mother shopped almost exclusively at Big Bear, with maybe a stop at the A&P once in a blue moon.

Care🥰🥰

Please tell me they're still there?

@@wiersandlines Yea. They are a historical marker and will never be removed.

They've been painted over with the Giant Eagle logo on them but yep, they're still there. 🐻 😥

Yes it's still a giant eagle. One of the last ones in Columbus. Miss that big bear

Yes, I used Big Bear Plus bakery on High Street Graceland shopping center, after it had moved a couple buildings over from being just a Big Bear, in what use to be a Big/odd lots, but a new build. Raspberry pin wheels, like a quarter a piece or 5/$1 I believe.

I was there around late 80’s late 90’s. Graceland Shopping center? They ended up tearing a lot of the buildings down, they took the Big Bear, and over the old buildings of Odd/Big lots, made a detached Big Bear Plus, a couple stores down from the previous Big Bear.

Very Cool!

Me too I worked for them for 7 years

Where was a Big Bear in West Virginia?

@@ChrisBakerauthor Wheeling and Parkersburg

@@averagecitizen8491 I don't ever remember a Big Bear in Wheeling. If there was one, it must have been before my time.

Thank you for your Giant Eagle Big Bear connection. You're the only other person that I've ran across who realized that Giant Eagle is basically Big Bear reinvented

Yeah but Big Bear had better prices than Kroger. And now Kroger has better prices than Giant Eagle. 😕

@jason9022 This is fresh out of high school in the Midwest in 1969. So no, I didn't get some, at least not then. I was able to cop a feel from a different girl after a Rascal's concert about a month later.

I remember Gold Circle and I lived close by in UA. Wasn’t there an AMC theatre on Olentangy River Rd. close by?

@Jessica LT There was a theater up at University City shopping center. I saw the movie _The Sterile Cuckoo_ there in 1969 and _Airport_ there in 1970.

@@jimsstuff2201 I saw The Sting probably five times at University City, along with many other movies in that era. I think The Sting played there for a solid year or longer (they used to post on the marquee how many weeks a "held over" movie had been playing). Of course back then the only way you could see a first run movie at all, let alone several times, was to go to a cinema. The really good movies made a lot of money from repeat business. I think University City may have started out as a single screen, but at some point in the early '70s it became a two-screen "twin" theater. Most of the time both screens were new releases, but other times if they were getting a lot of repeat business on a particular movie such as The Sting, one screen was used for the "extended engagement" movie as long as people wanted to keep paying to see it, while the other screen was used for new releases.

When my family lived in Whitehall back in the 1950's, we used to shop at the Big Bear that was in the Miracle Mile and when we moved up, in the Oakland Park neighborhood, we shopped at the Big Bear in the Northern Lights shopping center. Our parents let my sister and me collect all of the Buckeye Stamps that our mother brought home and we would redeem them at the "Buckeye Store" on Lane. Those were the days.

Yep--glad to see another who remembers it as a former roller rink.

My mom still has some of those orange stamps somewhere put up in her house. 😊

I was there from 85 to 96, fun place to work.

My father was an assistant manager in the 80's at the Graceland store, I don't remember when he moved to Karl and 161 store. His name was John Howell, he passed away in 2007. If I remember right the Graceland store had a basement and once in a while my brother and I would come to visit and we could ride the conveyor belt back up. He left Big Bear around 1990 and went to work at Nationwide until his passing.

I found this video because I always tell my kids about BB. That location is the one we used to walk to in the 90s.

There was a little waterfall/cataract in front of that Hart’s. (Wheeling Creek ran by the parking lot.) I remember my dad taking me to look at it when I was a kid in the 80s.

WoW!!! 😮

To be fair, there was more than "one" Big Bear in Columbus. Clintonville, Northern Lights, Whittier Street, Neil Avenue, the Hilltop, Great Southern, Town & Country, Livingston and James, Karl and Rt. 161, and a few more.

We had one in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Columbus, Oh, years ago.

We had what was called Green stamps, to turn in when books were filled for kitchen items. Showing my age.😊

The primary stamps were Green Stamps and Yellow Stamps. If you bought $100 in food, you got reams of stamps worth about ten cents for the whole purchase. But you licked and licked and the kids liked too to fill books of stamps. One book of stamps would not buy anything. If you licked enough and bought enough then after a year or two you could bring a big bag of books to one of the two redemption centers in the county wasting a ton of gas and exchange them for an ugly cheap lamp that didn't match anything. I.e., it was a racket. But it was very much frowned upon for wives to work. They collected the stamps. A husband might laugh, but if he redeemed those books, it was tantamount to declaring war on his wife. That would have been worse than cheating.

I never even knew Grove City had a Big Bear warehouse..I only knew of the 3rd Ave. location in Grandview! In fact, I always thought the only major warehouse/DC in Grove City was Walmart"s! And, Big Lot's occupies it now?..thank's for the info!! 🤝

I lived across from the Big Bear Bakery at 10th & High St for 6 years in the late 70's early 80's, everyday I would wake to the smell of bread baking.

That’s a different chain no relation

I used to love going to Big Bear. 😊 Giant Eagle is more expensive though. I hardly go there. I go to my 2nd favorite store now, Kroger's. 😐

Woody Hayes used to eat there regularly when he was the coach at Ohio State.

It WAS a converted roller rink. At one time it had been a dance hall, roller rink, and an arena for horse shows and events prior to becoming the first Big Bear store. I worked for Big Bear as a bag boy, then was "promoted" to cashier ($5 an hour - woo hoo) while in high school in the '70s. The cashier training center for BB's central Ohio district was in the basement of the Lane Avenue store. We got the behind the scenes tour of the store and lectures on how the Lane Ave store and the Big Bear company in general came to be. It still looked like an old timey roller rink with the humongous domed roof and the oval-shaped, wood-planked main floor. columbusneighborhoods.org/story/big-bear-386-w-lane-ave/

It was.

only time I was there was the auction in early 80's ..garth semple sold the place to the bare walls that day B4 it was razed

It was towards the end cause penn traffic was trying to get as much money from the dying corpse as possible

Me too!!

Yes, went to the W. Broad location many times. Loved the Big Bear statue at that location. Went to Harts many times in the basement. A Harts and Big Bear store were also near to each other at the Central Point location way back when.

@@jayyaj4845 apparently you have been raised in central Ohio and should remember gold circle children's palace sun TV Lazarus fillpo the clown the Paul baby show Linden air theater and I know this is a long shot as many of my friends don't remember but on 5th Avenue there was a little place called the whistle stop pop shop that you could get soda in every flavor and watch them bottle it that was back in the day of returnable bottles and the Borden dairy company delivered to your front porch on a daily basis and there was two news papers a morning and a evening edition from two different publications and as far as TV goes there was only 3 channels to choose from unless you counted PBS and was down for some hard press the clock at least I think that's what it was called local high schools competing in a trivia contest for a battle of wits and superior intelligence yeah whatever I was always an underachiever and didn't go out for that nerd shit hell I had a hard time remembering phone numbers because that was before cell phones that you can scroll and find what you're looking for yeah I babble on but I sure miss the days when life was simple

Thank Penn Traffic

Yes and Gold Circle too. When they came to unionize us we should have voted it in..Big Bear might still be alive today.

I thought Gold Circle was a part of Federated.

Based in suckacuse new york. It's a shame the family that owned BB had to sell it to that incompetent corporation

Chris Schneider yes! I watched them both and when younger, Lucy’s Toy Shop.

Jerry Beck's all night theatre

Was until Penn Traffic came in and closed us down just like Gold Circle.

Same here worked in Columbus store for 7 years

No they actually closed about 30yrs ago

@@ironbran12 16 years ago

@@redbeard6220 longer than that here sir.

Are you talking on the Hilltop?

@@dickrush6463 Yeeeeeeeep.

Disagree.

No Penn Traffic was to blame for Big Bear's demise.

Thats my grandfather and he pasted away this year so please apologize

kerryincolumbus nothing’s wrong with his face. He’s an older man nice enough to share memories. Seems like a decent hard working and compassionate person. Seems like in your past you should have worked under someone like him. You would have learned a lot.

@@adamrhoads9722 there's nothing to apologize for.. I agree with kerryincolumbus.. that old guy's face was gross!!!

@@jessicalt4121 nothing wrong with his face?? Lady, you either need to adjust your glasses or get your cataract removed! His face was grotesque!

Matthew Henry u

Up yours sorry if life gave you a lemon and a lonely Mr.cherry

Things were different back then, my friend. You could actually make a decent, middle-class living working full-time in a grocery store.