Remember these "Out of Business"?

You can age yourself based on stores you remember that are no longer in business. Are you a little younger and remember buying video games at Circuit City or old enough to remember eating at Howard Johnson's Restaurants?

Brace yourself for an interesting look over the decades of businesses that are no longer with us. We try to give a little history and a little more background about each one.

Please use the NEXT button at bottom of article to navigate each business.

The original Borders bookstore was located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, where it was founded in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis Borders during their undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Michigan. The first Borders bookshop opened at 209 South State Street, Ann Arbor in 1971.

At the beginning of 2010, the company operated 511 Borders superstores in the US. The company also operated 175 stores in the Waldenbooks Specialty Retail segment, including Waldenbooks, Borders Express, Borders airport stores, and Borders Outlet stores. In February 2011, Borders applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidating 226 of its stores in the United States.

Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial flag carrier of the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991. It was founded in 1927 as a scheduled airmail and passenger service operating between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. The airline is credited for many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems.

The first Woolworth store was opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth on February 22, 1879, as Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York. Though it initially appeared to be successful, the store soon failed. When Woolworth searched for a new location, a friend suggested Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Using the sign from the Utica store, Woolworth opened his first successful "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" on July 18, 1879, in Lancaster.

On July 17, 1997, Woolworth's closed its remaining department stores in the U.S. and changed its corporate name to Venator. In 1999, Venator moved from the Woolworth Building in New York City to offices on 34th Street.

Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids, Inc. (d.b.a. Tru Kids Brands) and various others. It was founded in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Wayne, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area.

Founded by Charles Lazarus in its modern iteration in June 1957, Toys "R" Us traced its origins to Lazarus's children's furniture store, which he started in 1948. He added toys to his offering, and eventually shifted his focus. The company had been in the toy business for more than 65 years and operated around 800 stores in the United States and around 800 outside the U.S., although these numbers have steadily decreased with time. At its peak, Toys "R" Us was considered a classic example of a category killer. However, with the rise of mass merchants, as well as online retailers, Toys "R" Us began to lose its share of the toy market.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 18, 2017, and its British operations entered administration in February 2018. In March 2018, the company announced that it would close all of its U.S. and British stores.

Blockbuster, officially Blockbuster LLC and also known as Blockbuster Video, is an American-based provider of home movie and video game rental services. Services were offered primarily at video rental shops, but later alternatives included DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater. Previously operated by Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc., the company expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster consisted of 9,094 stores and employed approximately 84,300 people: 58,500 in the United States and 25,800 in other countries.

Poor leadership and competition from Netflix's mail-order service, Redbox automated kiosks, and video on demand services were major factors leading to Blockbuster's decline. It began to lose significant revenue during the late 2000s, and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010. The following year, its remaining 1,700 stores were bought by satellite television provider Dish Network. By early 2014, the last 300 company-owned stores were closed.

Tower Records is an international retail music franchise and online music store that was formerly based in Sacramento, California, United States. From 1960 until 2006, Tower operated retail stores in the United States, which closed when Tower Records filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. Tower.com was purchased by a separate entity and was not affected by the retail store closings.

Compaq (a portmanteau of Compatibility And Quality, occasionally referred to as CQ prior to its final logo) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers, being the first company to legally reverse engineer the IBM Personal Computer. It rose to become the largest supplier of PC systems during the 1990s before being overtaken by HP in 2001. Struggling to keep up in the price wars against Dell, as well as with a risky acquisition of DEC, Compaq was acquired for US$25 billion by HP in 2002.

Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobiles produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produced over 35 million vehicles, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory alone. During its time as a division of General Motors, Oldsmobile slotted into the middle of GM's five divisions (above Chevrolet, and Pontiac, but below Buick, and Cadillac), and was noted for its groundbreaking technology and designs.

Over 1 million Oldsmobiles were sold annually in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 but by the 1990s, the division was facing growing competition from premium import brands and sales declined. When shut down in 2004, Oldsmobile was the oldest surviving American automobile marque.

Howard Johnson's, or Howard Johnson by Wyndham, is an American chain of hotels and motels located primarily throughout the United States. It was also a chain of restaurants for over 90 years and widely known for that alone. Founded by Howard Deering Johnson, it was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S. throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with more than 1,000 combined company-owned and franchised outlets.

Howard Johnson hotels and motels are now part of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. Howard Johnson's restaurants were franchised separately from the hotel brand beginning in 1986, but in the years that followed, severely dwindled in number and all but disappeared by the turn of the century. As of 2016, only one Howard Johnson's restaurant remains: in Lake George, New York.

K·B Toys (also known as Kay Bee Toys) was an American chain of mall-based retail toy stores. The company was founded in 1922 as Kaufman Brothers, a wholesale candy store. The company opened a wholesale toy store in 1946, and ended its candy wholesales two years later to focus entirely on the toy industry. Retail sales began in the 1970s, under the name Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby.

In 1999, the company operated 1,324 stores across the United States and was the second-largest toy retailer in the U.S., but it later declared bankruptcy in both 2004 and 2008 before going out of business on February 9, 2009. The company operated 461 stores at the time of its closure. International retailer Toys "R" Us acquired the remains of K·B Toys, consisting mainly of its website, trademarks, and intellectual property rights.

RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is the trade name of an American retailer founded in 1921. Since 2017, General Wireless Operations Inc. has licensed the name from General Wireless IP Holdings LLC, in which Kensington Capital Holdings owns a majority stake. RadioShack operates primarily as an e-commerce website, a network of approximately 500 independently owned authorized dealer stores, and as a supplier of parts for HobbyTown.

Sam Goody was a music and entertainment retailer in the United States and United Kingdom, operated by The Musicland Group inc. It was purchased by Best Buy in 2000, sold to Sun Capital in 2003, and filed for bankruptcy in 2006, closing most of its stores. The remaining stores were purchased by Trans World Entertainment which also runs FYE, Saturday Matinee, and Suncoast Motion Picture Company. It specialized in music, video, and video game sales. In 2008 Trans World converted most Sam Goody stores into FYE, though two still operate under the Sam Goody name.

As of November 2020, there are only 2 Sam Goody stores left within the United States. They are located in the Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville, Ohio and the Rogue Valley Mall in Medford, Oregon.

The Sharper Image was the brainchild of Richard Thalheimer. The company started in 1977 as a catalog business to sell jogging watches. Later, through what had become an iconic catalog, The Sharper Image expanded its product assortment to include high-end futuristic gadgets, electronics, massage chairs, and air purifiers. Popular products, such as the Ionic Breeze and exclusive models of Human Touch massage chairs, helped propel The Sharper Image to become an iconic American brand with 187 retail stores in 38 states.

The Sharper Image stock price reached a record low of 29 cents a share on February 20, 2008. On February 25, 2008, The Sharper Image announced it had received notification that it would be delisted from the NASDAQ exchange. The company filed for bankruptcy protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Sharper Image said it had $251.5 million of assets and $199 million of debts as of January 31, 2008, according to the filing. Cash on hand totaled about $700,000. All of its retail stores were closed by the end of 2008.

Marshall Field's (officially Marshall Field & Company) was a department store in Chicago, Illinois, founded in the 19th century that grew to become a large chain before being acquired by Macy's, Inc in 2005.

The former flagship Marshall Field and Company Building location on State Street in the Loop of downtown Chicago was officially renamed Macy's on State Street in 2006 and is now one of four Macy's flagship stores.

Montgomery Ward was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872. Ward had conceived of the idea of a dry goods mail-order business in Chicago, Illinois, after several years of working as a traveling salesman among rural customers. He observed that rural customers often wanted "city" goods, but their only access to them was through rural retailers who had little competition and did not offer any guarantee of quality.

On December 28, 2000, after lower-than-expected sales during the Christmas season, the company announced it would cease operating, close its remaining 250 retail outlets, and lay off its 37,000 employees. All stores closed within weeks of the announcement. The subsequent liquidation was at the time the largest retail Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in American history.

CompUSA is a retailer and reseller of personal computers, consumer electronics, technology products and computer services. Starting with one brick-and-mortar store in 1986 under the name Soft Warehouse, by the 1990s CompUSA had grown into a nationwide big box chain. At its peak, it operated at least 229 locations. Crushed by competition from online and other brick-and-mortar retailers, CompUSA began closing locations in 2006. By 2008 only 16 locations were left to be sold to Systemax. In 2012, remaining CompUSA and Circuit City stores were converted to TigerDirect stores, and later closed. CompUSA now operates as an online-only retailer.

The company was founded in 1983 as a T-shirt business by Jerry Szczepanski and Larry Titus. The first store was in Mesquite, Texas. By 1992, the company had 33 stores in Texas. In 1995, the company became a public company via an initial public offering and within 3 months, the share price quadrupled from $15 to $61. That year the company had 195 stores.

In 2003, the company dropped its male clothing line to focus exclusively on 16- to 22-year-old females. In February 2004, the company filed bankruptcy and announced plans to reduce its store count from 410 to 252. In March 2005, Forever 21 purchased the chain for $33 million. The stores were eventually phased out.

Sports Authority, Inc. (formerly The Sports Authority) was an American sports retailer that was headquartered in Englewood, Colorado. At its peak, Sports Authority operated more than 460 stores in 45 States and Puerto Rico. The company's website was on the GSI Commerce platform and supported the retail stores as well as other multi-channel programs. A joint venture with ÆON Co., Ltd., operates "Sports Authority" stores in Japan over a licensing agreement.

On March 2, 2016, Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the case was converted to Chapter 7 a few months later. On May 18, 2016, the company's stores were sold to a group of liquidators and on May 25, CEO Michael Foss announced that all of the stores would close by the end of August 2016. On June 30, 2016, Dick's Sporting Goods won the auction for Sports Authority's brand name and intellectual property.

Payless (formerly known as Payless ShoeSource Inc.) is an international discount footwear chain. Established in 1956 by cousins Louis and Shaol Pozez, Payless was a privately held company owned by Blum Capital, and Golden Gate Capital. In 1961, it became a public company as the Volume Shoe Corporation which merged with The May Department Stores Company in 1979. In the 1980s, Payless was widely known in the U.S. for its Pro Wings line of discount sneakers, which often had Velcro straps instead of laces. In 1996, Payless became an independent publicly held company.

In 2019 North American stores including their e-commerce platform filed for bankruptcy.

Brookstone is a chain of retail stores in the United States and China. It was founded as a mail-order business in 1965, when it started selling items, such as dental clamps and other specialty tools. Its first physical location opened in 1973 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The company's headquarters are currently located in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

On August 2, 2018, Brookstone announced the closing of all their mall locations to focus on their website and airport locations, days after the company was considering filing for bankruptcy. On August 6, 2018, Brookstone filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced the closure of all 101 U.S. store locations.