The Shops at Don Mills

When I was growing up, every Friday evening my Mom and I would go to the Don Mills Centre in Toronto at Lawrence Ave. East and Don Mills Road. Back then it was a single level indoor mall of a medium size. In the 1980's it was a busy place, loaded with long gone stores from before the onslaught of Wal-Mart drove them out of business. House of Knives, W.H. Smith, BiWay, Dominion Toyland, places that were undercut simply because they couldn't order the volume to compete with the Big box stores.

Like many malls of its type, the chain store shuttered one after another until the whole mall was a waste land of cheap knock-off rapper wear and independent Persian rug dealers.

Eventually, the whole thing was torn down. What is in its place now are the Shops at Don Mills, an "upmarket" outdoor mall full of high-end boutiques. One of the anchors for the place when it opened was a large 2-story McNally Robinson bookstore, which closed a year later as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.

Now, Shops at Don Mills runs at about a 30% vacancy rate. People still shop there, but I'm always struck by how few staple stores and services the place has. A 1200 square-foot Calvin Klein underwear store? There are a few good restaurants, most noteworthy being Linda's, which used to be
Located over and run by Salad King at Gould and Yonge. If you went to Ryerson, nothing more needs to be said regarding Salad King's great Thai food at good prices.

Basically, it's a place built for the wealthy of the Post Road to go and spend their disposable income. This is the death of retailing. Now if you want any kind of assistance on a purchase, you better be ready to do it on your own. Online reviews are either written by marketers for the manufacturer or by simpletons who can't spell. The only thing less helpful is the staff in most big box stores.