Do you remember a time when you had to go to Santa Monica or Pasadena to get a hamburger with Ketchup on it in the shape of a smiley face at Johnny Rockets? Or how about when the only way to get a Krispy Kreme Doughnut was if you traveled down to Santa Clarita or some other Southern California city. I certainly do. Now, however, you can go to both places without ever leaving Bakersfield.
Maybe a lot of you did not know these places existed until they took up ground in Kern County, but I know I was quite thrilled to find out some of my favorite out of town pleasures were moving in including Cold stone Creamery and Borders Books.
Now it looks like it has happened again with the one of the greatest electronic store chains known to man, Best Buy. That’s right; the great behemoth with the big blue sign is now located out in the vastly growing Rosedale area where any resident can easily reach with far less than a tank of gas.
For those of you unaware of this place, think of CompUSA, Circuit City and Sam Goody all mixed into one.
I recently went to check the place out and see if it stands up to its Valencia branch, or if we got a second rate knockoff that should feel awful to even think about using the company name. As I pulled up to the place, I was greeted with the signature slanted wall with the blue logo on the front.
Inside the store was a cross section of Televisions, DVDs, CDs, Computers, Stereos, Videogames and every other electronic appliance you could ever want, and with enough store space to put CompUSA to shame.
The prices were not too bad. Some things were cheaper than other places. I saw TVs that cost far less than I could get at Circuit City or the Good Guys, but not everything was cheap. The DVDs for example were far from it. A DVD for a movie that was eight-years-old with no special features whatsoever still costs over twenty dollars. That same DVD I can get somewhere else for half that.
But that is all okay, I never thought of Best Buy as cheap. Best Buy has always been a place where I would go if I got a nice paycheck or even better, won the lottery. The attraction is not really the price of the inventory; it’s the quantity of it.
There is a certain evolution of electronic stores. The lowest of which would be some guy with a stolen car stereo system that he is selling out of his trunk, but from there it goes up to Radio Shack and on to places like the Good Guys and Circuit City. Those places are followed by the great CompUSA which then reaches the all mighty Best Buy. Beyond that there is only one place higher on the food chain that I have seen anywhere in the state of California, Fryes Electronics, which is a place so amazing that to even try to describe it would be impossible. It is the Disneyland of Electronic Stores. It is a great place that I doubt Bakersfield will ever claim ownership to, despite my hopes and dreams.
Still, now with CompUSA putting in some Competition by adding in a more generalized department for television and the likes, I think Bakersfield has more than enough stores for all of there electronic shopping needs, expensive as they may be. To see this place for yourself just take a short drive out to Rosedale. Bring your wallet and you shouldn’t be disappointed.