Bill,

I am truly sorry to hear that Al's closed. That leaves a vast wasteland here for the hobbyist. I know there is a HobbyTown in Orland Park, I have been there and there is Lagrange hobbies in Lagrange but they just don't have the same feel. The internet has won.

Wow Steve,

I didn't know Mikes had closed. I knew it was targeted in the highway expansion. I liked going there and taking my buggy to the track and flying my Vapor and Ember.

GPA hobbies Md closed last year around Labor Day. At one time in the 90's and 00's they were THE hobby shop in MD other than Dougs in Waldorf to get anything and I do mean anything you wanted in the hobby industry. Both tried mail order and Internet orders to compete and they just couldn't. I worked at GPA for almost 15 years, 8 of those full time as the manager. I tried to put a group together last year to buy the shop after my close friend Eric Baugher the owner passed away four years ago and his wife was very open to do so, but had very bad advice from her accountant and lawyer with unrealistic expectations on its value and staying open was a chore while we negotiated the deal. Sad to say his wife who is a wonderful person listened to very bad advice from her family members who had no real clue on how to run a retail business or the value of the shop. I learned the hard way after putting up 50% of the deposit as a show of good faith that nice people make stupid decisions and instead of her getting an early retirement and a income stream from us for the next ten years she got pennies on the dollar on what we offered her for the business when she had to close the shop due to incompetence and arrogance driven by her accountant and lawyer. She did pay me back the deposit but it took months to get becuse they had ever declining sales due to her sisters insistence ( the stores new bookkeeper) on not allowing the staff or myself during the negotiations to order the bread, milk, and toilet paper merchandise that they desperately needed each week and the customers just walked away. When customers come in every week to get glue, balsa, monocote, fuel, train supplies, plastic models and the stock runs out and is not replaced or eliminated it doesn't take long to go broke no matter what your reputation is or has been. Sad to say but now I have not a single hobby shop within an hours trip that I can get what I need or want so I buy what I can at shows and flea markets and mail order the rest.