Comments on: Walpole Mall; Walpole, Massachusetts

By: Rocky

Rocky — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:34:45 +0000

I worked at a restaurant/bar called Thackeray’s in the mall in the late 70’s early 80’s. It was a pretty hopping spot for the area back then. It was located where the Old Country Buffet is now. There was a bank on the other side of the mall entrance, a Newport Creamery, GAP, Orange Julius, Bradlees and Stop & Shop. Also a Stacy’s gift shop and a hair salon.
The Barnes & Noble, Taco Bell, Joann Fabrics were added on later. Thackeray’s was eventually sold and became Pickerings. There is a page on myspace called Thackeray’s. There are some pictures on it of that were taken inside and outside the mall.

By: jj

jj — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:36:29 +0000

My Aunt lives in Norwood, and when we would visit her in the 70’s and 80’s, we would go to Walpole Mall. Good Vibrations was a great record chain in the area, with superb customer service, and this location was full of cool imports. I remember the Bradlees as well, CVS and Orange Julius. I never saw malls as a “cool place to hang out” – that was something you saw in the movies or TV. It was an average mall for an average population area.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:17:17 +0000

All I can add was that in the late 80s or early 90s, the mall was “renovated” and rebranded as “The Mall at Walpole” which even to me as a young kid seemed pretty lame.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:00:01 +0000

I can’t believe nobody has mentioned the Dream Machine! While the mall may never have been cool for teens, for us younger kids the new addition that replaced Almy’s was pretty cool. It gave us a new Walden Books, a Papa Gino’s, and the aformentioned Dream Machine arcade.

I think the arcade was one of the fe arcades in the state. I remember attending many joint Papa Gino’s and Dream Machine birthday parties.

Once the big box stores moved in, I think the Dream Machine relocated to a new store within the mall.

I don’t recall if Pinches and Pounds was in the expansion or not, but I remember it also being a popular store for people my age.

Everyone is correct about Office Max at one point being a tiny Stop and Shop. IIRC, the store actually closed well before the Super Stop and Shop was completed.

I’ve recently moved back to the area and the new renovations look good. I think a lot of malls have moved to the new outdoor format – it reminds me of some of newer DC area strip malls.

As for the Dedham mall, I don’t have too many memories of it, but I recall at one point my parents were concerned about crime and wanted me to stay close to them.

There was an old Child World outside the mall, which was odd because Toys R Us was just down the street.

Does anyone know what the new buildings outside the Wapole Mall are going to be?

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:38:36 +0000

I’ve been in some of these stores from the front and I didn’t even know it was a mall. Probably a good thing in terms of its survival.

On another note, 3 Old Navys between Dedham and Foxboro on Rt 1? If this isn’t indicative of the vast excess of retail space I don’t know what is.

By: Jane

Jane — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:23:12 +0000

There used to be an Auntie Ann’s, Bradlee’s, Gap, Pinches and Pounds has gone recently, so has F.Y.E and KB Toys. It’s basically a ghost town. I cannot wait for L.A. Fitness to open up.

By: Kayla

Kayla — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:59 +0000

I am living in walpole currently and have always lived in walpole. It’s a small town that barely anyone knows about, but it has a lot of character. it’s small size lets everyone get to know each other. given, the mall could have better stores. but it is currently under construction and getting extended. i love walpole and everything about it. even it’s crappy malls

By: Cici

Cici — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:31:12 +0000

The Walpole mall expansion is moving along quickly…they just moved the Coney Street entrance to the mall further away from Rt. 1 and will be installing a traffic light at that entrance. I’ve heard that CVS will be moving to it’s own store outside of the mall and that Olympia Sports will be moving it’s store to a larger space in the new part of the mall. Texas Roadhouse Restaurant is coming to the mall as well as Famous Footwear and fitness facility, LA Fitness.

By: FeralToki

FeralToki — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:44:37 +0000

More recently (between 2001-2005 roughly), in the Walpole Mall, I remember a Play N’ Trade being there (one of a very small chain of video game stores and a welcome alternative to the behemoth that is GameStop), to the left of Papa Gino’s. Does anyone know if it is still there?

By: BostonMofo

BostonMofo — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:58:59 +0000

I moved to Sharon in 1986 and am familiar with this mall.

- Stop & Shop was indeed in the space now occupied by OfficeMax. Although the mall allowed it to be attached to the mall structure, it has always been more of an orphaned store. That store is like the kid who has never been told he is adopted.

- Almy’s was the other anchor store. The redesign caused by the killing of Almy’s was interesting because, internally, the store took up all of the space to the left of CVS. This means if you were walking “west” down the mall (and came to CVS on your left and KayBee Toys on your right) there would be an entrance to Almy’s. So esentially, CVS was the end of the mall navigation area. When Almy’s was tore down they put in more small stores and it felt weird to be able to walk down there. On the left were a candle shop, the Irish store, and more. On the right was Olympia Sports and others. At the end of the new section was a Jo-Ann Fabric. But . . .

- The thing very few people remember was that after Almy’s was gone but before Barnes & Noble moved in, the Barnes & Noble area was occupied by smaller stores and served as an entrance to the mall. The Papa Ginos was on the left of the entrance and a large Waldenbooks was on the right (Waldenbooks was formerly in a smaller space in the mall – east of the Gap). Then when they installed Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks went away, Papa Ginos moved to where it is now, and some of the small less-popular stores leading to the mall now serve as the back of the Barnes and Noble where it links to the mall internally.

- Old Navy was installed in an odd way. They actually pushed out the face of the mall into the parking lot and created new space to squish it in there.

- The fountain near the Gap used to be a sunken-down seating area. They changed that in the 1998 upgrade. I found it to be pointless.

- There used to be an Orange Julius accross from the Gap, a Newport Creamery outside of Bradlees, and a popular pet store to the left of Papa Ginos.

Although everyone agrees that the Walpole Mall was very uncool, I always appreciated it because I thought it had a lot of utility. I frequently went to CVS for random items and Papa Ginos for lunch, and to Barnes and Noble and OfficeMax after they opened.

I found the space to be pretty weird though because you had so much unused, open space at both end sof the mall. I think expansion plans never had a chance because the surrounding part of the mall would be pretty scary at night because it feels enclosed by all those trees. It would be very easy for someone to break into cars back there. I remember one time in the winter me and my friend went to the large, empty parking lot on the side of OfficeMax (then Stop & Shop) right after a snowstorm and did tons of donuts in the open space.