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-   -   Bigs als in Calgary Decemebr 1st (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=35166)

digital-audiophile 09-09-2007 03:45 PM
The worst was when I drove all the way to Red Coral on a sunday to find out it had closed 1/2 and hour before I got there :(

If I had the cash in the bank I would seriously consider opening a fish store in the south. You would end up doing a good business just becuase of the fact that people don't want to drive to the other side of the world just to find out that the selection is crappy, the shipment did'nt arrive or if it did that there is nothing you want.

michika 09-09-2007 04:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by digital-audiophile (Post 270519)
The worst was when I drove all the way to Red Coral on a sunday to find out it had closed 1/2 and hour before I got there :(

If I had the cash in the bank I would seriously consider opening a fish store in the south. You would end up doing a good business just becuase of the fact that people don't want to drive to the other side of the world just to find out that the selection is crappy, the shipment did'nt arrive or if it did that there is nothing you want.
I'd visit regularly!

danny zubot 09-09-2007 04:48 PM
reply
 
Hehe, maybe I'll open up shop in my basement. I could service all of southern Ablerta from where I live.:lol:

Porthos 09-09-2007 05:29 PM
Technically there are 3 stores in the south that sell saltwater fish compared to 3 stores in the North...

South:
Riverfront
Elite
Golds

North:
Red Coral
Ocean's
Wai's

I would say it is pretty even :lol:

Pan 09-09-2007 06:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Porthos (Post 270543)
Technically there are 3 stores in the south that sell saltwater fish compared to 3 stores in the North...

South:
Riverfront
Elite
Golds

North:
Red Coral
Ocean's
Wai's

I would say it is pretty even :lol:
Big als will be in the north...uneven again.

Everyone here (except obviuosly people who work at another LFS) should pool together and run a community store...canreef...it would work they do it for other things :)

Pan 09-09-2007 06:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Delphinus (Post 270514)
Yeah, but, you live in Didsbury. :p When you choose to shop in a different city, you take on the choice that it will take an hour or whatever in each direction to get there.

If there was some decent spread to the stores, then it would be a matter of "I could do this store one day, a couple days later, try another" and so on. But the fact is now I'd have to make a day trip out of it, and frankly, the selection IN the stores on any given day is usually disappointing unless you luck out and come in on a day right after they landed a shipment. So it's hardly worth your while to do so unless you have advance knowledge of what's in stock on a given day. And well, nobody posts that info, so you gamble.

I haven't been to Red Coral yet either. That store is seriously an hour's drive in one direction assuming traffic is GOOD. The traffic in the city and the road layout is horrid. The roads were fine when we were a city of 300,000. Now that we're a million plus and using the SAME roads, it's a little different. (Thank you Al, for making the 90's a "Let's do nothing!" decade. And that money the feds gave you for infrastructure, I can't thank you enough - not a day goes by where I don't notice that the luxury boxes at the Saddledome don't make my day just a little bit brighter! :lol: Whee!)

Bellyaching? Sure, I guess I am. I feel it's a bit of a legitimate complaint though. I feel there decent room to open a store in the south. I'm sure Big Al's location will serve them well. I just wish they would have picked a location closer to me. :) Don't we all feel this way once in a while though?
Yeah i'm not thrilled aboiut the drive, but I do work out of Calgary though. And i would agree bout the lack of antything actually for sale in these stores as well. I have been prtty dissapointed with all the once i've visisted selections more than i've been happy with them. But i try to support if I can. But i usually do J&L, TBSW,(US) and Two Part Solutiions (US). They are working on the northern part of the ring road though :0 and hey just think what it would be like if you worked downtown...stupid "Bow"
I have the feeling Calgary and Alberta in general is quickly turning into somewhere I no longer want to live.

EmilyB 09-09-2007 07:58 PM
Now that Kari's moving there is absolutely nothing that makes even me want to drive to a NE location.

Delphinus 09-09-2007 08:10 PM
Thing is, I'd consider Riverfront and Gold more "central" than anything. Yes, by the map, Gold is in the south. However, it only takes me 5 minutes more driving to get to Wai's than it does to get to Gold's. So to me it doesn't really feel all that "south". Porthos I asssume you live in the north, I don't think you'd say that otherwise :p

To be honest, I really did enjoy Big Al's previous location. It was close to work, close to home, I could go there for a quick boo and be back home inside of an hour. I can't do that to any store anymore except for Elite. And ... well .. short of M.O., guess who gets most of MY business? Sorry, location being convenient is a BIG factor to me nowadays. Before I had kids and I had lots of time to spare, I didn't mind driving all over the wazoo. Now with small kids at home, no ... not so much. So .. yeah, I don't think I'm being unreasonable feeling the way I do. And if you think I am .. well .. tough, I'm not changing my opinion!! Well .. actually, no. It's not an opinion. It's fact. From where I live, it's inconvenient to get to the north (or "north-esque") stores. It takes a bit of planning and juggling things around to do it. I realize it's not this way for everyone, and that's cool. But that's how it is for me.

Porthos 09-09-2007 08:25 PM
Delphinus, you are right, I am in the North :biggrin:

However, I'm in the far North, so like you, I would also consider Wai's and Ocean's to be pretty central, just like Riverfront and Golds. The only store I can visit somewhat easily is Red Coral (although it is still out of the way), but luckily that is also one of my favourites to visit.

Elite and Golds are actually too far for me so I don't visit them often. The new Big Al's is also out of the way, but I work close by, so I can visit it at lunch and after work pretty easily. Hopefully it will be good so that I can check things out often. I wasn't in the hobby when the old Big Al's was around.

I think those that live far North have it just as bad as those that live in the deep south. Most of the stores are pretty central when you think about it, other than Elite and Red Coral, and those are still somewhat central.

For people in the SW, if you have easy access to Crowchild, it is actually pretty quick to get to Red Coral if you aren't driving during rush hour. Red Coral is like a minute off of Crowchild Trail.

Der_Iron_Chef 09-09-2007 08:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Porthos (Post 270571)
For people in the SW, if you have easy access to Crowchild, it is actually pretty quick to get to Red Coral if you aren't driving during rush hour. Red Coral is like a minute off of Crowchild Trail.
Take it back! Crowchild is my worst nightmare. I'd rather listen to screaming children on a 14-hour flight to Hong Kong (and I've done both, so I know...lol).

Let's face it, Calgary's just a crap city to have to drive long distances for things. We have two seasons here: winter and construction. Neither are very conducive to driving long distances and maintaining a healthy mental state.

Riverfront is downtown, which is a frustration all unto itself. Wai's and Ocean City are on 16th, which again, is a construction/traffic/HWY 1 nightmare. Red Coral is connected to Crowchild hell. Gold and Elite are pretty much the only stores I'll visit on an even remotely regular basis. I went to see if Pisces had a saltwater section (again), and it took me 30 minutes to get there, and that was mostly by Deerfoot.

When Big Al's opens, maybe I'll pack a picnic lunch, fill the car with gas, make sure my camera battery is charged, and make a day of it. Because I'm sure that's what it'll take. Then I'll write a blog entry about it entitled, "No Money for Fish, Spent It All On Gas".

michika 09-09-2007 08:51 PM
I tried a jaunt on over to Red Coral this summer and I just gave up. I got cut off like 6 times before I just packed it in. I like my car in one piece! :D

I go home quite a bit still and I do make an effort to visit somewhere when I have the time. Although lately I've found it harder and harder to get anywhere.

The biggest problem in Calgary now seems to be accesibility. If the trip takes more the 30 minutes one way, I don't really want to do it. When I left in 2002 it used to be about 20 minutes straight up crowchild to the university for me. Last time I tried it I hit 40 minutes BEFORE I'd made it to the university area.

But when I think about it, I would rather take the traffic, and the constant construction then Edmonton's monster potholes. There is nothing like bottoming out and getting your car stuck in a pothole in winter to make you love Calgary!

digital-audiophile 09-09-2007 09:03 PM
Does anyone even actually shop for SW at Riverfront?

I was in a couple weeks back for the first time in months (walked over during lunch) and it was still the fish horror shop it alwasy was :(

danny zubot 09-09-2007 10:35 PM
reply
 
Quote:
But when I think about it, I would rather take the traffic, and the constant construction then Edmonton's monster potholes. There is nothing like bottoming out and getting your car stuck in a pothole in winter to make you love Calgary!
You have a point, there's always somewhere worse to live. Take England for example; because I was just there. To drive the same distance from my house to Oceans for example, woud take longer. You'd have to cross three towns, battling complex '"roundabouts'', narrow roads with traffic wizzing by you at break neck speeds, and all while you are driving on th wrong side of the road! I will never compain about driving in the north west end of Calgary again. In England the roads are so messed up, I couldn't even tell which direction was north without looking at the sun's position, provided the sun was even visible.:biggrin:

For me, its not the driving that bothers me, I enjoy driving, pumpin' the tunes etc. Don't get me wrong though, if I don't feel like driving that day guess which LFS will get my business. What bothers me is that I can't wrap my head around having the bulk of the LFS clumped together in one area of the city. It just doesn't make sence to me. Where's the logic in it? Surely some research was done prior to selecting the location for the new BA's, so what factors are they basing their decision on for choosing a north location? When they open, I will drive up there one day just to ask that very question, as should we all.

kari 09-10-2007 12:35 PM
I would say it has a lot to do with lease rates.

Tyson 10-17-2007 10:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Delphinus (Post 270569)
Thing is, I'd consider Riverfront and Gold more "central" than anything. Yes, by the map, Gold is in the south. However, it only takes me 5 minutes more driving to get to Wai's than it does to get to Gold's. So to me it doesn't really feel all that "south". Porthos I asssume you live in the north, I don't think you'd say that otherwise :p

To be honest, I really did enjoy Big Al's previous location. It was close to work, close to home, I could go there for a quick boo and be back home inside of an hour. I can't do that to any store anymore except for Elite. And ... well .. short of M.O., guess who gets most of MY business? Sorry, location being convenient is a BIG factor to me nowadays. Before I had kids and I had lots of time to spare, I didn't mind driving all over the wazoo. Now with small kids at home, no ... not so much. So .. yeah, I don't think I'm being unreasonable feeling the way I do. And if you think I am .. well .. tough, I'm not changing my opinion!! Well .. actually, no. It's not an opinion. It's fact. From where I live, it's inconvenient to get to the north (or "north-esque") stores. It takes a bit of planning and juggling things around to do it. I realize it's not this way for everyone, and that's cool. But that's how it is for me.

I feel the same way, when i was single and liveing at my parents place it was easy is to go kill a day driving around looking for stuff(not just reef stuff). When big al's left and i got married my time became costly, but i still find time to pack a lunch and journey to the north dispite my wifes objections. It's the reef madness that compels me to go.:lol:


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