Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/29/listen-kmart-in-store-music-a.html
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This was from about a year before I started working there in high school, but that’s definitely the same announcer’s voice and the same sort of musak I remember hearing on repeat.
The treasure trove of Kmart music can be found here.
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Came here to point out /attentionkmartshoppers since it oddly wasn’t linked (and I’m pretty sure I found it via bb in the first place).
Play this at your next family/friends/picnic/d&d group gathering and see how long it takes for someone to say something.
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I wonder how many synthwave artists are gonna abuse these tracks. 
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Thanks, inadvertently didn’t include the link.
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Manager: “No, Roxanne. You really don’t have to turn on the blue light.”
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KMart used to have a cafeteria in its stores. So did JC Penny. I don’t recall Sears having one. Did anyone else? I guess Target has one these days, but in our local Target store, they remodeled and outsourced it to Yum (ie, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, I think).
But in the old days, I recall JC Penny had more than a snack shack, it was a full on cafeteria with meals, not just fast food crap.
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When I first started at Kmart they still had the old “Kcafe”, but they were changed out chain-wide for Little Caesars the same year. As a high school kid I remember being infuriated with their policy of garbage-smashing all of the leftover pizza every night to make sure nobody could eat it – either employees or homeless folks.
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Exactly my thought. It’s practically a vaporwave starter kit.
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And it had that unforgettable smell to it. (Popcorn machine, maybe?)
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This is what they use at Guantánamo against the most recalcitrant detainees.
They don’t have to use it very much or play it for very long.
I think we just broke a Federal Law.
KMart used to have a cafeteria in its stores. So did JC Penny. I don’t recall Sears having one. Did anyone else?
Woolworth’s had a cafe & also a pet department, resulting in a unique amalgam of smells.
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Oh, oh! I remember cassettes! I remember how when you would press rewind or fast forward, ya know, it would actually rewind or fast forward.
I have a specific memory of having lunch with my mom when I was around 7 or 8 at a JC Penney restaurant. I think the reason I recall it is that I had a burger and it came on a whole wheat bun which was pretty traumatizing to second- or third-grade me.
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In Wichita, Sears only had a candy/popcorn kiosk. But they had Swedish Fish, a hard-to-score type of candy in 70’s Wichita. There was already a very good cafeteria downtown called Furr’s, which no store could compete against. But there was a neat walkway from Sears to the parking garage across the street 2 stories up. Five-year-old me thought that was the coolest thing.
Another cool thing was the Twin Lakes shopping center JCPenney that had a gentle, sloping stairway from the upper floor to the lower, winding around a fountain feature where people threw pennies.
Nordstrom has a cafe. You order at the counter and someone brings it to your table. Pretty good food, too.
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This is probably my favorite punk song about shopping at Kmart
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