It was not long before the sweets.
Looked not at all like donut treats.
They’d lost their taste, they’d lost their soul.
They’d even lost their donut hole!
—“The Donut Chef”
“The Donut Chef,” by Bob Staake, is the story of two chefs who compete for business on the same block. In an ever-increasing frenzy to offer the most unique versions both chefs begin to lose their way. Finally one chef realizes that most folks like the simple satisfaction of a glazed donut the best.
The undercurrent of trouble for Radio Shack, which recently filed for bankruptcy, has been bubbling and gurgling near the surface for some time now. The board of the company could have avoided the current despair had they only read Staake’s book.
If Radio Shack closes, where will I get terribly made remote control dune buggies?
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) February 2, 2015
Alas, Radio Shack’s candle is on its way out (much like Tweeter’s in 2008). The process has been a slow burn, but for those of us who have been shopping at ‘The Shack’ since its heyday, the obvious was obvious.
Jilted
The rise and fall of Radio Shack has everything to do with sharing passions with a customer base and the sudden desire to leave the geeks behind and ‘marry up.’ It left a lot of us at the altar, wondering where our soul mate went off to.
There is much to be lauded about the store, in particular its innovations and democratization of technology.
Much like the Dunkin Donuts model of an outlet serving every neighborhood, the stores were everywhere. From small town business districts, urban centers and malls, a Radio Shack was always nearby.
It was an essential store for tech-heads in the outlands and flyover states, no corner was left unattended.
In an era when nearly all consumer electronics could be fixed by an end user, if you had the knowledge and wherewithal, this was the place to find the right part.
Symbiotic Solutions
Much of the credit to the rise of DIY electronics, home audio interest, Ham and Citizen Band (CB) radio can be directly attributed to the chain. Local outlets conducted classes on technology, basic electronics and computers.
Study groups for FCC licenses were held in the stores and PC user groups would meet there after hours. In the years just prior to the Internet, this was how you could reach out to others around the world and build communities.
At the burgeoning of the personal computer revolution, where the established institutions in computing could not see a reason for individuals to own a computer, this chain of stores burst the TRS-80 onto the market.
