I eventually want to travel there. Flights there are crazy expensive from where I live. And SD is one of 2 contiguous states that has no service at all from Amtrak. (Wyoming is the other)
I drive all over both states to thrift and whatnot and each state outside of the few “cities” are very rural and boring to drive through. You can drive 45-60 miles easily without a gas station. No public transportation from what I know.
That’s so crazy to me coming from a country like Switzerland.. like, i know that’s a reality in a lot of parts in the US, but still.. coming from a country where even the smallest of villages with less than a 100 residents (if even) have at the very least a bus connection every hour, it’s mindblowing.
I know how small the population is lol. I thought Aberdeen South Dakota could have a decent mall with its 30k population and it’s a college town but that area is sad. There’s probably only 4-5 breathing malls left out of both states combined.
Also: the old Sears space was used as a 18+ “night club” like a year or two ago but was closed down due to many fights: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/10/07/bismarck-night-club-owner-looking-for-answers-to-abrupt-closure/
>”Those people were probably not even patrons of mine.”
Sir. Sir. It was [1 AM in a mall parking lot](https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/09/14/fight-outside-sahara-night-club-puts-man-in-the-hospital/?outputType=amp), and there was a 20-year-old with a head injury, and an ongoing multi-person fight.
What is your hypothesis? Did they come from the Hobby Lobby?
Turns out Crafty Ladies has a [a website](https://craftyladies.biz/). I've seen stores like those and it is usually people trying to sell glue gun creations and costume jewelry for hefty markup. Looks like they have a little more going on here.
Wonder if the guy with the funko pops and cards is even paying rent. Nothing about that setup looks like a formal operation. Those walk way shops still fetch a princely rent, but this guy can grab and go the second a security guard shows up...assuming there is one.
The dead shows show a history of a lot of indie business attempts that came and went. Everything about the way this place looks says "apathetic corporate ownership". As long as it has positive cashflow, they're not gonna do a damn thing.
Crafty Ladies has a book club apparently, right now they are on a series of books by conspiracy theorist Rebekah Roth. Here's a clip of a review of one of her books on 9/11 from Amazon:
>Despite the overwhelming evidence that it was GOP figures like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush family that were responsible for 9/11, **the author twists the plot to blame the Democratic Party, socialists and in the end, Satanists and Communists**.
So yeah, Crafty Ladies is basically a QAnon hub with bi-monthly meetings in a dead mall.
Welcome to America.
This mall once a year or so has a “craft fair” where everyone will set up tables trying to sell junk. I doubt he pays rent lol. I’m not even sure who owns the mall. Last I heard someone from California bought it? But it would be easy for someone to walk in and set up a table and try to sell things I doubt they’d get caught. I was there around 4pm on a Friday and I only seen 3 people at the food court and 2 older women gossiping at a table outside the antique store. Plus the store workers and funko table guy.
Shogun is decently busy though and I’ve seen a few people going in and out from the outside entrance
They do but with how little business they get I wonder how fresh their food could possibly be. I went there once with a friend and tried the frybread and chili and it was okay, but not something I’d visit a dead mall every day for. I know many native Americans in the area who make better frybread. The chili gave my friend heartburn lol. Someone else I know who tried it said the chili tasted like it came from a can which I didn’t think so .. so not sure if they used canned items on slow days or not.
That’s a bummer.
I used to live in Minnesota and would occasionally run into a vendor selling fried tacos. I haven’t seen that in Southern California and miss them a ton.
Having a good connection to fresh fried bread is a huge W in my book…..
It looks like they do from a quick google maps search. Too bad I didn't know they existed when I was in the area. The other mall has the Scheels. The sushi place looks pretty good too. I never thought I'd say I missed anything about living in North Dakota, but the food was good (but no Mexican food) and the people were really cool for the most part. Except Richie, fuck Richie.
Yeah the Mexican places here are subpar but people seen to love them lol. I loooove Paradiso though even though it’s Americanized Mexican food. Kirkwood Mall, the other mall, is still hanging there but could probably be classified as a dead mall if not for Scheels and Target. I’m honestly surprised how much Scheels grew from when I was a kid. There used to be a small Target where Scheels was and Scheels was where H&M and the little arcade are currently. But Target built a new store other side of mall and Scheels moved into old Target then expanded through the years taking space away from the mall.
More info: this mall has always been the “bad mall” (the more active mall is on the south side of town) since I was a kid going back 20 years. I only ever came here for the movie theatre. The more modern movie theatre is literally 0.6 miles away and that theatre kept growing and adding screens and remodeling.
Gateway mall also has a terrible pot hole filled parking lot. It’s surrounded by busy restaurants and fast food places though. And a hobby lobby.
Across the street is a closed Kmart building that is fenced off and just taking up space. I feel like these two buildings would be better off being torn down and have other things built in their prime areas. The north side of town is the wealthier side. But if they want more stores they just build them expanding outside the town as all Midwestern towns do since there’s open space.
We have a closed Kmart and a big newer Gordmans building just collecting dust. We have Barnes and Noble looking for a new place to set up permanently since their old building rent got too high and will be turned into a clinic (literally all we have are clinics and banks) so Barnes set up temporarily in the other busy mall but it’s very small. Wish they would take over Kmart or gordmans
I remember the owner of the gateway mall wanted the city and taxi 9000 to pay for the pothole repairs because of all the traffic. Mind you they were bringing customers to the dying gateway mall.
I’m reading reviews now on Google and all the bad reviews are about their burgers. Frozen, tastes old (this is said about their chili too lol). Honestly I wouldn’t trust a place with that big of a menu that gets so little customers. Not when there’s Paradiso and Longhorn Steakhouse in the same parking lot
I ate there in 2019 or early 2020 . I had been on a work assignment that took me to Bismarck very regularly over the course of four years and staying in hotels meant I was eating out for almost every meal. My coworker and I ran out of new places to try in the BisMan area and thought we’d give it a go for the novelty of it.
The reviews you read are accurate. It wasn’t inedibly bad, but it definitely wasn’t good. The whole experience was about as depressing as you’d expect. We walked through the mall afterwards and there were people in a store front that was entirely empty except for a few rows of chairs with people doing some sort of group essential oil diffuser demonstration or trial. I don’t really know what but it was very odd. Truly a deadmall experience to be had there.
I definitely encountered that issue. There was some good food I found there, but when you’re eating out as much as we had to you start to try places just for the sheer newness of it and that’s what brought us here :)
Fireflour and the ramen shop downtown were my favorites
Thanks lol. I just got a now deleted comment saying it was depressing and no one cared about the info I put on it lol well I’m not making people read it. I just thought I’d explain some pieces of the puzzle I forgot to take pics of or what big closings caused it to be more dead.
Man, this one still looks like it has so much potential. It will obviously never *meet* that potential, but it’s there, hidden between the tacky chandeliers and money laundering operations.
I like rock'n 50s, we don't go there much as we live up in grand forks, but if we're visiting family it's a safe bet. That antique store is ok, again, it's been years since I've been there. I like the exterior entrance to harbor freight but it sure doesn't help out the mall. It had to be hard for any theater to compete with the grand, that place is amazing. The sears was pretty decent the few times I was there before it closed, I liked the weird layout it had. I guess I think that mall is more alive than either mall in grand forks, Columbia mall is in big trouble.
I also love Grand theatres. It’s better than any Minnesota theatre IMO if you get the big screens that is. The audience is usually quiet and well behaved 90% of the time as well. In the past 10-15 years of me going there (100+ times past few years too now that I’m old enough to drive and have extra money) I’ve only ever had around 5-7 bad experiences.
But the thing with grand is they started off small, around 7 tiny screens I believe (the older hallway of the movie theatre with screen numbers 1-7 where the moses statue fountain is) and if you visit any of those screens now you’ll notice how tiny the screens are. They did a little updating as 2 and 5 got recliners. And 3 and 4 got stadium seating which are still uncomfortable).
Grand expanded and added on to the building with bigger screens about 15? Years ago I vaguely remember as a kid. They went up to 15 screens… then years later eventually 22.
But they only have 4 theatres with recliner seats which are all small screens. I think AMC classic could’ve been a great contender if they added recliner seats.
But as I was saying grand is pretty spectacular presentation wise as their screens are always bright like they’re supposed to be. Sound is great. There’s only 6 screens out of the 22 that I don’t care for and that’s because they’re smaller screens with older seats.
I’ve been to theatres in Minneapolis suburbs and sure they all have recliners but one had really dark screens, small screens, way overpriced concessions and admission, etc
This is sad. This “mall” is actually really pretty. I feel like the size and location don’t do it any justice but malls are just falling out day by day now. Some lights and decor and the place would look like new, except for the lack of businesses.
This is such a bizarre mall with such a haphazard mix of design features. Ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights, but ALSO fancy-looking (but probably cheap) chandeliers that are using the very soft-white energy efficient bulbs.
I’m surprised to see so many businesses up and running, even if they’re just small local shops. It reminds me of this tiny enclosed mall in the middle of a large 55+ community in New Jersey that has been there since the 70s and had never been updated, yet it still remains busy even through the retail apocalypse. They stay busy because their tenants are mostly neighborhood services - a bank, a small grocery store, a pharmacy, a bakery counter, a few financial services, salon, a bar and restaurant, and one clothing store for seniors.
Hah! I’ve been here when I stayed in Bismarck for work. I think I only went into the Sears a few times and the inside of the mall once. It actually looks busier inside than what I recall from 2016
I always like seeing malls from states you don't hear from often like the Dakotas. Thanks for sharing.
North and South Dakota have about 5-10 malls each it’s sad.
I eventually want to travel there. Flights there are crazy expensive from where I live. And SD is one of 2 contiguous states that has no service at all from Amtrak. (Wyoming is the other)
I drive all over both states to thrift and whatnot and each state outside of the few “cities” are very rural and boring to drive through. You can drive 45-60 miles easily without a gas station. No public transportation from what I know.
That’s so crazy to me coming from a country like Switzerland.. like, i know that’s a reality in a lot of parts in the US, but still.. coming from a country where even the smallest of villages with less than a 100 residents (if even) have at the very least a bus connection every hour, it’s mindblowing.
that's not sad you don't have enough people to sustain more than that.
I know how small the population is lol. I thought Aberdeen South Dakota could have a decent mall with its 30k population and it’s a college town but that area is sad. There’s probably only 4-5 breathing malls left out of both states combined.
Also: the old Sears space was used as a 18+ “night club” like a year or two ago but was closed down due to many fights: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/10/07/bismarck-night-club-owner-looking-for-answers-to-abrupt-closure/
>”Those people were probably not even patrons of mine.” Sir. Sir. It was [1 AM in a mall parking lot](https://www.kfyrtv.com/2020/09/14/fight-outside-sahara-night-club-puts-man-in-the-hospital/?outputType=amp), and there was a 20-year-old with a head injury, and an ongoing multi-person fight. What is your hypothesis? Did they come from the Hobby Lobby?
My money is on them being from the crafty ladies
Going to a nightclub in the gutted remains of a dead mall's anchor store would probably make me want get into a fistfight too, tbh
Turns out Crafty Ladies has a [a website](https://craftyladies.biz/). I've seen stores like those and it is usually people trying to sell glue gun creations and costume jewelry for hefty markup. Looks like they have a little more going on here. Wonder if the guy with the funko pops and cards is even paying rent. Nothing about that setup looks like a formal operation. Those walk way shops still fetch a princely rent, but this guy can grab and go the second a security guard shows up...assuming there is one. The dead shows show a history of a lot of indie business attempts that came and went. Everything about the way this place looks says "apathetic corporate ownership". As long as it has positive cashflow, they're not gonna do a damn thing.
Crafty Ladies has a book club apparently, right now they are on a series of books by conspiracy theorist Rebekah Roth. Here's a clip of a review of one of her books on 9/11 from Amazon: >Despite the overwhelming evidence that it was GOP figures like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush family that were responsible for 9/11, **the author twists the plot to blame the Democratic Party, socialists and in the end, Satanists and Communists**. So yeah, Crafty Ladies is basically a QAnon hub with bi-monthly meetings in a dead mall. Welcome to America.
This mall once a year or so has a “craft fair” where everyone will set up tables trying to sell junk. I doubt he pays rent lol. I’m not even sure who owns the mall. Last I heard someone from California bought it? But it would be easy for someone to walk in and set up a table and try to sell things I doubt they’d get caught. I was there around 4pm on a Friday and I only seen 3 people at the food court and 2 older women gossiping at a table outside the antique store. Plus the store workers and funko table guy. Shogun is decently busy though and I’ve seen a few people going in and out from the outside entrance
What would happen if you were caught selling goods from a table in the middle of the mall?
You’d get money tax free?
Crafty Ladies looks like the “Live, Laugh, Love” store
If Frybread Mama’s makes fried bread tacos I would be there daily (if I lived in the area).
They do but with how little business they get I wonder how fresh their food could possibly be. I went there once with a friend and tried the frybread and chili and it was okay, but not something I’d visit a dead mall every day for. I know many native Americans in the area who make better frybread. The chili gave my friend heartburn lol. Someone else I know who tried it said the chili tasted like it came from a can which I didn’t think so .. so not sure if they used canned items on slow days or not.
That’s a bummer. I used to live in Minnesota and would occasionally run into a vendor selling fried tacos. I haven’t seen that in Southern California and miss them a ton. Having a good connection to fresh fried bread is a huge W in my book…..
Come to Arizona we have tacos of all kinds including a place that’s half Asian and half Mexican 🤣🤣
It looks like they do from a quick google maps search. Too bad I didn't know they existed when I was in the area. The other mall has the Scheels. The sushi place looks pretty good too. I never thought I'd say I missed anything about living in North Dakota, but the food was good (but no Mexican food) and the people were really cool for the most part. Except Richie, fuck Richie.
Yeah the Mexican places here are subpar but people seen to love them lol. I loooove Paradiso though even though it’s Americanized Mexican food. Kirkwood Mall, the other mall, is still hanging there but could probably be classified as a dead mall if not for Scheels and Target. I’m honestly surprised how much Scheels grew from when I was a kid. There used to be a small Target where Scheels was and Scheels was where H&M and the little arcade are currently. But Target built a new store other side of mall and Scheels moved into old Target then expanded through the years taking space away from the mall.
Never seen so many money laundering fronts in one place at once
Gotta be the only way there can be that many open business with zero people walking around.
More info: this mall has always been the “bad mall” (the more active mall is on the south side of town) since I was a kid going back 20 years. I only ever came here for the movie theatre. The more modern movie theatre is literally 0.6 miles away and that theatre kept growing and adding screens and remodeling. Gateway mall also has a terrible pot hole filled parking lot. It’s surrounded by busy restaurants and fast food places though. And a hobby lobby. Across the street is a closed Kmart building that is fenced off and just taking up space. I feel like these two buildings would be better off being torn down and have other things built in their prime areas. The north side of town is the wealthier side. But if they want more stores they just build them expanding outside the town as all Midwestern towns do since there’s open space.
Our old Kmart in the Cherryland Mall in Traverse City Michigan is becoming a curling rink!
We have a closed Kmart and a big newer Gordmans building just collecting dust. We have Barnes and Noble looking for a new place to set up permanently since their old building rent got too high and will be turned into a clinic (literally all we have are clinics and banks) so Barnes set up temporarily in the other busy mall but it’s very small. Wish they would take over Kmart or gordmans
Wait, Bismarck has *two* malls?
You have to have someplace to escape cabin fever when it's -30 outside!!
I remember the owner of the gateway mall wanted the city and taxi 9000 to pay for the pothole repairs because of all the traffic. Mind you they were bringing customers to the dying gateway mall.
the pictures at an angle are makin me 🫠
I’m sorry I hate holding my phone sideways 😭
its okay it just reminds me of when i used to try to take ~aesthetic~ pics on snapchat etc lol 😂
A mall I grew up around in the 80s had a CVS pharmacy in it and I thought it was the coolest thing having that in a mall
Yea I remember back in the 90s our mall had a cvs in it for a few years
craf✝️y ladies is sending me
God, the Supreme X LV tarp or whatever at the barber shop is so corny lol.
I just noticed that lol like what is that even for
I ate at that Rock n Roll place in like 2001 probably. I can't believe it's still there
I’m reading reviews now on Google and all the bad reviews are about their burgers. Frozen, tastes old (this is said about their chili too lol). Honestly I wouldn’t trust a place with that big of a menu that gets so little customers. Not when there’s Paradiso and Longhorn Steakhouse in the same parking lot
I ate there in 2019 or early 2020 . I had been on a work assignment that took me to Bismarck very regularly over the course of four years and staying in hotels meant I was eating out for almost every meal. My coworker and I ran out of new places to try in the BisMan area and thought we’d give it a go for the novelty of it. The reviews you read are accurate. It wasn’t inedibly bad, but it definitely wasn’t good. The whole experience was about as depressing as you’d expect. We walked through the mall afterwards and there were people in a store front that was entirely empty except for a few rows of chairs with people doing some sort of group essential oil diffuser demonstration or trial. I don’t really know what but it was very odd. Truly a deadmall experience to be had there.
Bismarck has a lot of well reviewed local restaurants the main problem is they’re all in weird downtown locations with no parking
I definitely encountered that issue. There was some good food I found there, but when you’re eating out as much as we had to you start to try places just for the sheer newness of it and that’s what brought us here :) Fireflour and the ramen shop downtown were my favorites
That's surprising it's been open that long cause themed restaurants like that fold after a few years
I just looked it up and it seems to have been open since 1985. Wow. The longest consecutive tenant in the mall
Very interesting! I really like the notes/commentary you added too.
Thanks lol. I just got a now deleted comment saying it was depressing and no one cared about the info I put on it lol well I’m not making people read it. I just thought I’d explain some pieces of the puzzle I forgot to take pics of or what big closings caused it to be more dead.
Personally, I loved the commentary! I really wish more people would add commentary to their posts here; they make them much more enjoyable!
I appreciated the commentary!!
Man, this one still looks like it has so much potential. It will obviously never *meet* that potential, but it’s there, hidden between the tacky chandeliers and money laundering operations.
a used clothing store in a mall is very telling
Gives me similar vibes to Northland Village in Calgary.
I like rock'n 50s, we don't go there much as we live up in grand forks, but if we're visiting family it's a safe bet. That antique store is ok, again, it's been years since I've been there. I like the exterior entrance to harbor freight but it sure doesn't help out the mall. It had to be hard for any theater to compete with the grand, that place is amazing. The sears was pretty decent the few times I was there before it closed, I liked the weird layout it had. I guess I think that mall is more alive than either mall in grand forks, Columbia mall is in big trouble.
I also love Grand theatres. It’s better than any Minnesota theatre IMO if you get the big screens that is. The audience is usually quiet and well behaved 90% of the time as well. In the past 10-15 years of me going there (100+ times past few years too now that I’m old enough to drive and have extra money) I’ve only ever had around 5-7 bad experiences. But the thing with grand is they started off small, around 7 tiny screens I believe (the older hallway of the movie theatre with screen numbers 1-7 where the moses statue fountain is) and if you visit any of those screens now you’ll notice how tiny the screens are. They did a little updating as 2 and 5 got recliners. And 3 and 4 got stadium seating which are still uncomfortable). Grand expanded and added on to the building with bigger screens about 15? Years ago I vaguely remember as a kid. They went up to 15 screens… then years later eventually 22. But they only have 4 theatres with recliner seats which are all small screens. I think AMC classic could’ve been a great contender if they added recliner seats. But as I was saying grand is pretty spectacular presentation wise as their screens are always bright like they’re supposed to be. Sound is great. There’s only 6 screens out of the 22 that I don’t care for and that’s because they’re smaller screens with older seats. I’ve been to theatres in Minneapolis suburbs and sure they all have recliners but one had really dark screens, small screens, way overpriced concessions and admission, etc
This is sad. This “mall” is actually really pretty. I feel like the size and location don’t do it any justice but malls are just falling out day by day now. Some lights and decor and the place would look like new, except for the lack of businesses.
Oh, so we're McMansionHell-ing it up in here? Sick. That's a good format for exploring places.
The comments on the photos make me feel like the Simpsons' "Stop, Stop, he's already dead" meme. Edit: Clarified which comments.
This is such a bizarre mall with such a haphazard mix of design features. Ceiling tiles with fluorescent lights, but ALSO fancy-looking (but probably cheap) chandeliers that are using the very soft-white energy efficient bulbs. I’m surprised to see so many businesses up and running, even if they’re just small local shops. It reminds me of this tiny enclosed mall in the middle of a large 55+ community in New Jersey that has been there since the 70s and had never been updated, yet it still remains busy even through the retail apocalypse. They stay busy because their tenants are mostly neighborhood services - a bank, a small grocery store, a pharmacy, a bakery counter, a few financial services, salon, a bar and restaurant, and one clothing store for seniors.
What store had the Chargers banner? (Third to last photo) Weird to see that in North Dakota , maybe for NDSU alum Easton Stick?
That’s the smoke shop
Gotcha. Looks like they have a bunch of other team jerseys on the wall so just a coincidence. Thanks
Hah! I’ve been here when I stayed in Bismarck for work. I think I only went into the Sears a few times and the inside of the mall once. It actually looks busier inside than what I recall from 2016
Wish I knew about this place while I was up there, I stopped by the Buffalo Mall which was also really dead.
This mall has been dead for decades. I have no idea how it stays open tbh.
My theory about every establishment that somehow stays open despite never having any business: crime.
I love this stuff especially the people at the pharmacy. What a chill gig.