It was a pipe/cigar store but also sold all kinds of collectibles from plates to pewter pieces and other bric-a-brac.Īs I grew older and became an adult, I visited the mall with less frequency than that of a teenager and I watched the slow death of the Mall of Memphis throughout many years. One of my favorite specialty stores was called the Tinder Box. Shoppers hit not only the main anchor stores but a host of specialty stores as well. A live band was blowing out tunes from Chelsea Street while close to one hundred skaters cut counter clockwise circles in the ice while being viewed from all angles.
So many things were going on simultaneously at the Mall of Memphis and that's what made it so great. On a Friday or Saturday night, the mall was packed with a throng of patrons and kids. A tiny stage inside allowed for a small set up of live music and it was always packed! It was the best! I remember sneaking in with my girlfriend when we were far too young to do so just to hear the bands. The bar that inhabited that space was called Chelsea Street Pub.
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Instead of a wall, the builders put in 10'-12' high plexi-glass windows so that even the bar patrons could look out upon the rink. Instead of butting the rink up against a wall, the designers decided to build a bar/restaurant at the end and curve the wall of the restaurant to match the curved end of the ice rink. The west side was the area that you entered to skate. The north side was open to patrons walking the main east/west hallway of the mall. The east side was open to visitors coming though the main entrance.
See, most rinks have a dead wall at one end of them - just a high wall, usually with a scoreboard and a place to hang a banner or two. That, in and of itself, made the rink great and the Ice Chalet would have been far better than most rinks, but the designers took that extra step to take the rink to a whole new level, one that made it something special. Attached to the ceiling that hovered over the rink, seasonal, banners of enormous bolts of fabric were hung. Waist high rails surrounded the rink from above and hundreds of seats and tables encircled the area so that those eating from above could look down below onto the rink. The Mall of Memphis was a two-story mall and the designers placed the semi-circular food court upstairs and around the ice rink. Not only was it built by the main entrance to the mall so that any patron walking through the front doors would be forced to view the happy people gliding in graceful, and sometimes not so graceful, circles, but it had two other unique characteristics. Three major details made the Ice Chalet so incredible.įirst, the developers of the rink must have visited an aquarium prior to drawing their first design sketches because the beauty of the Ice Chalet was that it put its visitors within a ocularly joyous fish bowl. I've been to many cities over the years and the ice rinks I've seen have had no "style" to them. It was the crowning jewel of the entire mall for certain. Fields cookie shop for a peanut butter cookie and a cup of milk.Ī great deal of thought was put into the design of the ice rink. And, a trip to the mall wasn't complete without a stop by the Mrs. I spent my dollars buying collectibles like D&D modules and hobby items from a great store in the east end of the mall called Toys by Roy.
I remember "living" at the Ice Chalet and the Gold Mine arcade just across from it.
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Because of this, I'm glad to have the opportunity to post a few thoughts here.Īs a teenager who had not yet learned how to drive, the mall was a fantastic, sprawling, city of unique shops and major department stores. As odd as it may sound, the Mall of Memphis was important to me and meant something personal - as much as a mall can I suppose - indeed, I visited the mall so often and over the course of so many years that I feel that I kind of grew up within its retail-laden walls. My first trip to the Mall of Memphis came in the early 1980's - I am not sure of the exact year. Nathan Rye's Commentary: Posted Octo(user submitted)
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