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Comment by maguay | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: The Asian arm of Toys 'R' Us never shut down, and while it's far from the most popular retailer (and, IMHO, broadly overpriced), it's maintained a retail presence in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and more.

There's an interesting tradition of dead American brands getting a second life in Asia. Swenson's, Sizzler, Dean & Deluca, and Mr. Donut in Southeast Asia, Tower Records and Kinko's in Japan, even 7-11's outsized popularity in Asia versus its more moderate presence in the States. Yahoo! Japan almost counts as well.

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I'm pretty sure 7-11 is actually owned by a Japanese company these days.

According to the wiki, it's been majority Japanese owned since 1991. The North American stores rely too heavily on terrible stuff tho

There's been talk of a bit of a retooling to make the American stores more Japanese, but I haven't lived in a 7-11 region for a while. (Though I thought they'd bought out one of the chains locally and were going to rebrand them, it hasn't happened)

https://www.businessinsider.com/7-eleven-japan-convenience-s...

That it is, though recently with a Canadian company trying to acquire a controlling interest.

Sizzler is still around in the US, and emerged from bankruptcy in 2023.

I thought they were down to a single branch; TIL!

Toy's R Us 'R' still in most the big malls in South Africa. Was dragged around just the other day. Haven't changed much since the 80s/90s

interestingly, 7-11 is doing quite well in Texas, where it operates under the brand Stripes. They also have kitchens in some called “Laredo Taco” that sell primarily Mexican food and are quite beloved, esp. by blue collar workers

This isn't entirely true. 7-11 bought and maintained the Stripes brand, but they still operate 7-11 branded stores in Texas.

7-11 has ~12k locations in the US so it's not exactly dead?

No, absolutely, just the concentration in Asia generally and Thailand/Japan specifically makes it a far bigger deal. That was a bad example to include versus Toys R Us.

> 7-11's outsized popularity in Asia versus its more moderate presence in the States.

I just got back from a two-week-long trip in Japan. When I was there I ate 7-11 (or Family Mart) every single day - the Japanese konbini blow their US equivalents out of the water. I live a block away from a 7-11 in California and now have zero desire to ever set foot in it again (the only real casualty being the Jalapeno Cream Cheese taquitos which pale in comparison to onigiri and "juice box" sake). I'd like to think that if US locations were stocked similarly to their Japanese counterparts that they'd have greater success but this is a country where people turn their noses up at vegetables on cheeseburgers... I'm not holding my breath.

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