I worked at Lerners for awhile in the mid 1970's. Soon after I got a job at Baldwins Jewlers. When thinking about the U, I know it was like that before they made it into a mall. The stores I'm remembering are The Gunny Sak. I bought my window pane jeans and a jacket to match there. The Chicken Pie Shop was there for a little while, and there was this wonderful candy shop which also had the best BBQ sandwiches. I can't remember the name of the place. Can anyone tell me what the name was? I also ate at Woolworths once in awhile. There was a mens store that sold upscale mens clothing, it was near the glass elevator. I wish I could remember the name. Berkleys also moved from the Fulton Mall to Manchester, my sister worked there for years. All these good memories, wow!

I remember Fashion Fair had a store called The Tinder Box which sold wave machines and lava lamps. Manchester used the have these awesome planters that I used to slide down. The Sears store also had a great candy counter where I'd get chocolate stars and my brother would get Swedish fish.

Of the two malls that were in Fresno at the time (80's), Manchester was by far my favorite. My grandma actually worked in the womens department at Liberty House (she did it purely for the discount and for something to do) so my mom would always take me in there to visit her if she was working. Dumb memory, but I remember that their employee break room had one of those old style refrigerated food vending machines where the whole inside was a carousel that you could turn by pressing buttons, and then when you put the money in you would slide the door open on whichever level your desired food was on. She used to always eat the microwave burritos out of that thing.

Anyway, my main memories of that place are the Kay-Bee Toys, Radio Shack, Waldenbooks, Longs Drugs, Sears, the arcade up on the second floor, and of course the awesome food court. I remember that at that time none of the restaurants in the food court were chains. I used to get the nachos from the Mexican place, but I also remember there being BBQ, Chinese, and Japanese food along with a few others.

I don't really like going to malls anymore because as a 38 year old guy there just isn't much there for me. I always think back to Manchester Center because there was such a variety of stores in there that there was something for everyone.

How about Mcdonalds dept. store in Fig Garden Village?

I remember going to Fashion Fair a lot in the middle 70's and to this day. I'll never forget one specific day in my Junior year of high school when my girlfriend and I decided to ditch school (we went to a christian school so this was no small doing!) and go to Fashion Fair and have lunch at the then sit down restaurant called Chauncey's (I believe it was). We got all dressed up, drove there, and was seated by the hostess. We are just given our menu's (which were very tall!) and we glanced over and low and behold to our horror was one of our classmates mom's with another friend of their's having lunch! We were busted big time if she saw us!! Well we did the "Lucy and Ethel" move by putting the menu's in front of our faces and backing out the restaurant as fast as we could and ran! To this day we never were caught and we have laughed about that day still to this day! Thank you to the admin(s) that run this site. I am doing some house-hold "chores" today and I have had a wonderful time reading the various boards and posts and seeing some wonderful pictures that let me remember how good life really was back then growing up. Please continue to grow the site if possible to continue the memories for others. Many thanks!

I remember there being a Toyland in the Clovis Rodeo Plaza mall in the late 70s early 80s. Bought a lot of game supplies and toys there. Don't remember one in either Fashion Fair or Manchester though. Glad to hear they had more to offer.

I know there was an Okie Frijoles in the Northgate at Blackstone and Barstow. Were there others?

Ooops! You're right! It was Perrys Smorgasbord. There did used to be an Okie Frijoles, but I can't remember where. (That's what old age will do to you. lol)

I remember Upstart Crow too. It was way ahead of it's time. It was the precursor really to what Starbucks became. I loved Upstart crow in Manchester. One of my favorite memories from college.

Actually Safeway was the last grocery tenant.