There used to be a whole strip of stores on Glen Avenue that I used to frequent quite often. At the end was Bogard’s Drug Store (which was the first place I tried to sell the Idiot Trivia game, that story is here), Suburban Liquors, which was famous for selling anyone booze who looked over 12-years-old and Phone-A-Feast chicken, which had great chicken dinners to go. There was also a dry cleaners in there too, but I never went inside of that place as it didn’t sell drugs, beer or fried chicken—three staples of my life back then! Anyway, The School House took over this part of the strip in 1999 and kept expanding until they took most of it over in 2008. I’ve never been in there and thought we’d go check it out today.
Here’s the only image I could find online of what it used to look like. I sure bought a lot of underage booze at Suburban! My friend Bill Molleck used to work at Phone-A-Feast and he told me yesterday that the coaches at Bergan called the place, “Subergan,” because of the amount of Berganites buying beer and other booze there. That’s too funny and thanks to Bill for sharing that!
Here's the building today taken at the same angle as the photo above. As you can see, it now sells school supplies instead of booze.
Here's a shot of the entire store, looks like they have quite an inventory in there, probably the biggest school supply store in town!
They are open, but this is not the entrance and I do have a little problem here, is the exclamation point really necessary on this sign? It's almost like it's yelling at you. I'm sure the owners don't mean it to be that way, but it certainly bothers me. Let me show you the difference...
Okay, through the magic of Photoshop I've changed the sign and isn't this much more inviting? Just a note to throw out there that random uses of the exclamation point can be a somewhat troubling thing...well, at least to me. Okay, enough obsessing, let's just move along.
Here's the entrance in the back of the building and the store's hours. I find it refreshing that they're closed on Sunday's.
Wow, walking in it kind of looks the same as walking in to the old Bogard's Drug Store. Deja vu!
Wow, it's bigger in here than I remembered!
Here's the owners of The School House, Phil and Sue. They're really nice people and nice to see that this is a locally owned business with the actual owners ringing up the items behind the counter. Now I feel bad about ragging on about the exclamation point on the sign...okay, not really, but at least I tried! Phil and Sue told me that I was more than welcome to tour the store and take some photos, so let's go take a look around in here.
Here's a shot from the back of the store, I like that dinosaur hanging from the ceiling.
As you can see, the shelves are loaded with colorful inventory in here!
The perfect t-shirt for an alphabet challenged child.
At first I thought that said, "Waterboard" and thought the C.I.A. was producing torture items for school!
Here's an item for the child longing to become a compulsive gambler when he grows up!
We know all about colorful words here at MBIP!
I love this, it's a science quiz and drug test all rolled up in one handy dandy package!
˙Here's Snoopy flying high near the ceiling, I hope he's got some bug spray in that plane because...
This guy is hanging out nearby!
As if this section of the store wasn't big enough, there's another section through this doorway over here.
More shelves fully stocked over here.
I really should get one of these in case I can't get out one of these last weeks of the MBIP Year of Pizza tour!
Wow, this is close to copyright infringement from Apple, hopefully Steve Jobs won't see this...oh wait, he's dead. Never mind.
I love stamp set and they have a large selection in here.
This skeleton one is cool, I think I'll get it for a friend of mine.
Sue rings it up...
And it's all mine! Tune in tomorrow to see who's going to get this as a special surprise!
Goodbye! We'll see you all tomorrow!
The School House
2301 W. Glen Ave.
Peoria
309-683-1044
facecrack page
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