Bargain Harold’s ghost letters

People of a certain age will remember Bargain Harold’s department stores, which went bankrupt in 1991. More than twenty years later, the name still appears on the façade of the West Rouge Plaza at the corner of Island Road and Friendship Avenue (no kidding) in Scarborough:

Bargain Harold's ghost letters

I didn’t have a Bargain Harold’s in my neighbourhood when I was growing up, but we did have Kresge and Woolworth, along with Bi-Way and Consumers Distributing not too far away. Zellers arrived later, replacing the local Eaton’s. Here are some random discoveries you make on the first page of a Google search for “Bargain Harold’s”: the founder, Harold Kamin, died two years ago; the Urban Dictionary says that a Bargain Harold is, well, pretty similar to every other definition in the Urban Dictionary; and this commercial:

2 Replies to “Bargain Harold’s ghost letters”

  1. I am surprised there isn’t more Bargain Harolds content online.. I remember going to our neighbourhood ‘harolds’ all the time as a kid and loving it. As a kid, I recall having brown paper lunch bags that had harold’s face on them, right up there with worst/best logos

  2. Before “Bargain Harolds” took over the lease (of the west-end space of West Rouge Plaza), it used to be a grocery store (like Loblaws, but not as nice). Would you, or anybody reading this, remember it’s name?

Leave a Reply to Bill Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *