YAKIMA, Wash. -- Dick’s Sporting Goods is looking to expand in Washington, according to a story from The Seattle Times.

The Pittsburgh sporting goods chain will open its first store in Washington in Puyallup next spring in space that once was occupied by Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things, two retailers that went out of business in the last year.

There’s been chatter about Dick’s Sporting Goods being a potential tenant for the Valley Mall.  At this point, Valley Mall officials haven’t indicate

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Looks like Yakima is two weeks from getting a new restaurant.

Bob’s Burgers and Brew is scheduled to open Nov. 16, according to owner Jeff Roberts.

The restaurant has hired most of its staff and plans to start training next week.

As we mentioned before, the Yakima location will be the first one east of the Cascades for the Western Washington chain.

-- Mai Hoang

Reach blogger Mai Hoang at mhoang@yakimaherald.com or by commenting on this entry.
Too busy to read Shop Talk? Fol

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Previously, I wrote that the third Yakima area Walgreens was going to open sometime after the West Valley Walmart store.

Turns out “sometime” is this afternoon.

The store at 6400 W. Nob Hill Blvd. will be opening between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. today, a Walgreens spokeswoman said.

Once open, regular hours for the store are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Walgreens already has stores at Seventh and Yakima avenues and at the Westpark Shopping Center on 40th and Summitview avenues.

-- Mai Ho

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Sears and Kmart stores nationwide, are jumping on the holiday bandwagon early.
So early that you can shop for presents while you’re out getting candy for the kids. It’s starting “Black Friday” sales at all Sears stores on Halloween, a full month before the traditional sales that come the day after Thanksgiving.

This move isn’t that surprising considering that retailers seem prepared to offer different promotions to attract cash-strapped shoppe

Some local shoppers got a bit excited when CenterCal Properties  posted a site plan on its Web site that named tenants for vacant spaces at the Valley Mall.
Too bad it’s the wrong one.
When I reached Fred Bruning, president of the Portland-area CenterCal, about the site plan, he mentioned that the document was a working one and was completely inaccurate at this point. (They have since taken the site plan off the Web site.) 
Bruning, however, did give me some tidbits of interest:

• Forever 21 w

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Sometimes, getting insights on the retail world is as simple as keeping your ears open.

At the Sports Center, a waitress declared “I love the new Walmart.”  to the kitchen staff.

I later asked to the waitress about her statement and she explained that prior to the opening of the new store in West Valley, she would only go to the store in East Yakima to change the oil in her car.

But the wider aisles and selection at the new store sold her on Walmart.

There’s been plenty of di

UNION GAP, Wash. -- The good news is that I can provide, as promised, an update on the previous Costco store in Union Gap that’s been on the market for nearly two years.

Bad news is that there’s not much to update.

Bill Almon Sr. of Almon Commercial Real Estate said while there has been offers on the property, none of them have been accepted.

To keep things in perspective, it took Costco several years before company officials even decided where they were going to build a new store, fueling ru

A Portland blogger recently sang the praises of Burgerville, a well-known fast-food chain in Oregon and southwest Washington, for offering a receipt that contained extensive nutritional information, including calories, fat, fiber and carb content. It even determines how much of the daily required nutritional value the meal provides.

The detailed receipt, which has been offered for a few months, is offered through a company called Nutricate, which offers such receipts for foodservice operato

YAKIMA, Wash. -- I’m sure many of you have memories of playing with Barbie dolls.

Mine was cutting off the hair of mine and putting them into the tub and having them compete with each other in Olympic bathtub swimming.

These days Barbie has plenty of competition, as we learned from this story from The Wall Street Journal. The story provides a pretty interesting look at two other companies vying to steal glory from Mattel’s newest Barbie — the Fashionista.

It’s a great article about how dollma

If you drive by Target very often, you might notice that Bob’s Burgers and Brew is getting closer to opening. Owner Jeff Roberts is hoping to open its doors by mid-November.

Roberts is now in the next step in the process — finding 112 experienced cooks and wait staff. The restaurant will continue its search with a three-day job fair at WorkSource Yakima, 306 Division St.

The fair will continue tonight until 7 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. It will also run from 8