Man A decent hobby shop recently opened its doors near me! Its probably the best one I have ever been in, IMO. No train crap, no nitro crap, but just about every part I could hope to find for my parkzone planes and blade heli's, plus lots of traxxas and losi stuff, plus align heli's and parts. I guess you could almost just call it a horizon hobby store with a few extra popular brands thrown in..... best of all its all highly organized and easy to find stuff, all the stuff I bought for my heli's and the tail for my p-51 were all the same price as on horizon.com. And the hours aren't stupid like most of the hobby shops around here. (there is one around here that is open only till 5 on weekdays and closed saturday, don't know if its still open, but that's just silly, I tried to visit it, but it was always closed when I was off work) Anyway, the people are helpful and friendly. Finally someone gets it, sell parts for the popular stuff, and reasonable prices, and help people when they come in. They even have hyperion batteries (at reasonable prices)

If anyone is in the salt lake city area and curious, its called vortex hobbies, in the shopping center on the South West corner of redwood and 90th south. I highly recommend them, hope this one stays open!!

On a somewhat brighter side, a hobby shop from about 25 miles away in a larger city moved to another much smaller city in our county, only about 9 iles away. Opened in a kind of hole-in-the-wall location in a fairly new strip mall complex. After two years, he was smart enough to modify his inventory to try to meet his customers' need, not necessarily their demands. This let him expand into the unit next door, more than doubling his floor space. He has also added 3 employees. Just thought people might want to hear some good news for a change.
Of course, a lot of his business is still RC Cars, and he even got a plot of land next door as an outdoor dirt road track. Even put up an elevated stand and some bleachers.
Guess sometimes you have to take the bad with the good. He's starting to increase inventory in planes, helicopters, trains, and even a few non-plastic boats/ships.
I definitely miss one HS we had back in my high school and early post Air Force married days. The citiy's fire chief and his wife ran it. Specialized in CL and RC aircraft, with some HO trains and power model boats. Made it a point to keep up with the latest trends. He built, flew, operated something from all the product areas he sold. He was always willing to help young people starting out. He flew FF, CL, and RC. Started the shop in a small nook in his house, expanded twice in roughly thirty years. And to make him even more of an asset to RC modelers, he had an FCC 2nd class radiotelephone ticket that let him do repair and tuning on transmitters back during the transition era from tubes to transistors.
Don't think there are too many like him nowadays.

It is a shame about the LHSs. I have one here that is real close and does get into some planes and helis. But one thing they don't do is try to stay up on the new things in the hobby. Sometimes when I go there they just look at my funny, well maybe I'm just funny looking. But even when I try to give them my business they just don't seem interested. And it takes them weeks sometimes to get what you need.
This hobby seems to be driven by new technology and if your not on top of it, we'll then people are going to look somewhere else.
The same thing happened with speed shops in my area. At first they couldn't compare to the prices offered by the mail order companies. Then when the suppliers started to work with them so they could be competitive, it was to late, everyone had moved on.
The fact that there are forums like these even contribute some to the LHS demise. The Hobby shop or your local club, which usually had something to do with the LHS was were you had to go for info. Now we want everything right now. Go in a forum, get the info you need, go to eBay of an online dealer and the part is on the way and to your house before the weekend.
It's a shame they are disappearing , but how can they even try to keep up.

Another one gone in Woodinville, WA. I used to go there a few times a month, and bought probably $50 a month on average. I was disappointed he never gave a discount, I guess I now see why he never did.

What bothered me was being out of stock on things I needed. It was a small hobby shop though with 10% dedicated to Align. Most of the area was for cars, then E-Flite foamys and Blade helis. I'm not usually interested in that.

He really couldn't carry all the stuff I wanted, but it was nice to have a LHS that carried Align heli stuff, so I bought there what I could install that night for flying on Sunday. Some servos and gyros etc. I would have bought Align heli kits from there, but I'm not going $200 farther in the hole vs a online seller.

I did it to myself, but I'll just order online more. There's a Hobbytown like a mile away from me, but they don't carry anything except Blade. The balsa, basswood, plywood, and spruce are not up to the usual levels compared to a few years ago. They dedicate a lot of space to plastic aircaft/tank/car models. Are there many people that even do that any more? Just curious.

I kind of miss the old days, where the nitro motors were placed atop the box that you bought and were in a glass case, and there was like 50-60 balsa kits to choose from. That was kind of past my time, I just remember it as a kid. .020 .049, .10 (powerful!), but hard to procure and I have no interest in reviving one from EBay.

I've purchased thousands of $ of motors, ESCs, airframes, but have nostalgia for the period before the changeover. Simpler times.

I have to program and tweak 3 axis gyros for helis now, and really don't miss the past.

If you want discounts, then you probably need to be buying about $200/mth

How many people could do that $200/month? At the local Hobbytown, it's $5 off your $100 or $200 cumulative or something. The LHS is dying.

I have no problem with online, but am embarrassed at work when I get 6-8 boxes/envelopes a month from hobby shop return addresses from the deepest reaches of China & all the stamps. Yeah, nerd (nolife) here.

Teh unintended consequences. You hobby purveyors should offer a 'Office - Printer/Computer' designation when filling out the slip. Also just include your address, no one needs to see XXtreme Hobbies for my 5x11x5 bearings, thanks.

Hobby stuff is pretty edgy.