Jim McLauchlin published a story on July 3, 2023 that might be the best history of the brand that I’ve seen to date–including (especially) the brief history I put together when I first started putting some content up on this site.
Interviewing a couple of former employees of Shinders, some tidbits include:
- Every musician who played First Avenue went there. Jay Leno would talk about it on The Tonight Show
- The original Shinders Brothers had three locations–two bookending Hennepin Avenue on 6th & 7th, and a store in St. Paul
- Apparently they didn’t get along, and weren’t even the same company technically
- Joel Shinder bought out the three original brothers, merged them into a single corporate entity, and made the moves to the suburbs, starting in Edina
- The Edina location opened in 1976, taking over the location of a tobacconist that had a small news business
- He also hired Steve Kupetz, who was the driving force behind the growth
- The downtown location of Shinders I remember (although don’t think I ever visited) was actually on the corner of 8th & Hennepin–they moved there after the original block was targeted for demolition (now Block E, I believe) due to the reputation of the area
- By 1992, Shinders was the Topps Trading Card Company’s fourth-largest account–behind Walmart, Kmart and Target
A seriously great story for anyone who spent time at any of the Shinders locations–it also sparked an interview & segment on KFAN when Paul Charchian hosted, which led to the single biggest day of traffic this site has seen since I bought the domain, and sparked me to get the redesign started.
Joel Shinder seemed like a decent guy. Kupetz did not. Worked at a few stores in the mid 90s. Overall I enjoyed it.
Funny I found Joel to be the dumbest smart guy I have ever met…so fucking clueless about every aspect of the products his stores sold. But if you needed some help on your romantic languages or a brief history of the Romanaff late Cretaceous art reformation period he was your guy.
Steve Kupetz was the smartest dumb guy I have ever met and I consider him my all time role model ( his social skills were borderline serial killer ) BUT he knew his way around running that insane asylum.
Joel would be the first to admit that Shinders was 90 percent Steven J Kupetz. Let’s not forget 9 percent Jeff Pamone tho Leaving Joel a whole 1 percent contribution.
Why am I the only one making comments
Larry Tony Jim Parker Lasner Bill Joel Kupetz Burnsville Nancy burn victim Brad (Rich Neuhaser you never shut up when I knew you ) Scott Williamson knows where the bodies are buried Cmon guys let’s make this a daily thing
Shinders lives in all of our collective memories and is probably and sadly the peaks of our wretched existence