The Barrel is a homey pizza restaurant located at 224 Garrison Road in Fort Erie, Ontario. Family owned, this is a retro unrenovated throwback to 1980s pizza restaurants.
Good food and service. Recommended.
The Barrel Restaurant
High Lunch Restaurant
A very old school lunch counter located at 533 Dundas Street in London, Ontario.
Family run, the kids say their mom keeps it going to remain active.
It used to be 24 hours, a place where cab drivers and reporters from the nearby London Free Press would hang out. Now that both are gone the clientele seems to be mostly long time regulars. Despite being next to Beal High School, it apparently attracts very few students.
Cool atmosphere. Good food. Not expensive. Cash only.
Visited April 28, 2023.
Pizza Hut, Ogdensburg
Some places are bringing back retro Pizza Huts. But in other places, they never left.
Old school 80s style Pizza Hut still going strong at 1010 Paterson Street, Ogdensburg, New York.
Visited January 20, 2023.
Tower Center Mall & Mammoth Department Store
The Tower Center Mall is located at 22120 Grand River Ave in Detroit, Michigan.
The Mammoth Department Store — about 145,000 square feet in size — is located across the street at 14300 Greenfield Road, and is connected by a walkway crossing Grand River Ave.
Or was… the Mammoth store was torn down after a quarter century of neglect in August 2025. I wish I had known its time was finally coming to an end – I would have taken much better pictures.
The Tower Centre Mall currently contains a large Forman Mills department store — something better than dollar store but worse than a K-Mart — and several low end clothing and beauty shops.
In better times – until the 1970s and 1980s – the Tower Centre had held a Montgomery Ward, and the Mammoth building had been a Federal Department Store.
Visited April 3, 2022.
Bighorn Casino
Sister to the Longhorn Casino on the other side of town, the Bighorn used to be virtually identical.
Similar vibe, similar restaurant, same dirty atmosphere, and same great $1 blackjack.
Like at the Longhorn, the tables are gone.
But it has begun to go its own direction in other ways. While the Longhorn is a casino for down on their luck whites, the Bighorn is clearly targeting working class Hispanics. (The blaring Latin music will be your first sign.)
And it seems to be working. The place is busier than I’ve ever seen it in the past.
Visited November 26, 2021. Unless I need to pull a slot machine handle while developing black lung, I may not be back.
St. Lawrence Centre
The St. Lawrence Centre mall in Massena NY. You’ll notice that it uses the Canadian spelling of “center” despite being on the southern side of the border.
Once a bustling mall, it is now largely dead. Book stores, department stores, shoe stores, sporting goods stores, electronics stores, music stores, all gone. Wendy’s gone. Burger King gone. The skating rink closed. Most of the stores in the directory gone. JC Penny is the only major retailer left.
These photos taken December 17, 2021.
Longhorn Casino
The Longhorn used to be a real dive with a great Blackjack table – $1 minimums and weird loose rules.
Split aces until you run out of cash? Sure! Double after splitting? Sure! Win a six pack of Mountain Dew if you get a suited 21? Sure!
No more! The table games have been ripped out to make room for more slot machines.
Still busy, and still an interesting crowd. Incredibly smelly and smoky.
Has a good, cheap restaurant.
Visited August 27, 2021.
Wildfire Boulder Casino
Clean and modern interior. Small sports book and a decent restaurant.
On the Boulder Highway, just past Henderson.
No table games. Apparently removed at the start of COVID, never to return.
Not a bad place to take a break on your way back from the Hoover Dam, but not remarkable and no reason to seek it out.
Visited November 28, 2021.
Jokers Wild Casino
The sign says: Dancing. Roulette. Craps. Blackjack.
This casino has none of those things.
Apparently once home to $1 craps and $3 blackjack, the tables are long gone. Removed at the start of COVID , they have never come back.
This place is now just a mid-sized, empty, kinda run down slots hall. It claims to have a full restaurant and a snack counter still operating, but both were closed at 6pm on a Friday when I visited.
Not recommended. There are better places nearby.
Stopped by on November 26, 2021.
Points! Casino
Made a visit to Points! on November 28, 2021.
Located in Henderson, on the Boulder highway.
Large, dumpy room. Strong smell of smoke.
No table games.
Modest selection of uninteresting slots. One decent Wheel of Fortune variation. Spaced far apart. Zero energy.
Don’t recommend unless you are really, really desperate to press a slot machine button.