Disappointed that there were atleast two in Richmond and I never saw the interesting one.

There was a Best right down the street and it was my favorite store as a kid to explore, but it was in a generic strip mall. Spent a lot of time there playing the Sega Genesis display.

neat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Best_Products#More_Histor...

> … An order was written up and turned into one of the service desks and sent to the warehouse in a plastic tube "shot" through a pneumatic line. The tube was opened by an order picker who read the catalog numbers on the order slip which told the picker where the merchandise was located in the warehouse. It was picked, the slip was attached to the product, it was sent down a roller belt where a carbon copy of the order slip was given to a cashier who paiged the shopper to the register. The transaction was completed and the customer took the receipt to the pick up area and received their product when they were ready to leave the store. Seems like alot of work, but the entire process was done in less than five minutes time. …

B&H photo has something like this too. When you want to buy something, they bring it up from the warehouse.

[1] https://www.core77.com/posts/81735/BnHs-Innovative-Overhead-...

We had stores like that in NL, the 'Kijkshop' concept, they went bust a while ago. Limited selection of marginal quality goods. But no shoplifting and no broken stuff on display.

And there was pneumatic messaging ( buizenpost ) at retail shops ( I only remember C&A ).

Banks as well for money, and internal mail at many large companies.

Sadly the Prague pneumatic post system was damaged by the 2002 floods and hasn't been repaired since. Otherwise there's a chance that it still would have been operating on a city scale. That one could send money between banks.

Neat! London had a similar system.

There was a store with a similar concept in the Chicago area (and perhaps elsewhere) called Service Merchandise. I mostly remember playing with the music keyboards and typewriters they had on display, but I think maybe my parents bought some things there?

Not so great if you just wanted to buy something and get on with your day.