SAN JOSE — Fry’s Electronics announced Wednesday that is stopping all operations and closing its remaining 31 stores in nine states after 36 years.

It marks the end of a Bay Area institution, known for its massive themed-stores in which one could get lost while on a mission to buy the latest gadget or computer. Fry’s opened its first store in Sunnyvale in 1985. The company said its decision to shut down shop was fueled by the economic woes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

And while more recent memories of Fry’s entail empty shelves and few employees, some former Fry’s fans indulged in nostalgia as the news broke Wednesday, thinking back to the time when Fry’s reigned supreme. “This is so sad,” one Facebook user commented on The Mercury News Facebook page. “It doesn’t feel like it was very long ago that Fry’s was the coolest store in town.”

Here’s what some had to say:

“I can remember going there and having so much fun just wandering around the store and looking at all of the cool stuff. Even now, any time I need any type of electronic item or small appliance, it’s the first place I go. Not everyone is enamored with online shopping, and some of us prefer to go into a store and be able to look at things and compare prices and take the item home then and there, rather than dealing with shipping costs or paying extra for special Prime memberships, etc. Just give me a store with several choices so I can go in and compare quality and prices and make my choice. There are fewer and fewer stores like that left. I hate being relegated to places like Target for everything. Fry’s served a certain niche market, and now it’s going away.” — Sandy Erickson

“A very long slow painful death. It was like a ghost town with so many empty shelves for years now. I remember back when it was a booming store and had so many offerings. My kids loved the science kit section. Sad to see it go down like that, they should have closed long ago.” — Ellie Lobel

“I would get the Friday Mercury News just to check the Fry’s ads. They had some great buys.” — David Katz

“I used to love that big Tesla coil in the Fremont store.” — Tony Woodward

PHOTOS: See all the Bay Area’s themed Fry’s stores

“THE place to go back in the early days of personal computers and other electronics…..Silicon Valley icons for sure.” — Rick Hobbs

“My first PC came from Fry’s. I fell in love with tech spending hours wandering those aisles. It was my happy place.” — Nancy Parker

People also took to Twitter to reminisce.

“I used to walk around the stores for hours.”

“It was nerd Disneyland.”

“The craziest place I’ve ever bought an HDMI cable from.”

But not all memories shared online Wednesday were sweet.

A person who says they used to work at Fry’s commented on our Facebook post about scary moments he witnessed while on shift.

“I also remembered when I worked at the Sunnyvale location, how loss prevention (LP) detains shoplifters by chasing, tackling & then arresting them outside the store. It was a gruesome episode to see while on your shift! I witnessed that while I was in the returns counter; the LP office was immediately a secret office in that vicinity in the front of the store.” — Brian Tamayo

And at least two former costumers won’t shed a tear.

“Oh how I’ll miss their customer service…dripping with sarcasm.” — Steve Anthony

“It truly was the store we hated to shop at …. but we did.” — Stan Sieler