The Dillards Is Not What It Seems
…it’s a ‘Dillard’s Clearance.’
Our plans changed within two blocks of Phil picking me up.
“Dude, that’s my mall!”
I don’t remember exactly how we landed on the subject, but the moment that “Eastgate” was uttered—we both knew where we were headed.
It was the time of year where it’d really started getting dark early. A few weeks after “falling back,” when 6:43 on a Friday evening feels like 9:43 on a Tuesday night. Not quite cold, or even chilly, but it’s hard to appreciate 68 degrees with a t-shirt when there’d just been snow on the ground a few days before.
All that to say: a Midwestern suburb in the middle of November can be a dark place for two men in their mid-30s. Quite literally, not just nostalgically or metaphorically. And as we pulled into the expectedly, empty parking lot of the Eastgate Mall—we were treated to a foreboding, Twin Peaksian light show that would’ve made David Lynch proud.
This was the entrance we needed to use, though, because this was Phil’s entrance—the door he’d once habitually walked through during his childhood and adolescence. And for him, this was going to be a journey.
On the other hand—while I had grow up with, worked at, or documented all of the area’s other malls—Eastgate was the one I’d actually never stepped foot in. Unlike my friend, I’d have no personal ties to revisit or memories to recall, but I could most certainly appreciate the lore of a local.
“I hope you know, I’m gonna tell you where everything used to be,” he said while pulling on the door handle.
“I would expect nothing less,” I replied as we ventured into the liminal void and walked towards what had once been a Steve & Barry’s.
“I can’t believe the state of this mall,” declared Phil who’d last had been here about ten years ago.
Although the experience of decaying retail has been ubiquitous for decades now—Eastgate had, at least seemingly, still been relatively healthy circa 2015. Back then, the place had received a modest renovation and celebrated the addition of popular fashion retailer H&M. Sure, the place didn’t have an Apple Store, but it touted mall mainstays such as Hot Topic and Spencers. Both of which were surprisingly still open here in 2025.
Along with Bath & Body Works—the few remaining, national brands were brimming with holiday inventory. Stark contrasts to the numerous vacant spaces surrounding them. The place wasn’t packed with the kinds of crowds seen in its holiday heyday, but there were still a fair amount of people milling about. And as evidenced by the numerous shopping bags seen in the Auntie Anne’s line: they weren’t just “mall walkers” either.
Apocryphally, Eastgate had never been known as the Cincinnati region’s best mall, but it was solid. A standard shopping center with the standard offerings in service to the Eastern suburbs. Even now, it still holds a geographic advantage that’s allowed it to hang on well after several of its contemporaries met worse fates.
In the inane, grand scheme of things—I didn’t think it looked too bad in here. Those more familiar with the place had a different outlook, though. In addition to a few tenants and local leaders who’d recently told Channel 9 that things were looking bleak, Phil could also sense a disquiet.
“I was unprepared for how absolutely dead this place would be,” he said as we sauntered past an under-construction Christmas throne. “I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
At least Santa was still coming, though.
We were like two tourists in a museum—literally and figuratively pointing out details, and frequently stopping to admire historic artifacts such as the hieroglyphics above vacant spaces. The remains of removed signs, not all of these “label scars” were evidence of tenants who’d faltered or fled. Several brandished the names of still-active businesses that’d grown to eventually occupy larger spaces within the mall. “Label scars of success,” essentially.
That’s a Transformer, but this place still counts as a “dragon store.”
Every few minutes, though, we’d be startled out of this exploratory state by the smack of a plastic folding tables being thrown onto the floor. These reverberating collisions were coming from the in-progress setup of the next day’s card show. An apparently regular event that’s objectively a great idea for a struggling retail space in need of foot traffic.
After we’d passed the eyebrow salon built into the former Electronics Boutique and made awkward eye contact with both a masseuse and their patient in another repurposed space—we encountered one of Phil’s more distinct memories.
“So, down there—where this glass block is—was an arcade when I was a kid,” he said as we walked up to a former store near one of the mall’s western entrances. “My dad took me here on a Friday night once and I can remember being in the arcade, The sun’s setting through these plate-glass windows over here, coming in through the glass block, and I’m playing that ‘T2’ game with the gun. That’s a memory I will never not have. I remember being a kid here.”
As we neared the food court, we passed a store called River City Market, and across the hall from that was River City Christmas. This seasonal extension of a small business had once been an FYE, a fact we were able to deduce thanks to the distinctive floor pattern. This was far from the most interesting thing in this particular wing of the mall, however.
A heavenly haze was rising from a hibachi grill up to the water-damaged ceiling, enveloping what was left of the food court in an enticing aroma. While melancholy speakers blared Coldplay’s “Yellow” to empty tables, we dug into dinner from Yihi Japan.
Delivery drivers repeatedly dashed in and out to retrieve orders from not only our providers of sustenance, but their compatriots as well: Gyro Express, China Experience, and Luca Pizza di Roma. One man’s “food hall” is just another man’s “food court,” after all.
“This is the most mall that this mall has felt all night,” said Phil as we walked into a local video game store.
The place wasn’t just relatively busy, it also harkened “back to” our particular “day.” With an appropriately nostalgic sense of humor, the walls of this place were themed to dead brands such as Blockbuster and Circuit City while the shelves featured now-retro items for sale such as early-2000s-era CRT televisions.
As I picked up a game from the shelf, I realized the weight of Phil’s statement. Here I was, staring down at the first two “Pro Skater” titles remastered and made available for a modern gaming console. Games I loved as a kid, games I’d once purchased from my [Cincinnati Mills Link] mall 20+ years ago.
At $10, it was a steal, but I decided that I already owned enough retro games that I already wasn’t playing. Still, the Tony Hawk temptation had, for a moment, brought me back to the bygone days of that peak mall experience.
