River Drive Mall: Laredo, Texas on DeadMalls.com

RIVER DRIVE MALL: LAREDO, TX

Ricardo Saracho Espinoza's Commentary:

User submitted February 9, 2021

The last time I visited the River Drive Mall in Laredo, Texas in 1998, it was packed with tourists and shoppers from across the border. It was quite a ritual to visit him.

You arrived very early at the only place that was open from 7 am. It was McDonalds, there you had breakfast while you waited for them to open. Finally, it was 9 in the morning and the stores began to open their doors. I started directly at KB Toys, where I bought my Bachmann N-scale trains and admired all the novelties in toys that came to this toy store. Then I would go to JC Penney to buy some clothes, usually Levis 517 boot cut pants. Walking through its wide corridors I saw the Weiners, Cindy and Ricardo stores, a grocery and novelty store called Santos, where they served Mexican-style breakfasts. In that store you could find everything from gum to firearms. You could spend hours and hours in every aisle looking at articles. Later we played for a while at the Arcade Aladdins Castle, in front of McDonalds, there they opened at 10 am. Video games cost 25 cents and they always had the newest. I remember that inside the mall there was a radio station, and the booth could be seen from the hall through a window.

At lunchtime I liked to go to the Orange Julius Burgers, where I first tried the wave-shaped French fries. At noon, I would leave the River Drive Mall and walk to a plaza in downtown Laredo, where I would board a bus that would take me to Mall del Norte, the other major mall in this city. This still exists and is the only one. Here I remember the Spencers store, always with jokes and great things. Its cinemas and the large food area. Its anchor stores, Sears and Montgomery Ward.

After 1998 it took more than 20 years for me to return to the United States as a tourist, and although I already knew that the River Drive Mall no longer existed, I will always keep great memories of its interiors. They were my first stores in the United States of America.