American pizza chain Papa John’s have opened a franchise today in the former Smarts Fish and Chip Shop in the centre of Abingdon-on-Thames.
Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza delivery chain in the world behind Pizza Hut and Domino’s. So now Abingdon-on-Thames has the big three – as does Abingdon, Virginia.
But Abingdon, Virginia have a lot of other pizza shops we have not even heard of yet: Pizza Plus, Bella’s Pizza, Moon Dog Brick Oven, Little Caesar’s Pizza, Lyons Den Pizza …
On the way back from work I often pass the expanded Bicester Village Designer Outlet Centre. So it was interesting to have time to stop and have a look today. People were standing four deep in a Disneyland style queue outside Pandora, one of the most popular stores on Black Friday.
Later in the day I saw people getting personal service in the Pandora in Abingdon
In Abingdon, the national chains had Black Friday discounts with offers like 20% off everything or 25% off everything.
Personally I think it best only to buy what you were intending to buy anyway and take advantage of any Black Friday discount, but not to go searching for things you would not otherwise buy.
This evening, a well known Abingdon shop has been moving fridges, shelves, and food and drink from the old location on West St Helen’s Street to Stert Street, where the men’s clothes shop recently closed. It looks very smart and they will be reopening on Thursday 23rd for business as usual.
The Co-op in West St Helen Street has also had the shop fitters in overnight, removing a lot of their old shelves and putting in a lot of new chiller units. Again it has gone on overnight and they will be reopening on Thursday.
On Saturday I popped into Oxfam.
At the Counter I met not only the Oxfam shop manager, and Roger who has worked at the shop for many years, but also a young lady from Mostly Books.
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She had leaflets for an interesting event Mostly Books are hosting on Thursday, 16 November, when Kate Young – the Guardian columnist and prize winning food blogger – will be at Mostly Books to present The Little Library Cookbook. Each recipe starts with a literary quote from her well stocked kitchen and library.
Oxfam have a quiz leading up to Christmas. You just need to pop in for the next five weeks and collect the 5 letters to have the chance to win a big prize.
Directly over the road from Oxfam, a new shop called Willow’s Shakeshop opened two weeks ago. In front they have crafts and gifts, and at the back they have a cafe.
Between Oxfam and Mostly Books is Abingdon Picture Framing.