Mad Platter closed down after 42 years, right before covid. I miss it.
this place isn’t what it once was; disproportionate number of places for adults to eat and drink, very little for teens. -really lost tons of the college-town charm when the comic shop, video game shop, head shop, and record shop downtown all shutter within 6mos of each other.
west chester was never a Boulder or San Diego tho, so...meh.
we are flying the coop in less than 10 yrs anywho.
Same thing happened to Media. Every place became a mid/upscale eatery. We did get a video game store though that moved from Drexel Hill though that I like that Johnny Maximum isn’t a big fan of, but I’m sure you know he hates everything. I could understand why a video game shop, comic shop, or record shop closed though that’s happening in other places as well and is a reflection of changing times shifting away from physical media by the youngsters.
Chester County changed too I’m not sure back then when I was in school but it is the richest county in the state in our current year even over Montgomery, and West Chester is the largest city in said county, so the shift is definitely a reflection of that, even though West Chester does have its seedy areas away from downtown.
West Chester U must be doing something right too since it’s the largest “actual” state school (Penn State, Pitt, and Temple are semi private) by about 8,000+ students now, where all the other state schools mostly are dying it’s thriving and WCU foots the bill for the rest of the system, but that’s a whole different discussion, but plays for the attractiveness of the area versus somewhere like Indiana (PA) or Shippensburg, and pretty soon (like perhaps by next year) many of those other schools will be gone and called PA directional U or shuttered. When I lived in Killinger they were building a new student center across the street that opened (with a nice little arcade at the time btw), they built a newer student center within 10 years after that.
I agree though, places like the Rat and Mad Platter were institutions there and gone now. I can’t imagine a WCU without the Rat and Burrito Loco across the street. West Chester U and UDEL have some similarities in size of school and town, with both being alma maters of the current First Lady of the United States, and there’s no Stone Balloon for UDEL students in Newark DE either anymore, and that was an even more iconic place, and that town has changed just as much as West Chester.