The Super 9 Store in University City advertises itself as the “Largest Dollar Store in the United States.” At 30,000 square feet, it’s not small.
The space (8008 Olive) was previously one of the Value City department stores; that may help to visualize the amount of floor space we’re talking about. With its wide aisles and high ceilings, it does feel like a capacious, big-box store that just happens to offer really cheap goods.
“Cheap” is not a value judgment—it’s a description of the prices here. Super 9’s ads also say that 70 percent of the items here go for 99 cents; the other 30 percent, in a smaller, more compelling section at the back of the store, go for $1.89. (That’s how the business gets its name, presumably—both price points have a “9” in them.)
I went to the Super 9 Store hoping to drown in a sea of campy tchotchkes, in that perverse way that can make shopping in dollar stores and thrift shops an acquired delight. Bring on the ceramic statuettes of dancing unicorns, airbrushed in nursery-room violet and dredged in glitter. Give me DVDs of feature films with grainy evidence of Natassja Kinski and George Hamilton in their formative years. A magnet commemorating the 1996 season of NASCAR superstar Terry Labonte? A night light shaped like a bashful skunk? A complete collection of knock-off Rubbermaid kitchen-storage receptacles molded in a fetching shade of chartreuse? Yes, yes, and yes, please.
The dollar store can be a revelation of tacky splendors, but the Super 9 Store impressed me more with quantity than cheesiness. The acreage here, lined with the standard dollar-store stock—kitchen aids, housewares, canned goods, toys, office supplies, etc., etc.—just wasn’t quite weird enough for me…
…until I arrived at the $1.89 section. This is where Super 9 gets a bit more super, what with a proliferation of imported Asian gewgaws. This area offers lacquered chopsticks with reproductions of ancient Japanese paintings wrapped around their girth, square Japanese kites, and best of all, anthropomorphic cleaning supplies. The Super 9 Store is your one-stop shop for sponges and scouring pads emblazoned with goofy smiley face icons. The next time you’re bent over the stove, scrubbing away at a tough stain with the relentless vigor of a recalcitrant scullery maid, you can gaze pleadingly into the absurdly happy visage looking back at you from your sponge, and take heart that your labors need not be so onerous, nor so lonely—or, you could just use them as kooky gifts for a white elephant exchange at your next Christmas party.
There is a touch of noteworthy schlock at the Super 9 Store, but for the truly craptacular, you’ll have to head to the likes of Dollar Tree or Deals for a ceramic statuette of two dolphins kissing above turquoise waves, or a tabletop Jesus Christ, sporting an expression both merciful and grave as he slices the air with a karate chop. Now that was a find.
