King Tut-Themed Electronics Store (Closed)
Campbell, California
Fry's Electronics, a popular gadget retail chain that started in California, designs each of its stores with a unique visual theme. The Fry's in Campbell is an older one, around for decades, and claims to contain the tomb of Egypt's King Tut.
The store exterior resembles a blocky Ancient World temple (it looks nothing like the real tomb of King Tut, but let's not be picky).
Visitors who dare to enter are rewarded with views of many kitschy nods to ancient Egyptian funerary art mixed in among electronic device sales and displays. Fake stone columns distinguish certain departments, where serpents wrap around torch sconces. We spotted a couple of sarcophagi, and a mummy standing near the door. A quartet of black panther statues are the supports for a long golden table holding desktop computers.
King Tut's tomb is in the back of the store -- the chamber serves as Fry's presentation room. The fake stone entryway is flanked by a pair of seated pharaohs.
We can't say with certainty why this theme was chosen for this store, but it seems to date from the period when a mania for a traveling King Tut exhibit gripped the nation. And it's only a few miles to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, with its own more accurate replica of an Egyptian tomb (but no deals on electronics).
