Two friends reminisced about better mall days as they toured 16 Philadelphia-area malls in a day, including stops at the MacDade Mall, Springfield Mall, and Booth’s Corner.
Mike Fenn and Jon Slosser, both 45, grew up in pre-Internet Delaware County in the 1980s and 90s, the height of mall popularity.
They posted their 15-hour journey on Saturday to social media, reflecting on how the shopping culture has changed, writes Michael Tanenbaum for PhillyVoice.
“We were video game dorks growing up,” Fenn said. “We just hung out at the mall. That’s what we did. We were used to malls bustling.”
The friends wanted to honor the 30th anniversary of Kevin Smith’s cult classic, “Mallrats,” and honor a friend, a fellow mall rat who died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2020.
At MacDade Mall in Holmes, Fenn was sad that his old stomping grounds, where he worked at a tobacco shop, had been turned into a “bland” shopping center before the pandemic.
Their journey revealed that the better the food court, the busier a mall was likely to be.
They also noted that even the busy malls didn’t have the same degree of community they saw when they were younger.
Read more about their full 16-mall journey, and reflections on what’s been lost and what still lingers in PhillyVoice.
Editor’s Note: This post was initially published on DELCO.Today in September 2025.
