For 30 years it was one of the capital’s premier shopping palaces, creating a lifetime of fond retail memories for an entire generation of locals.
With five floors of fashion outlets, plus a car park, dining spaces, a nursery, roof garden and menagerie filled with exotic animals and birds, Goldbergs Edinburgh was light years ahead of its time when it opened its doors in the summer of 1960.
Boasting a grand, modern frontage, huge escalators and unique range of shops and services, the purpose-built department store, which occupied 120,000 square feet of High Riggs, Tollcross, was quite unlike anything the capital had seen before.
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The business was established by Mr Bill Goldberg, a Jewish immigrant hailing from Eastern Europe. The first store was opened in Glasgow in 1908, and Goldbergs would expand to become a business empire of more than 100 outlets covering almost every corner of the country.
Goldbergs was situated at High Riggs, Tollcross, for 30 years.
In what was an unusual policy for a new shopping development, the Edinburgh Goldbergs was initially closed on Saturdays, owing to the owners’ Jewish faith. These opening restrictions would eventually be relaxed, however.
Quickly establishing itself as a local landmark, the Tollcross store was constructed on a clearance site, which was intended to be the focal point of a new inner ring road encircling central Edinburgh. The highly-controversial road plans would never go ahead, however, and Goldbergs’ hopes of enjoying a prime spot at the heart of a busy city centre intersection were dashed.
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In the late 1970s, the family-run business began to encounter financial difficulties, with sales results far below what was needed to keep the company afloat. Goldbergs diversified, launching a bespoke fashion chain, Wrygges, which began to appear in high streets around Scotland in the 1980s.
A 1974 advert for Goldbergs. Picture: Retro Dundee.
Taking inspiration from the US, Goldbergs also launched a state-of-the-art IBM point of sale system as well as its own in-house credit card, the Style card, where customers could pay for goods over a period of three months and enjoy discounts if they settled on time.
But while these measures would prove popular, Goldbergs struggled to fend off competition from elsewhere, particularly in Edinburgh where new shopping centres such as the St James Centre, Waverley Market and Cameron Toll had opened.
Goldbergs eventually ceased as a business in 1990, with demolition of the iconic Edinburgh store taking place six years later. A block of flats now occupies the site at High Riggs.
Writing to us on social media, Edinburgh Live readers recalled the store’s glory days, and the unforgettable array of animals on show in the rooftop menagerie.
The rooftop garden at Goldbergs. Picture: Demarco Archives.
Margaret Halliday wrote: “There was a restaurant on the roof and you could walk around the store with your big pram away back in the 1960s. It was a very good store, Goldbergs. I always liked the staff, they were always very friendly.”
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