6 Old-Fashioned Businesses Making an Unexpected Comeback in California
U.S. vinyl sales topped $1 billion in 2025, the first time since 1983, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Records outsold CDs by units that year, 46.8 million to 29.5 million.
Streaming was supposed to have settled that argument, but California keeps reopening the businesses everyone assumed it closed.
These are the old-fashioned businesses making an unexpected comeback in California.
1. General Stores
General stores are getting a fresh chapter in California, and Atascadero’s Garden City Market is one of the clearest examples.
Tom and Rebecca Nearing are building the market in a 4,000-square-foot space near the Sunken Gardens, anchored by a curated general store and rotating vendor stalls.
Atascadero’s economic development office was still listing the market among its anticipated downtown additions in a 2026 update, with no opening date confirmed.
The old bank vault inside the building is becoming a wine cellar and book nook.
That vault held cash once.
A creek-facing patio is set aside for live music.
The Nearings want the market to work as a gathering spot, not just a place to grab milk and nails.
2. Roller Skating Rinks
Roller skating rinks are getting a serious rebuild in California, starting with Inglewood’s brand-new Sunshine Skate Center.
Founder Cory Joseph, a former professional rugby player, opened the rink in September 2025 at the Hollywood Park development.
The rink runs on a rotating DJ lineup, plus a nonprofit arm that subsidizes skate time for kids.
He’d dreamed of owning a rink since he was seven.
He finally got it.
Santa Clarita is building something even bigger.
The city’s new Rink Sports Pavilion is a 25,000-square-foot facility with a 12,000-square-foot skating floor.
The pavilion also has room for pickleball and basketball, plus a concession stand shaped like a giant wheel.
It’s set to open by October 2026, according to the city’s project timeline.
That much new construction says something about how popular skating has become again.
3. Vinyl Record Shops
Vinyl record shops closed out 2025 with their best year in more than four decades.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported that U.S. vinyl sales topped $1 billion in 2025, the first time since 1983.
Records also outsold CDs by units, 46.8 million to 29.5 million.
That’s not close.
The surge isn’t confined to industry charts.
Sacramento’s Kicksville Vinyl & Vintage reports rising sales year after year, with younger shoppers treating a record store like a break from their phones.
It’s a digital detox you can hold in your hands.
Psst! How much do you know about old-fashioned shopping? Flip each card below and see how many you get right.
4. Pinball and Arcade Lounges
Pinball and arcade lounges are having a moment in Napa, where Marquee Pinball Lounge turned a single downtown storefront into two locations within its first year.
Tim and Kim Cutting opened the first location in May 2025 as a late-night hangout built around a wall of machines.
Demand outran the space fast.
The Cuttings opened a second, arcade-focused spot on Clinton Street a few months later, adding cabinets like Terminator, Buck Hunter, and a Toy Story 4 game.
Players use a scannable card that carries credits between both locations.
The newer spot won approval this August for a wine license and later hours to go with its beer taps.
Napa didn’t need a wine bar to draw a crowd on a Friday night.
5. Single-Screen Movie Theaters
Single-screen movie theaters built almost a century ago are reopening across California, starting with San Bernardino’s California Theatre.
The 1928 theater reopened in October 2025 after a $6.8 million restoration that rebuilt its marquee and repaired its original Wurlitzer organ.
Almost a century old, the theater is back in business.
San Francisco’s Clay Theatre is next, coming back from a much longer sleep.
The Fillmore Street theater went dark in 2020 when Landmark Theatres let its lease lapse.
It sat empty for five years before a nonprofit stepped in to renovate it.
That’s a long wait.
The nonprofit Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project is preserving the theater’s original neon sign while rebuilding the inside for more than 500 screenings a year.
Construction hasn’t started yet, and as of this spring the project still hadn’t filed building permits.
The team is now aiming for an early 2027 reopening instead of the original 2026 target.
6. Film Photography Labs
Film photography labs and camera shops are busier than they’ve been in years, and Gen Z is largely why.
About 35% of the world’s 42 million active film camera users are between 18 and 30, and online searches for analog photography rose 41% year over year.
Disposable camera sales have risen steadily since 2023.
Film isn’t just nostalgia anymore.
Los Angeles hosted AnalogCon this spring, billed by the Los Angeles Center of Photography as its inaugural analog photography festival.
The event included panels and a Holga photo walk through Little Tokyo.
Some of the city’s film labs have added darkroom rentals and workshops just to keep up with demand.
Nobody expected a roll of film to need a reservation again.
Rinks Still Closing
Roller skating’s rebound hasn’t saved every rink in California.
Not every rink survives it.
Orange County is down to a single wood-floor rink, Fountain Valley Skating Center, after Holiday Skate Center closed in August 2026 to make way for a housing development.
Fountain Valley’s owner says her crowd keeps growing, pulling skaters from across Southern California and visitors from as far as Germany and Asia.
The closures come down to real estate math, not empty rinks, since California cities face pressure to build more housing on the land these buildings sit on.
Why This Comeback Is Happening
California’s old-fashioned businesses are succeeding for a simple reason: They sell an experience nobody can stream.
Sociologists have a name for spaces like these: Third places, somewhere between home and work where people talk to each other.
Atascadero’s Garden City Market is angling to become exactly that kind of space, mixing everyday retail with room to stick around.
No screens are in sight.
Garden City Market’s owners are already planning what comes after the general store opens, with a kids’ play area and a small food court penciled in for a later phase.
A wine cellar and a rotating vendor stall are just the beginning of what the Nearings want their corner of Atascadero to become.
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