please empty your brain below

This is the comments box for discussing a 'typical' parade of shops.

(don't assume your local parade is necessarily typical)

Nail bars seem to be quite common round my way, so might feature in larger parades.
Your Parade 10 idea is really good, but we definitely need a laundrette 100%! 😁 With a full washing service. Add that to the empty space.

Also, I would replace the estate agent with either a mobile phone shop that also does repairs and internet access, or a general discount store that sells a bit of everything including household goods and DIY equipment.
I suggest that Parade 10 needs to include at least one betting shop. Maybe two in less affluent areas.

Not quite sure instead of what though. Maybe one of salon or barber.

Regards
The parade at the end of my road:

Launderette - Halal Butcher - Tutor - Fast food (double unit) - Cafe - Net curtain shop(!) - empty - Fast food
Don't forget the Tax Accountant and Micro Pub. Sadly, our Micro Pub went early in lockdown.
Betting shops in steady decline since play limits on fixed odds betting terminal reduced - previously they’d been opening shops just to accommodate more of these machines. I read that chippies are closing due to price of fish and spuds too. How will anyone while away a lunch break in 5 years’ time...
My local parade now has:
Tesco Local - Newsagent/PO - Chemist - Bakery - Discount Supermarket - Bridal Shop (!) - Barbers - Chip Shop (double unit) - Chinese takeaway - Betting Shop - Hairdressers
I live in Central London. You therefore need to include six American candy stores, and a CBD shop.
Looks pretty spot on. Thinking of various parades I know in London and the south east once you get to 10 shops you’ll often find something a bit random in their; pet shop, cycle shops or something very specialist like a wig stockist or aquarium stockist that is supplying a much larger catchment.

I’m increasingly seeing shops that market themselves as Deli’s so mixing some fresh food, tins/packets of fancier food, coffee machines and inevitably panettone.

I wonder how different a parade is up north.
The local parades near me are neither of which are very representative for various reasons are:

Convenience shop, salon and 4x takeaway

Cafe, convenience shop, butcher, salon, bike shop, tattoo, running shop, takeaway
Tattoo parlour and vape shop?

In Milton Keynes, outside the old bit we don't have parades but "Local Centres" to meet the needs of the general area, which usually have a couple of shops and maybe a pub. The oddest one I know has just a chip shop next to a tyre/exhaust fitter. No other buildings at all.
The parade where I live has:

Nisa, bookies,off license, greengrocers, bookies, newsagent, household goods, barbers, chemist, chip shop.
...and opposite...
Tiny garage, post office, chicken shop, taxi office, large cafe
I'm curious to see Launderette included. I thought they'd nearly all closed down in the last 20 years. Maybe it varies by locale.

The other big change you've definitely got right is the disappearance of Newsagents. There's obviously crossover between groceries and convenience store, but mostly newsagents was a staple not so long ago.
I doubt there is a perfect answer, but I think the betting shop and launderette could be higher up the list. And one of the shops might have a post office counter.

My local parade: pharmacy-takeaway (chippy)-takeaway (pizza)-barber/salon-takeaway (Chinese)-haberdashery(!)-grocery (local variety of large chain)-door shop-launderette-window shop.

The three shops (sewing, doors, windows) are atypical, and you could easily replace them in a generic parade with something more usual. Until relatively recently there was a newsagent/post office and an off-licence. A little further away, not in the parade but almost next door, there is also a garage with shop, another off-licence, and a pub.
Nobody has mentioned charity shops, which seem to be everywhere.
My local parade of shops consists of Indian Restaurant, Bakery, Dry Cleaners, Turkish Restaurant, Beauty Salon, Asian Grocery store, Chinese Takeaway, Newsagent, Pharmacy, Butchers, Grocery Store with Post Office, Barbers, Chip Shop, Off Licence, Pizza Takeaway, and finally Fishing Tackle Shop.

You'll never go hungry with my local shops.
Once you get to ten, you’ll almost invariably have an outlier to the norms. Here in leafy LBRUT it might be an alternative therapist, a wealth manager (no mere “accountant”) or someone selling sash windows. It’s all about stuff and services the internet can’t easily provide.
To add a rural data point, my Oxfordshire village has a Tesco Express (incl. Post Office counter) with a Chinese restaurant above, an excellent butcher, a pharmacy, an Accountant, a cafe, and two hair salons (one family-orientated, one more focused on women).
I'm with Kev-- most places round here in Devon are at charity shop saturation point.
Your list of 10 seems pretty accurate. My parents live in suburbia, so the local parades tend to stock products and services, handy to have locally, when you don't want to or can't go into town.

I'd swap out the estate agent and add a dry cleaner, a declining shop I'd imagine, but useful to have locally. Estate agents to me tend to found more in high streets.
In my local parade (24 shops) we have 6 takeaways, 5 grocery stores, 2 hairdressers, a laundrette, pharmacy, dentist, minicab, independent college, 2 accountancy/management types and a couple of trade shops.
Going by the parades of shops I know the best, which are all in the North but are a mix of middle-class suburbia and some more inner-city areas of terraces, greengrocers and bakeries are still fairly common. Many larger parades still have post offices although a lot are now inside a minimarket. I don't know many with a cafe though. Curious how they vary so much.
The local parade here isn’t that far from a high street, so it has some typical shops but also an old-fashioned off-licence (booze only, not a convenience store), mini-cab office, a vet and a dry-cleaners; local services that maybe can’t afford high street rents or would get overlooked there. Interestingly, the long-standing bookies became a beauty salon a couple of years ago; but, then, this is a relatively well-heeled bit of north London.
The local parade (8) I use most frequently has 5 of the Parade 10 + a dry cleaners. Also a vacuum repair shop.
I haven't thought about the ideal parade of shops since the 90s when I house shared in my 20s. My housemates and I only rented houses near a

- newsagents
- mini mart with off-license
- Chinese takeaway
- Indian takeaway
- video rental shop
My immediate local one has a cafe, a groceries, and a takeaway.

I think you might be on to something here!
My local parade (north London) has 11 shops: salon, betting shop, pharmacy, chinese takeaway, a greasy spoon cafe, a closed-for-good newsagents / grocery, an open newsagents / grocery, a grocery / off-license, barbers, Greggs, fish and chip takeaway. (The 11th is the salon, which is the lone shop opposite the row of 10, and it used to be a laundrette.)

So your typical parade seems pretty accurate, apart from the outlier (betting shop / estate agent etc).
In my area (London Borough of Havering), the number of nail bars/beauty salons seems to have grown exponetially over recent years; in my local parade of about fifteen shops, there are no less than three! In addition to the Tesco Local and several takeaways, the parade still boasts an independent butcher's shop (of which there are several in the borough).
So...

I'm pretty happy that eight of the typical ten are:
groceries, groceries, takeaway, takeaway, salon, barber, cafe, pharmacy

But the 9th and 10th are more debatable.

I said estate agent/empty.

But I could have said butcher/dentist
or betting shop/bakery
or dry cleaners/charity shop.

There is a good case for one of the 10 shops simply being wildcard, to reflect that many long parades contain one freakish outlier like a sewing shop, bike shop, piano shop, glass cutting shop, pet shop, bridal boutique, micropub or fishing tackle shop.

Thank you all for your analysis.
No mention at all of a fresh fish shop. Sadly, once ubiquitous, they seem to have all but disappeared from our parades.
Foul-smelling nail bar. Unlocking kiosk for moody mobiles. Recruitment agency for shitty jobs nobody would want to do.










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