Ocean State Job Lot is fun. Also in New England I love the Marden's business model. As far as I can tell from the advertising it really is a family business that's hit its scaling limits at about 15 stores -- when you walk in you see whatever remnant stuff a member of the Marden family thought people would like to buy when they went shopping for remnant inventory. Like they list the names of people who buy this stuff on their web site: https://www.mardens.com/sell-to-us/
They even have a special type of store dedicated to flooring and I feel like this reflects the family structure somehow (like a niece or nephew is really into flooring or something). It's just such interesting retail.
One thing I really like about Ocean State Job Lot is they have a couple isles of really cheap fun timeless kids toys that I remember playing with as a kid. I think for a lot of lower income families it's probably one of the only times a kid gets the thrill of walking into a store and selecting new toys to buy.
I like their ultra-cheap scientific calculators (their markup is 100% from the Alibaba high volume price, but still cheap) and art supplies. I bought a metal ruler from them once, only to find that it had a misprint on the scale.
They even have a special type of store dedicated to flooring and I feel like this reflects the family structure somehow (like a niece or nephew is really into flooring or something). It's just such interesting retail.