Made a trip to the Apple store in Penn Square Mall today, and all I got was this lousy photo of a sign on the dark storefront promising me a brand new store.
Problem is the store has been closed for remodeling and expansion since April. That’s like six months and counting on a remodel.
So, I headed upstairs to visit the temporary location that sort of matches the look and feel of the original Apple location.
Compared with the times I’ve visited Penn Square in the past, the mall was a virtual ghost town today. Few people were out and about, and you could almost hear an echo as you walked down the mall.
That didn’t prepare me for the size of the crowd milling about the Apple store. I should have known.
Apple’s retail location in Penn Square is a virtual tourist attraction, with big crowds no matter the day of the week. Today was no exception with a store full of shoppers, or at least tire kickers like me.
I asked an Apple Genius – well, he had a beard, tattoos and wore a blue Apple T-shirt – when the new/old location would open. He said there was no specific date set, although he said that opening by the even busier Christmas shopping season would be nice.
Here’s a photo of the store at 4 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon as I entered.