One of Bristol's longest established and best known bike shops, Fred Baker's, closed down this summer. Established 1935, now on the third generation of family ownership, but it's a couple of decades since they justified their slogan "Bristol's best bike shop." In fact, even though I live less than a mile away, I didn't notice they'd closed for a couple of months. I gave up on them about five years ago, when I went in wanting a 700 x 35 tube and they didn't have any. "Most of our customers are roadies, so we mostly stock narrower tubes," apologised the bloke – while standing in front of a display of hybrids. "We'll be getting a delivery on Thursday," he continued. Great! but today was Monday. If I'd been asking about an unusual item, waiting four days would be no problem at all, rather quick actually, but for a common item of immediate necessity, it's crap.
Technically however they haven't closed, just "consolidated" with a smaller place near the main station that mainly concentrates on commuter repairs, as far as I can tell. In fact, the family ownership was part of the problem, from what I've been told; the original Fred and his son were keen on the bike shop as a bike shop but for the grandson who inherited it, it might as well have been shelves of beans.
In contrast, this morning for reasons I had some spare time and wandered into another LBS, smaller (in floor space at least) and established around 1990. This one has bikes on the ground floor with a cafe upstairs (not just in the current trendy fashion, it was set up that way). They manage the cafe-bike shop overlap with eg bike-focussed art on the walls for sale, and in fact although I wasn't looking for anything, I ended up buying a t-shirt. Not a jersey. And not even for myself. And will probably be perceived by its recipient as something other than a "cycling t-shirt." Of course they have lots of bikes there too. A range from Bromptons to TT bikes. And IMO stock is a factor – it's because this particular LBS had one in stock when I was looking for something touringish a couple of years ago, that I ended up with a Specialized Sequoia rather than a Trucker or Tour de Fer or various other options which other shops could only talk about.