COLONIAL VILLAGE MALL: ROCKFORD, IL
R. Evams' Commentary
Posted September 3, 2006 (user submitted)
Colonial Village Mall was sold to a church last year. Its two big stores were JC
Penneys and Bergners. JC Penneys left a few years ago to a brand new addition at the
CherryVale Mall in Rockford (about 5 miles away), and Bergners finally closed
down this year.
It was a smaller mall with probably about 10 stores inside, and a few more
stores attached outside. It also had a three or four screen theater seperate
from the mall. There was a large parking garage attached to the Bergners store.
When I was a kid around 1977, My mother used to take us kids to see Santa
there. I can remember Bergners, Penney's, Striderite, Fashion Bug, Swiss
Colony, and an ice cream shop inside. (among a few other stores). Bergners
seemed like a massive store at the time with a resteraunt on the second floor
next to the parking garage doors. It was a good size resteraunt with a few bay
windows overlooking a neighboring park. The food was GREAT, but for unknown
reasons, it closed well over ten years ago.
The last time I was there was in 2004. Penneys was having a store wide closing
sale. All else that remained inside the mall was Bergners, a small mom & pop
resteraunt, and an attorneys office. The fountains that ran down the center of
the indoor mall had also become planters.
As of this time, I'm not sure if the theaters have closed or if they are still
open. (It was the only theater in town that attemped to show Michael Moore's
Farenheit 911.)
Anyways, thats basically what I can remember of the place. There really is not much about the mall on the net
though. There still might be some stores open outside the mall.
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Jason Kors’ Commentary:
User submitted in 2020The Bergners also had a travel bureau, gift wrapping and the ticketmaster counter where my dad bought me after I talked him into taking me to WWF wrestling at the Rockford Metrocentre. The mall also had Tom Harmer sports which a few sporting goods but they did they were the place to go to get your high school varsity jacket made up. The mall had a Baskin-Robbins and our group would stop for their 49 cent extra fountain drinks on our way to Alpine Park Pool behind the mall. Cute how there was a weight-loss place next to Baskins for a while. We saw Back to the Future at the theater. My brothers friend worked at the theater after I left town for the military. I heard while he was sweeping a screen room and tossed his broom like a javelin, too hard, it poked into the screen!
Andrew Pollock’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2020Bishops! My grandparents would take us there and also Diamond Dave’s Mexican restaurant too.
Nancy Jaramillo Strickert’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2019I often ate at the Bishop's Buffet here. I can't tell from Google Streetview what took its place.
Aaron Heise’s Commentary:
User submitted in 2019When I was a freshman at Lutheran H.S. I was at Bergner's with my mom and we bought me a teal paisley collared shirt. 1986.