We have reached the end of an era.
The last KMart in the US has been holding on for dear life after all his brothers and sisters bit the dust over the last decade or so, but all good things must come to an end.
I would blame Bidenomics for this, but we all know it was only a matter of time until the former superstore completely disappeared into the ashes of history.
Long gone are the days of stopping at the snack shack, ordering an ICEE and a picking up a Little Caesar's pizza that wasn't even hot and ready.
And no more blue light specials.
We're in a different world now.
The store, in Bridgehampton, New York, on Long Island, is due to close October 20, according to an employee who answered the phone at the store Monday morning who did not want to give her name. The manager of the store was not available, and the corporate owner Transformco, the company that bought the remains of Sears and Kmart out of the bankruptcy of Sears Holdings in 2019, did not return an email requesting comment.
Yes, CNN confirmed this news by talking to a cashier who answered the phone when there wasn't even a manager in the store to talk to.
Gee, I wonder why it's closing?
The chain still has a small convenience store version of itself in Miami, but not the full line of offerings that Kmart was once known for. That location does have some larger ticket goods, though, such as appliances. It also has stores in Guam and the US Virgin Islands, where it does not face competition from more successful big box stores.
That's right, if you're a US service member in Guam, you can party like it's 1995. They even have a Little Caesar's!!
At the time of the 2005 merger (with Sears) Kmart had about 1,400 stores and Sears nearly 900 full-line US stores. Lampert appeared more focused on selling off real estate the two companies had along with other assets such as the Craftsman brand of tools previously sold only at Sears, rather than in investing in either chain, leading to a bankruptcy filing in 2018.
When the retailer emerged from bankruptcy it still had 231 Sears and 191 Kmart stores, but those were also almost all doomed. Today only a handful of Sears stores remain.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for nostalgia, but I think we're going to realize how much we miss the simpler times that these stores represented!
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