A Lens into Retail & Commercial Real Estate Past (Present & Future)
Retailer
I have personal interest in this one as I grew up with my family in the catalog showroom business in Georgia and the Carolinas, founded by my grandfather, Harold Ellman. The business was sold to Service Merchandise during my senior year in high school. (Ellman's) Service Merchandise'
Nostalgic Retail Series
Founded in 1977 by Richard Thalheimer, the retailer started as a watch catalog business. Sharper Image expanded to close to 200 stores in 38 states at its peak. Litigation and turmoil with their Ionic Breeze air purifiers started the descent (and reputation) with the stock price reaching "penny stock&
Nostalgic Retail Series
Sports Authority opened its first store in late 1987 in Southern Florida. In 1990 Kmart (yes...the Kmart) acquired the company and they converted their two Sports Giant stores to Sports Authority locations. In 1995, having grown to over 135 stores, Kmart spun off the sporting goods chain. In 2003,
Nostalgic Retail Series
"In November 1958, Eugene Wallace Kalkin established a leased-linen department in the New Jersey discount retailer Great Eastern Mills. In August 1970, Great Eastern Mills opened the first Linens 'n Things store in East Brunswick, New Jersey. After a succession of corporate ownership changes and the bankruptcy
Nostalgic Retail Series
CompUSA was the epitome of a big box retail electronics chain. Founded in 1986 as Soft Warehouse by Errol Jacobson and Mike Henochowicz, its first megastore opened in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988. Changing its name to CompUSA in 1991, it operated almost 230 locations with over $2B in revenues at
Nostalgic Retail Series
Teavana was an American tea company created in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia by Andrew T. Mack, and his wife. After making a splash (grew to 650 stores), especially in the mall world, Teavana was acquired by Starbucks in 2012 for an estimated $620 million. A short five years later, based
Nostalgic Retail Series
Founded in 1966 by Bruce Dayton (a member of the Dayton department store family), the name B. Dalton was chosen because it "connoted quality, dependability and authority." Although the chain was originally intended to operate in downtowns and suburban areas, the majority of the stores were opened inside
Nostalgic Retail Series
Tower was founded in 1960 by Russell Solomon in Sacramento, California. The store was named after his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theater. In addition to CDs and cassette tapes, stores also sold DVDs, video games, accessories, toys and electronic gadgets like
Nostalgic Retail Series
David Schlessinger, who had earlier started the defunct Encore Books chain of bookstores, founded Zany Brainy in 1991. The chain sold puzzles, books, games, and electronics, along with holding workshops for kids and teachers. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 15, 2001, having faced financial difficulties
Nostalgic Retail Series
RadioShack was founded in Boston in 1921 by the Deutschmann brothers to provide equipment for ham radio operators. The company became "the place" for electronics, selling everything from eight-track players to portable CD players to cell phones. The chain grew fast in the 1970s, in part because
Nostalgic Retail Series
Founded in 1923 by Barney Pressman, the luxury department store and its iconic brand began to lose its luster as department stores experienced declines in the last several years and were further impacted by the pandemic. The company dropped the apostrophe in Barney's in 1981 and became Barneys.
Nostalgic Retail Series
Brothers Max and Morris Feldberg founded a company in Boston in 1919 to supply undergarments to department stores. When sales began to decline, they ventured out to create a new discount department store. The first Zayre location opened in Hyannis in 1956. Zayre which was a transformation from the Jewish