The very last Kmart is closing.

I liked Kmart too. Walmart ran most of them out of cities.

In the future, the only stores might be Walmarts. Like in "Demolition Man", the only restaurants were Taco Bells. :)
 

I grew up loving Kmart, too, but by the late 1990s many of them seemed to have gone significantly downhill. There was one in North Carolina that was just awful: dirty and disorganized, and it was nearly impossible to find an employee to help you. The store in my current area, which closed several years ago, was the same.

It's a shame because I have such fond memories of it.
 
Another Kmart fan here; the one in our town never went downhill, even right before it closed; I could always find what I wanted or needed there, better than Walmart and much better than Target IMO.
 
There used to be two within driving distance (Clifton Park and Greenwich, NY), but I seldom patronized them. They closed years ago. I think one is being demolished for a new apartment complex and the other is available for commercial use.
 
I never understood why they faded. I thought they were a pretty good deal. Walmart didn't seem superior to them. I don't know if Walmart was cheaper. That was a long time ago since I shopped in a Kmart.
 
As the blue light fades......

Kmart clothes were considered lower quality at the time. Recently, I bought 3 nice, new with tags, good quality t-shirts in the thrift store.
I saw they were Route 66 brand which was Kmart. Someone probably cleaned out a closet from long ago. It lets you see how quality has gone down. They would be considered high quality now. 😕
 
JustDave said:
I never understood why they faded. ... a long time ago since I shopped in a Kmart.
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I liked them, but like you, it has been a long time since I shopped in one, which I suppose is why they faded away. Amazon is a lot easier to shop 'at' since it doesn't require driving anywhere, crowded parking lots, mingling with the hoi polloi, etc.
 
The empty K-Mart store closest to me was turned into a large indoor store-n-lock. The others in the area became Rural Kings shortly after they closed.

I remember the one near me as a kid had a small cafeteria in the back of the store. Food wasn't bad. They also made cold deli subs which were good to. We used to take them home, add some spaghetti sauce & extra cheese & baked them in the oven.
 
I had never really been in a Kmart until while in college, I told an old buddy I was looking for work and he recommended I go to the then only Kmart in the city because he was working there and would recommend me to the HR lady.

I worked there from 1979 to 1984. I enjoyed it because I liked helping customers. I used to do voices over the PA system when having to page other employees.

It was well managed back then.

The great thing about working with the public in a store was that there were always stories to tell about the crazy things that went on.

One time, a candidate for Mayor came to the store unannounced and started shaking hands with people finishing their checkouts. This caused a big problem for the flow of foot traffic out the door. So the manager on duty asked him to leave.

The candidate or one of his henchmen threatened the manager saying you'll be sorry. About a half hour after leaving, the Fire Marshal showed up and did an inspection.
 
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dobielvr said:
I miss Kmart too.
It's been a long time since we've had one.

Miss their hoagies! (sandwiches)
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I think I used to like their hoagies too.

In a hoagie related incident, I learned they weren't called hoagies down in Disney World.
The menu called it a sub. But without thinking, I said to the waitress that I'd have a hoagie and I got upset with her when she kept insisting it wasn't on the menu.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I loved Kmart. There was nothing like Kmart around Xmas with those "blue light specials". To me, it seemed Kmart was a lot friendlier than Walmart. I fondly remember the store.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/23/business/kmart-closing-last-store-us/index.html
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Yes but who remembers that before the stores were Kmart they were Kresge stores (S.S. Kresge Company)? In 1977, Kmart sold the remaining Kresge stores to fully concentrate on discount merchandising via their Kmart stores. I fondly remember in the 1950s sitting at the lunch counter at the "Kresge five and dime," sometimes a family event!
 
I stopped buying clothes at Kmart when I went there to shop for my two elementary school–age daughters and saw the store was featuring low-rise jeans in those tiny little sizes. Nope!
 
spectratg said:
Yes but who remembers that before the stores were Kmart they were Kresge stores (S.S. Kresge Company)? In 1977, Kmart sold the remaining Kresge stores to fully concentrate on discount merchandising via their Kmart stores. I fondly remember in the 1950s sitting at the lunch counter at the "Kresge five and dime," sometimes a family event!
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Yes, I remember them, as well as Ben Franklins and other 'five and dimes.'
Like Old Feller I worked in a K-Mart for a while in the 70's. we had fun with the PA system and the blue light specials.

In this area we had a K-mart and a Walmart almost side by side. It was easy to see why Walmart was winning. Walmart took returns with no questions asked, allowed you to get groceries at the same place you bought your jeans, had more variety and lower prices.
 
My great aunt worked in food service at a local Kresge/Kmart store.

The store was in a declining downtown area.

My aunt had been assigned to the kiosk where the sub sandwiches were made. It was a one person operation in a glass walled cage where people could watch the sandwiches being made and make special requests, etc…

After school everyday there was a rush of hungry teenagers that would stop for a sub and one day a lanky young fella reached over the glass partition grabbed a sub and took off! My aunt bolted out of the cage with a butcher knife in her hand and chased him out of the store and down the street until he eventually dropped the sub. After that incident my aunt was assigned to the kitchen in the back of the store where she had no customer contact. 😉🤭😂

My aunt was always very proud of the Kresge/Kmart stock that she accumulated through the company payroll deduction plan.
 
The last Kmart in my area was a ratty place in a bad area. I was in there one evening when a really bad storm broke out and the electricity went out. Only a few emergency lights came on and it was almost impossible to see anything. Luckily I was near the front of the store and was carefully making my way out when the "stampede" occurred.

People were running out of the store with armloads of anything they could grab, and it looked like they were coming back for more. I beat a hasty retreat to my car.

The funniest thing I ever saw happen in a Kmart (same store) was when the manager was having a private (and I DO mean private) phone conversation in his office on the phone. Said phone was hooked into the intercom system (ATTENTION KMART SHOPPERS!) and he must have pushed the wrong button because all of a sudden over the intercom came (so many years ago, so I might have the dialog wrong but this was the gist):

Woman's voice: "When are you going to tell her???

Manager: "I told you I was going to tell her when the time is right!"

Woman: "Well, the time had better be right pretty damn soon 'cause I'm pregnant!"

Manager: "You're pregnant?? How did that happen??"

By then you could hear someone banging on the door of his office and yelling, "YOU'RE ON THE INTERCOM!!"

Conversation clicked off at that point but everyone in the store knew the manager's girlfriend was pregnant and he hadn't got around to telling his wife he wanted a divorce. Pretty sticky.
 
So many of the iconic stores from decades ago, including “anchor” stores of shopping malls (and many malls themselves) have gone belly-up! Those great stores of yesterday included Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Woolworth, Newberry’s, and of course, Kmart. It sometimes seems like soon there will be nothing left except for Walmart, Dollar Stores, convenience stores, and Tobacco and Vape shops...*sighs* 😔
 

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