We went to the mall last Friday, not to buy anything, but to walk around and look - and you could shoot a canon through the place. There were 8 people total in the entire food court at lunchtime and not many more inside the building. It felt kind of freaky and kind of depressing - mind you it was cool not having anyone run into you but at the same time, watching all the counter staff with nobody to wait on made me realize just how bad those guys must be feeling. No customers, no business. No business, no money. No money, no business. I asked one of the girls behind the counter at one of the main retailers, how things really were and she grimaced. Not good. They cut back staff early in the year and it's getting worse. She's not hopeful that her job will be kept - she said the gas prices killed her savings off earlier in the year and she hasn't caught up with reduced hours.
After that we stopped at Safeway - a Friday evening when its generally busy - no lines - people with modest amounts of food in their cars. The guy in line ahead of us was telling the check out girl that his hours had been cut and he hadn't found another job that would help fill in those hours. Drove down to the discount food store though and traffic was heavier.
Mervyns has been in trouble since July but they just announced they are closing for good after the holiday season. The lady next door cancelled her paper delivery because it was too expensive - she used to share the paper with us.
Anybody noticing anything different in your town?
sammieswife.
It’s over for Mervyns.
The Hayward retailer said Friday that it would close its remaining 149 locations. The stores will remain open through the holiday season with liquidation sales. Mervyns previously planned to close 26 underperforming locations.
The 59-year old chain, with a California-heavy store base, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of July, but proved unable to gain any traction on its turnaround efforts. The company had struggled in recent years, squeezed at the bottom by retailers like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and out-performed by its mid-tier competitors like Kohl’s and J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP).
The economic downturn and housing crisis further hurt Mervyns since many of its California stores were in hard-hit areas.
In April, John Goodman, formerly president and general manager of Levi’s Dockers brand, joined Mervyns as CEO but proved unable to turn the tide.
“We are disappointed with this outcome, but the company’s declining liquidity position and the extremely challenging retail environment, together with the fact that we’ve exhausted all other possibilities, requires that we take this action,” Goodman said in a statement.
An ownership group led by Cerberus Capital Management and Sun Capital Management purchased Mervyns from Target (NYSE: TGT) in 2004 for $1.2 billion.