Bradlees

Northeast U.S. "discount" department store. That means it's cheaper than Lord & Taylor. Filed for bankruptcy in 1995, which does not seem to have affected my local store at all. Formerly a Stop & Shop holding, now a publicly traded company in its own right.

Bradless has recently officially announced its going out of business sale, and is liquidating all of its assets. All but a few of the stores will not be spared. This means my local Bradlees is going under. Many believe this is due to larger super-chains like Walmart and the emergence of bigger malls and the like taking huge chunks out of the smaller chain merchants.

With Ames (who bought out Zayres) filing for Chapter 11, only K-mart left standing (in their market demographic). What is to be said of the larger competitors. As long as they can stay profitable even in the face of Walmart's seemingly good image, they will hang on; barely. Bradlees was not a well managed or well kept store, in the few I have been in. It was dingy, but the products were of O.K. quality. Basically, it was what i would have expected in a discount store, and nothing more.