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March 28, 2024, 01:10:40 PM
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Badmovies.org Forum  |  Other Topics  |  Off Topic Discussion  |  We're losing our Mart of K later this month « previous next »
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Author Topic: We're losing our Mart of K later this month  (Read 22477 times)
sprite75
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« on: March 12, 2017, 04:24:18 PM »

Did I tell you all that where I live in Iowa we're losing our Mart of K in a few weeks?

It was the first one to open in Iowa when it opened in 1962. 

It's been obvious now for a while that K Mart was declining fast these past few years but it's still sad to see them leaving here.  Many a Saturday afternoon was spent with the parents shopping at the Mart of K for various goods. 
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El Misfit
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« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2017, 09:38:19 PM »

My mom grew up in Illinois and her mother would say "Honey, we're going to the cheap store." Since i was born in a time that Wal-mart was a thing, K Mart seemed to be the poverty level of Wal-Mart, so I  have no real sadness to see it gone.
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yeah no.
sprite75
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« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2017, 09:49:24 AM »

My mom grew up in Illinois and her mother would say "Honey, we're going to the cheap store." Since i was born in a time that Wal-mart was a thing, K Mart seemed to be the poverty level of Wal-Mart, so I  have no real sadness to see it gone.

I do remember when I was a kid K-Mart actually didn't seem to be all that bad.  I remember playing the Atari 2600 demo system they had there and how there was always a bit of a crowd around the system.  It was only the past few years that they began their downward slide.  When we first got the Wally World K-mart seemed to be a bit more expensive.
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ER
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« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2017, 10:08:05 AM »

When I was little, real little, like maybe three, I went into a K-mart with my mother, and as we were walking along this blue flashing light went off attached to this push cart, and suddenly people were like sucked out of the rest of the store by the gravitational pull of this event, and in seconds a crowd had gathered to watch this Japanese man take something  called a "Ginsu knife" and slice through soft drink cans with it, and chop up a wooden plank, and show the knife was still razor-keen enough to slice an egg into paper-thin sections, and I was absolutely flummoxed it was so cool to go into a store, usually a boring place to me at that age, and be utterly entertained, so I left that day thinking K-mart was some sort of surreal amusement park, and I loved it. For years and years that early impression stuck with me, that it was a sort of David Lynch-like fantasyland, part carnival, part store, and no matter how many jokes I heard made about it later in life, it always held a fondness for me. I'll be sorry to hear when the last K-mart finally shuts down.
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sprite75
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« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2017, 11:43:53 AM »

When I was little, real little, like maybe three, I went into a K-mart with my mother, and as we were walking along this blue flashing light went off attached to this push cart, and suddenly people were like sucked out of the rest of the store by the gravitational pull of this event, and in seconds a crowd had gathered to watch this Japanese man take something  called a "Ginsu knife" and slice through soft drink cans with it, and chop up a wooden plank, and show the knife was still razor-keen enough to slice an egg into paper-thin sections, and I was absolutely flummoxed it was so cool to go into a store, usually a boring place to me at that age, and be utterly entertained, so I left that day thinking K-mart was some sort of surreal amusement park, and I loved it. For years and years that early impression stuck with me, that it was a sort of David Lynch-like fantasyland, part carnival, part store, and no matter how many jokes I heard made about it later in life, it always held a fondness for me. I'll be sorry to hear when the last K-mart finally shuts down.


That would be kind of neat to turn one of the closed stores into a K-mart museum, and it set up to showcase K-mart during it's half century of existence.  If I had the $$$ I'd be in touch with the owners of the building to do a lease and with Sears/K-Mart for permission to use the logos and such and covert the local K-Mart into a museum after it closes later this month. 
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« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2017, 08:03:04 AM »

I worked at our local K Mart back when I was in high school. That was back in the days when the blue light specials ER mentioned were a regular occurrence. I even got to announce a few. I started in the garden department despite not knowing a thing about gardening, and then I was moved to toys. Working toys in a store like that was awful. I would straighten an aisle, move on to the next aisle,  and by the time I finished there, the first aisle was destroyed again. The toy department was used as a babysitter by a lot of parents back then. I only lasted one summer.

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« Reply #6 on: March 14, 2017, 10:32:16 AM »

So sorry to hear that!  I love me some KMart!  There was one in walking distance from my house when I lived in Chicago, but they don't have them out in the suburbs.. just a bunch of Walmarts which I'd rather not set foot in unless there is no other choice.  The KMart by my old place is still there and they opened an Olive Garden next to it, so I imagine that has to help business.  I still go there when I'm in town!  Though the curtains they sell there are one panel per bag as they are in most stores (I hate this), they are actually priced like one curtain so you can afford the two that you need to dress a window. 

There were two goofy guys that worked in the garden center one spring that introduced themselves to me and my friend as "Tuna and Elmo" and we noticed a lot of the plant signs were misspelled.  I don't think they worked there very long.
 

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sprite75
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« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2017, 08:59:35 AM »

They're gone now, the last day was March 26.  I drove past this morning and the signs were already off the building at the former Mart of K, as well as the sign along the highway.

Like I said I'll miss them.  It'll be different around here with out a Mart of K. 
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BoyScoutKevin
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« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2017, 03:19:37 PM »

When you get as old as I, then you have older memories of your oldest shopping experiences. Sometimes even then, places that had been around for decades. Places that no longer exist or exist under different names and/or conditions.

Gone
A&P
W. T. Grant

Now
Woolworth now Footlocker
S. S. Kresge now K Mart

On life support
J. C. Penny's
Monkey Wards (aka Montgomery Wards)
Sears Roebuck

Gone from this area
Hallmark stores
Warner Bros. store

And don't ask me about bookstores. Okay. Ask me about bookstores.
Barnes and Noble from 4 stories to 1 store in this area. Still better than . . .
B. Dalton's
Book stop
Border's
Waldenbooks
and a couple of independent bookstores.
All of which are gone from this area.

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lester1/2jr
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« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2017, 09:27:03 AM »

people are buying stuff online. I deliver stuff for Google express which is less of a threat because I just deliver random stuff from the supermarket. . Retail though is dying they have to do something. Cities should like give them tax breaks or something unless they want empty space everywhere. or just endless nail salons and pizza
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sprite75
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« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2017, 04:46:39 PM »

When you get as old as I, then you have older memories of your oldest shopping experiences. Sometimes even then, places that had been around for decades. Places that no longer exist or exist under different names and/or conditions.

Gone
A&P
W. T. Grant

Now
Woolworth now Footlocker
S. S. Kresge now K Mart

On life support
J. C. Penny's
Monkey Wards (aka Montgomery Wards)
Sears Roebuck

Gone from this area
Hallmark stores
Warner Bros. store

And don't ask me about bookstores. Okay. Ask me about bookstores.
Barnes and Noble from 4 stories to 1 store in this area. Still better than . . .
B. Dalton's
Book stop
Border's
Waldenbooks
and a couple of independent bookstores.
All of which are gone from this area.



Yep a lot of things.  Sounds like Footlocker is still around and has had some profitable years lately, their stock price is up a bit from what it was a few years ago.

Actually the original Montgomery Ward went under back in late 2000, and closed all their stores then.  An Iowa company bought the name and launched an online retailer in 2004.  They were bought by Swiss Colony a few years later. 

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BoyScoutKevin
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« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2017, 04:07:07 PM »

Yeah, you are right, Sprite about a lot going out of business. Since I moved to the area in which I lived, we have lost our 2 regional department store chains: Monnig's and Stripling & Cox. Food Lion became Fiesta, and Minyard's became Albertson's, and of the 8 supermarkets within my shopping radius, 3 of them, the latest being Kroger have ceased to exist totally. I don't know whether this says anything about where I live, but those are ones, farthest, though within driving distance, of where I live now. It makes one wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
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ER
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« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2017, 01:51:34 PM »

(I've noticed sometimes store and product names change from region to region: Hardee's/Carl's Jr., Shoney's/Frisch's, Ede's Ice Cream/Dreyer's Ice Cream, etc. You're just going for the sass calling it the "Mart of K" and K-Marts where you live aren't really called "Mart of K" are they?)
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sprite75
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« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2017, 07:28:02 AM »

(I've noticed sometimes store and product names change from region to region: Hardee's/Carl's Jr., Shoney's/Frisch's, Ede's Ice Cream/Dreyer's Ice Cream, etc. You're just going for the sass calling it the "Mart of K" and K-Marts where you live aren't really called "Mart of K" are they?)

Yep, that's correct.   The stores where I lived were referred to as K-Mart.
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ER
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« Reply #14 on: April 12, 2017, 08:54:39 AM »

(I've noticed sometimes store and product names change from region to region: Hardee's/Carl's Jr., Shoney's/Frisch's, Ede's Ice Cream/Dreyer's Ice Cream, etc. You're just going for the sass calling it the "Mart of K" and K-Marts where you live aren't really called "Mart of K" are they?)

Yep, that's correct.   The stores where I lived were referred to as K-Mart.

Okay, thanks. lol
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