Hastings Alexandria Louisiana Summer 2016

Here was the only Hastings Superstore in Louisiana. Hastings had three store concepts, Hastings, MovieStop, and Tradesmart. MovieStop began liquidating in June shortly before the bankruptcy of the company was announced. Hastings went into bankruptcy protection in June 2016 and was unable to find a buyer to continue operations. In July, Hastings was sold off to liquidators and the final stores closed on October 29, 2016. These photos were taken after the bankruptcy was announced, but before the liquidation.

Here is an article that goes over the company history leading up to the bankruptcy.

Also check out the additional photos of the Longview Kmart here.

 This Hastings Superstore had a drive through Hardback Coffee Cafe in addition to the store. Some of the smaller Hastings did not have the coffee cafe, and this was the only location I visited that had a drive through.

A typical Hastings Superstore had these departments

Movies for sale and to rent

Music CD's and Records both new and used

Video Games for all major consoles for sale and to rent

Books new and used

Comics

Fan zone with collectibles from the big 3 major sports and all teams

Toys and collectables

Electronics with TV's, CD players, record players, walkmans, tablets 

Phone accessories

Guitars and musical instruments

Gag gifts

T-shirts

Outdoor sports

Science projects

Hobby shop with build it yourself cars and RC cars

Skateboards

Magazines and newspapers

Greeting cards

Board games

Magic and Pokemon games

and more

Hastings had a lot of things in one store and you could easily spend hours browsing in the store. Hastings was in the beginning stages of adjusting the products in the stores to increase profits when the company went into bankruptcy. 

Music with the t-shirt wall in the background

In the music department looking towards the books

The front of the store close to the registers

Video game and comics departments

They had a huge selection of video games at every store

More video games 

The table was set up for events and card games

Video game rentals had been discontinued at this point and all games were being sold for $49.99

Hastings was the largest retailer of comics in the United States. 

One of the help desks scattered throughout the store in the movie department

The fan zone with sports collectibles

Hastings had a decent selection of new and used records

A view of the middle of the store

More of the fan zone with the comics sign in the background

This store had a massive movie collection to rent or buy

When you walked into the store you could use the sign to easily locate where the main departments were in the store. 

These massive signs can be seen from most parts of the store.

From the books department to the music and movies.

Books and more books

Hastings did not have a lot of stores in large cities, most of their stores were in towns with metro populations of between 50 and 200 thousand people. The loss of Hastings will take away not just jobs, but places where people went to mingle.

Not many places still have these movie drop off boxes.

This will not be the only Hastings store to be featured on the blog. Conroe, Lake Jackson, Tyler, Nacogdoches, Bryan, and Waco were all visited during the closing sales.

Sports Authority closing sale 2016

Sports Authority Humble Texas

Here are a few photos from a closing sale of the Sports Authority. About 25% of the Sports Authority stores began going out of business sales when they filed for bankruptcy including all of the stores in Texas. A few weeks after these stores began closing sales, the company decided to close the rest of the stores ending the company. 

The Sports Authority came into Houston when Gart Sports merged with Sports Authority and changed the names of the stores. This former Oshman's store was originally across the highway at Deerbrook Mall in a much smaller space. This location opened as an Oshman's Super Sports USA in the mid 90's. The interior of the store looks almost exactly as it did when it opened, minus the Sports Authority signage above the exit doors. This store did not age well and began looking dated about 10 years ago. The Sports Authority was an expensive alternative to Academy and had a hard time competing especially in the past 5 years after the nearby Academy moved into a larger store once again.

This was one strange going out of business sale. They had a few papers at the door for the first week of the sale, but no big signage and pulled a ton of merchandise off of the floor. I guess they sent the best merchandise to the stores that were originally going to stay open. They also shipped in a bunch of sports gear from different cities across the US. While the store was open they had gear from all of the Texas teams, LSU, and whatever team won a championship that year.  

This was the back area of the store with guns, camping supplies, summer games, and football gear.

These signs remained up even after the announcement of the rest of the company closing.

Peeling paint on the air vents, they are like this across the store.

Most, if not all of the players in this photo retired many years ago.

Enjoy the rest of the store

Somebody put some clothes on these mannequins

It is amazing that once a store starts a going out of business sale, parts of the sign stop working.

I am not sure exactly when the sale concluded, but it was about a month after I took the last set of photos.

Here is the same store after the closing sale ended. The sign was taken down a few months of closing.