I hope each and everyone of my blog readers is doing well as I post this. With the temperature plunge in the central plains all the way to the coast of Texas this past week, so many people have been affected. Our region is not built to handle sustained cold. Under normal circumstances for six months out of the year we are unbearably hot, so our infrastructure and homes are designed accordingly. My thoughts and prayers go out to those still in need of assistance.
This is one store closure that I hated to see. Over the years, we visited this Kmart store countless times. Some of those visits were documented here on the blog. With that being said, here is my long overdue goodbye post to the Lake Charles Kmart. On this article I will mostly let the photos speak for themselves, I have exhaustedly covered this store on the blog. Make sure to check out the video links at the end of this post for more on this store.
May 2018 just before the store closing announcement was made.
Once again Kmart was way ahead of their time. Snow shovels in 2018, a lot of us needed those in 2021.
KGRO
I am glad I picked one of these up when I did, they went quickly in the store closing sale.
The electronics department was a far cry from where it was just a couple of years ago.
Floors were really starting to buckle across the store.
Only a couple of light bulbs still working on the home goods display.
Anonymous, this photo is for you. Cassettes sold out.
Now we begin the store closing sale.
I really took a lot of photos on the next few visits. A lot of the store fixtures and signage had to be documented.
The pharmacy was gone fairly quickly once the store closing sale started.
More KGRO stuff.
As the sun sets on this Kmart, scenes like this have been repeated all over the United States. As of this post only 23 Transformco Kmart stores are left. In the near future the only remaining Kmart stores will probably be the Australian chain of Westfarmers.
Next visit during the closing sale. Things are changing fast at this point.
Now that the aisles are emptying out, we are able to see the signage. These department signs were put in about 5 years ago so they are in fairly good shape.
Layaway counter
There was a broken sticker taped over the button.
I like the extra information that is on the signage. This is helpful even though most people just use their phones these days.
Door was open so I had to peek inside.
The Craftsman guarantee. You have to wonder if the remaining Sears stores have any tool inventory left to honor this guarantee for most tools.
I wonder if this camera survived the building damage during the Hurricanes.
Such a perfect item for Kmart to sell.
This sign has seen better days.
I was glad to see the gift cards still up in this part of the store. All of the other racks had been thrown away. I saved a few of these for my collection.
August 2018, such an awesome sky in this photo.
Old school no smoking sign.
With how empty all of the other departments were at this point, the sports team stuff was still full. All of the Saints, McNeese, and LSU stuff was long gone. Not much interest in the remaining teams.
Our Finale! Last 9 days of business.
Seeing this emptiness was a shock. I knew this day would eventually come.
The last of the electronics.
I am glad the liquidators did not barricade the store off so we could roam the empty space.
This was the only part of the store somewhat barricaded off.
The bulk of the inventory left at this point was clothes.
I really miss this store, we have a lot of good memories shopping here over the years. As I finish up this post, it has been almost a year since I visited a Kmart. I really wonder how bad a Kmart looks in 2021.
The store closed for good on September 2, 2018.
As for the current state of the store, it was heavily damaged during Hurricane Laura last Summer. You can see the video here from the Wanderer.
More posts on the way.
The extensive coverage of this store in just this post is awesome. Of course, it's great looking back at the older photos of this store as well, but I think you gave this store a good memorial. Thanks for taking a picture of the blank media at this store. It's sad that they don't have any more audio or video cassettes, but at least they had a pretty good selection of Verbatim blank CDs and DVDs towards the end. Also, that cassette cup is great! It's great to see that Kmart had something neat like that.
ReplyDeleteAs you said early in the post, the region is struggling to recover from the power outages and water problems caused by the winter storm. I hope you and your readers have been able to come through things without damage, but we still have a couple of cold nights left. At least more people have power now.
On that note, you're right that Kmart was once again ahead of major events. This Kmart, like many others, had a large supply of toilet paper out of pallets and other sanitation supplies two years before the global pandemic. Also, they had snow shovels at a time when nobody thought this region would need snow shovels! We laughed at the Pasadena Sears stocking a snow blower, but maybe that came in handy for someone in the Houston area, lol. I suppose Lampert can look back at the failures of Sears and Kmart and say that he was just ahead of his time, lol.
I don't know if I ever noticed this before at this Kmart, but the Pantry department sign is a bit unusual in shape and the fact that it has a photo on it. I'm not sure if I've ever seen something like that in all the Kmart photos I've seen.
This Kmart reminds me a bit of the Lufkin Kmart, but the Walkman woman was covered up here unlike at Lufkin. The McAllen Kmart was nicer, of course, but this Kmart doesn't look too bad as far as Kmarts in 2018 go. There certainly were some spots where the ceiling tiles were looking quite bad. And, of course, it wouldn't be a Kmart without some vintage security cameras and backup lights!
That DieHard t-shirt is pretty awesome! I might have purchased that if the size and price was right. I wonder how many 49ers and Broncos fans there are in Lake Charles. It seems Kmart thought there were a lot, but I'm not so sure. At least the amount of Cowboys gear seems minimal in the pictures, lol.
It's interesting to see that this Kmart had the EasyLiving brand of spray paint. I wonder why Sears/Kmart used that name of theirs instead of the more famous name of Weatherbeater, but something is better than nothing. We heard some years ago about Sears bringing paint back, but I'm not sure if that ever happened in any great scale. At least this store got the spray paint. Like at other stores, shoppers spray that paint all over the racks and such unfortunately.
I see that this shopping center has a Casa Ole in it. Google says it's temporarily closed and there have not been any user reviews in about 5 months. I wonder if it's temporarily or permanently closed. It seems the Almeda Mall area Casa Ole closed sometime in 2020, but the Pancho's is staying alive.
I remember us discussing the Albertsons in this shopping center before and it not being very nice. It looks like it did get a recent renovation that was probably forced on Albertsons by Hurricane Laura or one of the other recent storms. It looks pretty nice now. It looks modern, but there are still areas that look retro given the architecture of the store. I know some other fellow bloggers will be interested in the Albertsons so I'll provide a clickable link to the store on Google here.
This store holds a lot of great memories over the years for me. It was a must stop whenever we went to Lake Charles which was every 3 months or so before Covid. This store also stayed open an hour later than most area retailers which made it more accessible.
DeleteThis store held on for much longer than I thought, but ultimately if it had been open in 2020 the hurricanes would have finished it off.
Not a lot had changed at this Kmart over the years. I noticed the strange pantry sign a while back, I have no idea what era of signage it came from. The last two years were when the maintenance really fell off. I guess it was like that company wide though. The store also missed a lot of the 2010 era upgrades.
I picked up a lot of work shirts from Kmart when they were closing. I should have grabbed the Diehard shirt when I photographed it. I was trying to catch it on sale and missed it once the closing sale started.
Kmart still had a good selection of hardware up until the closing sale began. You could see the automotive selection shrinking rapidly, but tools would fill empty spots there.
I have the last Kmart article from McAllen as my last Kmart post in my backlog. I hope that I can do that store justice as well.
That Casa Ole location is no longer on the company website. I have noticed a lot of Casa Ole closures in our area, they are down to 8 locations now in the Houston area. Chains like Los Cucos and Gringos have taken their customer base.
I looked at the Albertsons photos. That store really needed an upgrade. The Albertsons in Alexandria and Shreveport had a similar vintage look, I wonder if those stores got remodeled as well.
That DieHard shirt would have been a nice collectable, but I suppose someone had the same thought that you did. Oh well, at least you got a photo of it.
DeleteThat Pantry sign seems to be of the same vintage as the other signage at the store, but it's an odd design that I've never seen before at all the other photos I've seen of Big Kmarts that had a pantry foods department. That's odd, I suppose Kmart was experimenting with something here. This store would have looked nicer with the upgrades the McAllen Kmart got, but it wasn't to be.
Speaking of the McAllen Kmart and your future post about it, I did make some comments in another reply elsewhere on the blog about how strange it is that it will be your last post about a visit to a Kmart! That was a nice store (at least as far as Kmarts go). I'm sure the post about it will be good.
You're right about Gringos and Los Cucos taking all the customers away from Casa Ole. I've not been to Gringos yet, but from what I've heard, I think it's safe to say both have far superior food to Casa Ole, lol. That said, Casa Ole is better than Pancho's. That's not saying much, I know, lol. Casa Ole has a lot of history in this area though so it's a shame to see them kind of fade away.
As I expected, the topic of the Lake Charles Albertsons has spurred on discussion on other blogs, lol. The Northwest Retail blogger is currently running a series about an Albertsons in his area that was converted into a Safeway (that seems to be common in Washington state from what NW Retail is saying). I thus mentioned your Kmart post to him and posted a link to the Albertsons there. Although NW Retail is quite knowledgeable about Albertsons and their decor packages, he had never seen that decor package before. Retail Retell then posted a link to a blog post done earlier this week about Louisiana and Texas Albertsons on the Northern Florida Retail Blog. On that post, the Northern Florida Retail blogger, YonWooRetail2, posted a link to a construction company in the NW that does redesigns for Albertsons. It seems the name of the decor package used at the Lake Charles Albertsons is called the 'Heritage Decor'.
I have to be honest, that's the first I've seen of the Heritage Decor, but I don't follow Albertsons as closely as some since we don't have them here anymore. It looks, really, really nice though.
It seems that most of the Louisiana and North Texas Albertsons have been remodeled in the last 2-3 years. Most of them have received what is called the 'Legacy Decor'. That also looks pretty good, but I think I prefer the 'Heritage Decor' even though it's more rare. I did find another Louisiana Albertsons with the Heritage Decor in Lafayette which I will link here. I'll also post a link to the Shreveport Albertsons which, like the Alexandria store, has the Legacy Decor.
So, yeah, your Kmart post did contribute to a lot of us learning about a new Albertsons decor package, lol. Also, I'm glad to see that YonWooRetail2 is covering Louisiana & Texas Albertsons on his Northern Florida Retail blog.
The McAllen Kmart will more than likely be my last open Kmart post. I just don't see things lining up to visit one of the few remaining stores in the next few months. The last few stores are so far away. Most of the remaining stores have the newer paint and signage like McAllen did.
ReplyDeleteCasa Ole is Tex-Mex comfort food. It is a step up from fast food chains like Taco Bell and Taco Casa, but the chain is fading away. Casa Ole is like Pancho's and Monterrey's Little Mexico in that their best days are well behind them.
The Albertsons stores really look a lot different than I can remember. The upgrades remind me a little of the Randall's in Kingwood that was remodeled after flooding. Albertsons stores really needed to be upgraded in Louisiana, they were looking very tired. Rouses made a big push in most of the Southeastern part of the state with really nice stores. Winn-Dixie has been upgrading stores as well as Kroger. It was time for Albertsons to do the same. I am glad to see other bloggers and Youtubers doing work in the areas that I cover, it will be up to them to keep the updates coming once I retire the blog.
Speaking of Randall's, we shopped there a couple of weeks ago at the Champions location. The store felt sad and really looks aged these days. We had picked up some bakery items that had an expiration date store stamped for February, but the package had an manufacturer expiration date of December.
I will reply to the second comment at a later time.
You are right that the Louisiana and many of the Dallas area Albertsons were starting to look very tired. I found an image of a Dallas area Albertsons that was remodeled recently. As you can tell from the photo, the interior of that store before the remodel was quite sad. That's the same Blue & Gray Decor that Albertsons used in their earliest stores in Houston, but it was repainted at some point (some Houston area Food Towns that were old Albertsons still have this decor, but at least in some cases it is maintained better). Still, it looked like a tribute to the early 1990s and the chips in the floor was making things look rather ugly for a supposedly mid-tier grocer. Albertsons has also been making some slight facade renovations to the outside of these stores as well.
DeleteThere's someone on Flickr who covers Houston and Louisiana retail and I've seen photos of Louisiana Rouses stores on their channel. They do look pretty good and they look like stiff competition for Kroger and Albertsons. Market Basket has some interesting locations as well as we've seen on this very blog (though I think that was a location in Texas).
On the topic of Albertsons renovations, one Randall's store that Albertsons/Safeway gave a recent renovation is now in the process of closing as per a recent post on the Houston Historic Retail blog. It's a location in Bellaire. It seems the new HEB (at least I think it's new) across the street was too much competition for Randalls even with the recent renovation to the Lifestyle v3 decor package. I can't remember for sure, but I suspect at least one of those Kingwood Randall's had the Lifestyle v3 decor.
As for the Champions Randall's, I've come to learn that Randall's does not put as much effort into that location as they do with some of their locations in wealthy urban and inner-suburb areas. I've visited some of those other Randall's stores in recent months, like the Town & Country one, and those stores are run with a lot more employees and a lot more enthusiasm. Differences in Google user ratings seems to back this up as those inner locations seem to have very high user ratings. The Champions rating isn't bad, in fact it's better than some nearby Krogers, but it's not quite up to the ratings of the other Randall's locations.
Most Houston Randall's have the Lifestyle v2 decor package that the Champions store has, but the Champions store is on the smaller side and it also has the pitched roof that leads to the side departments having a rather low ceiling. While the Lifestyle v2 decor is not exactly new at this point, it still looks good at some Randall's locations which have more room to let the decor standout. Here's an example of a Houston Randall's that has the same decor, but looks more vibrant. It's the Westheimer & Gessner location near where the Houston Jewelry catalog showroom was.
I'm not sure what the deal was with that expiration date. I did have some issues with finding expired food on the shelves of some Randall's locations (most of which have closed in subsequent years) about a decade ago, but it seems that I've had better luck in more recent times.
Now that you mention it, it does seem to be true that a lot of the newer retail blogs are focused on the south. In the past, retail blogs were mostly oriented towards the NE US and the Rust Belt (what I call the Kblogger belt). As Kblogging has started to fade away, it seems that the blogs of prominence are now focused on southern areas/Gulf states.
It is strange that Albertsons and Tom Thumb (Safeway) locations seem to do well in the Dallas area, but yet they struggle here in Houston. Albertsons failed here pretty badly, and Safeway let the Randall's brand decline after Safeway failed here years ago. It seems like most grocers from out of the area that come into Houston fail. Aldi, Whole Foods, and Trader Joes seem to be the exception, but they are each different enough from the group of traditional grocers to retain shoppers. Albertsons is a bland grocery store. The only reason to shop there is if there are no better options nearby. Their selection of products is just okay and their everyday prices are not competitive. HEB, Kroger, and Fiesta just do a much better job of providing a great shopping experience with good prices. The only drawback is that those stores are usually much busier and crowded.
DeleteI really need to read more on the Historic Houston Blog. They remind me of Swamplot, which was I was a huge fan of. A lot of malls dropped off in Southern states that were missed by me and several other bloggers.
Tom Thumb in particular seems to do well in Dallas. In some ways, Albertsons was forced to renovate their stores in Dallas just to keep up with Tom Thumb. Tom Thumb has some very nice stores in the Dallas area. Some of them are newer, but a lot of them look very similar to the nicer Randall's in Houston.
DeleteI think Albertsons and Tom Thumb have been able to hang on in Dallas since HEB has a small presence up there. HEB seems to be growing in that market, but they seem to be taking a slow and very measured approach to growth there. It seems that they are unwilling to divert too much funding away from their efforts to become a dominant grocer here in Houston. Certainly HEB's growth strategy has been working very, very well in Houston. Once Houston is built out, maybe HEB will be more aggressive in Dallas.
If HEB is more aggressive in Dallas, I think Albertsons and Tom Thumb will be in trouble up there. Kroger has shown that they can hang with HEB so they may not cede too much marketshare to HEB. Thus, marketshare has to come from somewhere and I'm sure it'll be Albertsons and Tom Thumb.
All this said, there are some upscale parts of the Metroplex and maybe Tom Thumb at least can maintain something. I was reading Google user comments for a Midtown Randall's location and one of the users commented that Randall's employees were giving everyone in the store free roses from the floral department. That's a nice showing of customer service that old Randall's would have done, but it seems Randall's still does it at their wealthiest area stores even in modern times. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem Randall's tries as hard in the suburbs as they do in wealthy urban areas where the customers probably aren't very sensitive to prices.
I do agree with you that Albertsons stores seem rather bland even compared to Safeway brand stores. Hopefully these new decor packages can give them more of an identity.
Many out-of-state grocers have failed miserably here in Houston. Albertsons, Grand Union (after they bought out Weingarten's), Lucky (Eagle Stores), Food Lion, The Fresh Market, and others. I suppose we could put Auchan and Safeway on that list, but Safeway's initial run in Houston lasted quite some time. Everyone wants a piece of this market, but few have what it takes to survive unless one can find a niche like the grocers you mentioned and also Sprouts.
The Houston Historic Retail blog is a pretty good read. It's worth keeping up with their new articles. The publisher, Mike, has commented on posts at this blog before, but I have not seen him around in a while. But, yeah, a lot of his posts are patterned after Swamplot posts and I know he's active on HAIF. He even does demolition reports like Swamplot did. You may want to check out the new HHR blog post about McDuff Electronics. He was able to dig up some good information about them and even a photo and a commercial. His Incredible Universe post is pretty good as well.
Those grocers in Dallas will be in trouble once HEB makes a stronger push into Dallas. HEB has grown very well, they slowly enter a market to understand the area, then expand from there into prime areas.
DeleteI wonder how much longer Randall's will stick around Houston. Once they closed stores in some of the better off areas of Houston, you have to wonder how they will manage. I think we will see a similar fade off like we did with Sears in the area. Randall's is just not competitive or vibrant enough to compete in this market.
When i worked in the restaurant business years ago, we used to give out flowers on Mother's Day to the ladies. It is something I have not seen in years.
I agree that the Houston Historic Blog is a pretty good read. I caught up last night. I really missed Swamplot so this fills a void. I will check out the McDuff post.
Perhaps Albertsons' best hope for sticking around in Texas once HEB finishes expanding is to further their investment into El Rancho and use that as their way of staying relevant in Texas. I think the El Rancho format has potential. While Fiesta is strong here, some other parts of Texas don't have a strong Hispanic-oriented supermarket. El Ranchos seem to be pretty memorable stores so at least they have that going for them.
DeleteI think Randall's will stick around in Houston as long as they can maintain some of their stores in wealthy parts of town where there is little competition. Some of those areas are fully built out and it'll be difficult for HEB to build a competing store without spending a lot of money. Also, in some of those wealthiest areas, the customers may prefer shopping at a Randall's that doesn't have Walmart levels of traffic the way the typical HEB store has. HEBs can be real madhouses sometimes. They don't have the problems that Walmarts do, but still. People who have more money than time might be inclined to continue shopping at Randall's and some might prefer the higher quality of service that these wealthy area Randall's stores have.
Although I don't have the luxury to be able to select convenience over prices the way many people in those wealthy neighborhoods do, I do try to pick more convenient options over busy supermarkets like HEB when I can get away with it while not paying more or much more. A few days ago, I needed to pick up a couple of items and my options were HEB and Food Town. The Food Town had maybe a third of the amount of cars in the parking lot as the HEB. I was able to park up front without needing to worry about someone running into my car with a tight parking spot, pick up what I needed very quickly (the store being smaller helps as well), and nobody was ahead of me in the checkout line. I was in and out in less than five minutes. I'm sure Food Town would rather have their stores be busier than that, but I appreciated being able to shop there without any kind of hassle.
I know that sometimes car repair shops will have "ladies days" where they give their female customers roses, but it's a pretty rare thing at most retailers these days unless it's truly a luxury store.
Speaking of Swamplot and the Houston Historic Retail blog, the blogger there posted a new post today where he was asking for feedback about whether he should continue Swamplot-like non-retail posts or if he should stick to retail posts. You might be interested in providing feedback in the comments section. I remember you posting a similar poll on the blog many years ago. The blogger also posted about his neat vintage Jack in the Box kids meal record in his retail collection. I couldn't help but to make a reply about my McDonald's record, lol.
I kept forgetting about El Rancho, that is the kind of concept that can keep them going in this area. Fiesta has been very, very slow to grow into new locations in the city. The El Rancho concept certainly has room for growth.
DeleteOne thing HEB is experimenting with is two level stores. I am not sure how those do during peak rush hours, but that store concept would be a way into some of the wealthy area where they normally wouldn't build before. A smaller plot of land would be a lot more affordable than a huge lot with tons of parking.
I haven't been to a Food Town
in years. I lived by several locations in Southeast Houston at one time. I remember them having some really good specials. I haven't seen a lot of expansion from them in a while.
Car repair shops and roses for the ladies, what could go wrong, lol.
I will comment on that post. I think the demolition reports are a good thing to document.