Edited to remove photos from the other Metairie Kmart location.
Here we are again for one last visit to the last Kmart store in Louisiana. We will start with these 2017 photos. It is crazy that Louisiana still had several Kmart stores in 2017 and by March 2019 they were all gone. As for full-sized Sears stores in Louisiana, there is just one location left at The Mall of Louisiana.
Old school battery finding station.
Electronics, I wanted to make sure that this department was as well documented as possible.
A peak into the open back room.
Appliances and more
Former pharmacy
I liked the fact that the sports gear was at the front of the store at the beginning of football season.
This store had 10 checkout lanes, a couple more than the other Kmart stores in the area.
Now onto the 2018 photos. At the time of these photos, the store was still 3 months away from the store closing announcement. Little did I know at the time, but it would be my last visit to this store.
Men's clothing
This is one of the few stores that was continuing to put up floor displays.
All about the shoes.
I seriously thought about camping out in the store when I saw this. My hotel was a lot more comfortable though.
More shoes
Housewares
Appliances
I wonder what happened to the lease plans after the store closed.
The Sears appliance and mattress department had been mostly taken over by furniture.
I am not sure why but the lights were not 100% on during this visit. Some parts of the store looked dark like this area.
Hardware
This time they left the back room doors wide open.
A better look at the car battery display.
Back to the electronics department.
Lawn and garden
Toys and outdoor furniture
The center aisle looking from near the former pharmacy to the Sears appliance department.
Surprisingly this beat up price scanner still worked.
One last view of the store, at the checkout counters.
Fast forward to March 2019 St. Patricks Day weekend. This was 6 days after the store shut for good, ending Kmart's Louisiana run. Sadly I missed the store closing by 6 days. I lived very close to this Kmart for a couple of years and frequented this store.
This is not the final Kmart post from Louisiana. The massive Lake Charles Kmart finale is in the works, along with another 30+ posts.
Wow! That batter finder tv-looking thing with the buttons on it looks retro.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant battery, not batter.
ReplyDeleteNo worries, yeah it had to be an original fixture from when the store opened in the late 80's.
DeleteThis is the Kmart I saw and captured on my Video8 camcorder during my trip to New Orleans in 1999. I never did go inside it though. I suppose this will be my tour of the place, thanks for the photos. This looked like a pretty nice Kmart even with the lighting issues. It's a bit surprising seeing a Kmart location with decent inventory and brand names as that really isn't the case anymore. The sporting goods setup with modern signage and the set up tents are a nice touch. The area is still kind of messy, but at least it's nicer than the average Kmart display.
ReplyDeleteThis Kmart still had a pretty good inventory of electronics in 2017. By that point in time, the electronics were starting to thin out at most Kmarts. Audio and VHS cassettes seem to have been long-gone at this Kmart, but they still did have VHS-C cassettes. I wonder if Kmarts even sold those at 90% off. I can't imagine that too many people were using VHS-C camcorders even in 2017, but I suppose they could have been used on a regular VHS VCR with the proper adapter. It does look like this store sold a decent amount of Verbatim and Maxell blank CDs and DVDs. They also seem to have a pretty decent selection of DVD movies/shows. It looks like they had a lot of Reba DVDs. That show was set in Houston so I guess it's a little bit of Houston at a Louisiana Kmart.
That battery finder is very strange. The Samsung CRT TV that is in there is at least from the mid-90s with that newer logo, but it's possible that was put in after the Sears merger. I'm not sure. I've never really seen such a thing at a Kmart or Sears. Kmart most certainly sold car batteries before the merger, but I don't think they would have been so fancy to use a computerized setup like that. It must be connected to some kind of ancient computer that probably didn't have any post-1990s car models listed. That whole thing seems like a mash-up of the classic Kmart blood pressure monitors and DieHard batteries.
I wonder why the pharmacy at this location closed before the store did. It seems that pharmacies were one of the few positive things Kmart had going for them. I suppose that wasn't the case at this location.
Your 1999 video probably has a lot of things that have changed. That was the last year I lived down there.
DeleteI was really surprised that this Kmart closed. This was still a fairly busy Kmart location with a decent level of inventory. It probably would not be this well stocked if it would have survived into 2020, but this was a nice store.
The battery finder was futuristic at the time. Those buttons look suspiciously like video game arcade buttons from the 80's and 90's era machines.
I did not take a very good look at the movie selection while I was there. Most of their movies seemed to be older copies with a few newer releases mixed in. I have to wonder if the movies actually sold during the store closing sale or did they get shipped to other stores.
It was strange that the pharmacy closed here. The neighboring Kmart had the pharmacy up until the store closing sale began in late 2018.