what y'all get?

It was Christmas 1987! I got lots of He-Man characters, GI Joe, Transformers and lots of other popular toys from that time!

The store is now deceased too

Thanks for sharing your story, it's great.@@GM-iw4qn

you know what date and what tv station?@@GM-iw4qn

Like Sears too. It's business liquidation. But Yus those big vents I remember from the 90's.

Was a design from that era.

Most K-Mart buildings were 50 years old. Thats how they built em in 1970.

The ACME in Stamford, CT still has those ancient air vents (former A&P)

I'm pretty sure Big Lots have those ac units too

I worked as a 'utility man' at a chain of discount department stores on the east coast, mid-Atlantic region. Two Guys (from Harrison, New Jersey) the chain was called. I stripped, waxed and buffed the floors there when I was a part-time worker after school. It was actually satisfying to do the buffing after the process of stripping was finished. It was a real nightmare in the winter if we had any snow because the amount of dirt and salt tracked-in from outside was mind boggling. I don't know how our crew got everything shipshape late at night so that the store could have a normal opening in the morning. I used to get two or three extra hours at night in the winter.

Do you remember the great Toy section they use to have? I loved the Masters of the Universe figures as a kid.

And my childhood Kmart in Kearny, NJ closed May 2,2021

It really is sad! I went to mine here in Mercer county New Jersey rite up until it closed in December of 2020! It was either the 15th or the 19th n took my kids bcuz I wanted them to have some sort of memory of it. It was a huge staple in my life especially like u said around the holidays! But when I moved from the city to the township it was one of the only things I lived close enough to where I could walk to it. I used to go to the snack counter and get soft pretzels and a slurpee! They had the plastic nfl team cups at the time back then! Then I’d go raid the toy aisles! It was always a place of fond memories for me! I remember they had a food vendor come out when the weather was warm and u could get hot dogs and a soda for real cheap! I don’t know what that was for I imagine just to drum up business by getting ppl there for that n they’d end up going in the store afterwards? But it was a fun place for a kid

I'd say Kmart employees did it to themselves I remember how lazy and rude they were

@@KirkLee1983 Maybe at your store, nothing but great times at the BIG K at the Ohio Valley Mall

@@Attipatty well then it was my store so I am glad that store closed.

@@Attipatty big k is a new name for Kmart the 2nd time around

​@@KirkLee1983sure skippy whatever ya think LOL !

There is a Cafe' there are suppliers of Coffee, Creamers, Sugar, Salt, Side dishes meal, Bon appetite!

They had the most delicious shaved steak and cheese sandwich.

I worked 10 different Kmarts in my career. My first one had a simple deli counter that sold basic stuff, the others either a K Cafe or a Little Caesar's. Two stores in Virginia I had the K Cafe directly adjacent to my shoe department. I spent many a 15 minute break and lunch periods there. Good times.

Their butterscotch pudding was excellent!

Yeah I remember getting popcorn and cotton candy as a kid

Wanna be blown away? Search Australian Kmart tours, the brand is alive and doing really well. Modernized, and profitable. So it stands to question, why did they fail in America, when this is where they were born?

That was the gunk mentioned for dirt which couldn't be removed beneath display cases.

That’s what I thought

I was just about to comment this.. Definitely the layaway area. It was always in the back, near the bathrooms. I never used layaway, but it was very popular back in the day. I always remember seeing it busy.

It probably just was used to clock in after.

​@bL3dbL4k my first thought was layaway. But the one I worked at was no where near the bathrooms. Right next to the appliance dept. We had to do double duty

I live in Monsey and that K-Mart was the only decent store around here. Now all that is left is the dumpy WalMart in Talman.

Isn’t that the one in this video that just closed last month???

Yes.@@Dingoplexor

@@vernonearl sad I wanted to get out to that one and I missed it now I’d have to travel way more to get to the one in NY

I live in North Carolina as well... In Concord, and since the early 90s had a Super Kmart, it had a huge grocery center in it as well. I swear my parents would do all their Christmas shopping at Kmart. I miss it!

Which store? Englewood, Springboro and Eaton all closed around that time. Just curious.

Yes! Kmart sub sandwiches and ICEEs were awesome in the 70s and 80s.

Bradlees & Caldor

@@SSNESS Ames, Ann & Hope

Hard to believe that was way back in 2002.

There's still an AMES store sign over a location in Seabrook, NH. It's been purchased by the neighboring Market Basket , but the renovation project hasn't been approved by the town yet. The store sits empty to this day.

@@stevenedwards8353 That's crazy, I want to say in 2014/2015 I bought a WiiU from my closest K-mart which was in long beach CA. I'm not sure when it closed down, but it had to have been within the past 3 to 4 years. I wanted to go one last time, because between 2014-2017 I bought alot of clothes out of there. They'll never be forgotten.

We had Zayres, then they become Ames in the late 80s, and the Ames all closed in the 90s..

Wonder if Ames stores is related to my Ex. Kept his last name after divorce.

It's not sad per say. All the stores were only there to make the management rich and that's what happened . It did its job and everyone moved on.

That is why Walmart is always moving these fixtures. They don't even disassemble when they move them. I've seen them slide something underneath with wheels on it and then several employees just move the fixture.

It's wax and build up from the floor cleaning machines. Water and dirt that get under the gondolas! I've worked retail most of my life

The filth is because they use a floor stripper first and that picks up all the dirt and old wax and cleans the tiles almost like new. But it makes filthy water that has to be removed. What seeps under fixtures obviously is not removed and just dries there. The floor gets waxed and stays until the next time it gets stripped and the cycle repeats. Spotless and shiny floors are a huge sign that a store cares about how it looks. It takes a ton of work to maintain. This is why many stores like Kroger and Walmart have ripped out tile and gone for sealed but bare concrete floors that look awful but can be maintained with a mop robot. Personally the most beautiful tile floor I have ever seen was in a legacy Walmart that was later converted to the biggest version of the Supercenter. They went all out on that upgrade. It has white tile floors that are so shiny, you can almost see a reflection. When that store used to be open 24hrs, you could go in and see they had outside floor contractors in that store every night with a whole group of workers on riding mops and there was always at least one part of the store roped off so they could strip and wax. Incredible cost and effort to keep that white tile clean. It paid off. But all the recent Walmarts have not only had bare concrete floors, they dye them brown to hide the dirt. Pathetic. Kroger had nice tile but chipped it all up for the same brown concrete which they do not clean.

I worked at a Kmart in 2011 .it was a seasonal job .only real money Kmart ever made was in holidays. I guess there was already talk of getting rid of that location as I was working there .then 2 years later it was gone. They really went all in tho for Christmas season. The management seemed cool but had to get rid of all of us and only keep like 5 employees.

@@wingedhussar1453 Yeah Holiday season, mainly Christmas meant a lot of hours. Christmas stuff started coming in at the end of September and it was 1500 piece delivery every day until the end of November. I had to unload the trucks every morning. I was scheduled for 8 hours per day, but there were a couple of days when people would call off, so I had to work 16 hours. My manager told me to go home and get an hour sleep, then come back lol. Towards the end of my store closing, they fired lots of people who had been there 25+ years, some of them were known to steal stuff, but they could never prove it. Needless to say they were canned, then they had about 10 people total, 5 per shift. (not including managers) that is retail for you though, stores come and go over time. Eventually Walmart will go down the same way and all that will be left is Amazon or some other delivery type store. We're pretty close to not having much of anything if China stops shipping stuff to the U.S.

They would bring in inventory from other stores and outlets and try to sell it, too lol. It was kind of disturbing to see prices marked up and then discounted.

@@millenniumman75 I have heard the practice of liquidators coming in to mark up prices before discounting. But in the two Kmarts I worked in that got liquidated, that did not happen. At least not in my shoe department. It was a straight discount off the original ticketed price. So I guess it depends on which liquidator. I had an awesome one. He made the process easy, straightforward and wasn't an asshole. He knew people would be losing their jobs and made it as painless as possible.

@@millenniumman75 After closing the first one, I transferred to another store in the area. 10 days later they announced they were closing that one, too! Since he was still in the area, they had Mike come in to liquidate that one, as well. When he saw me, he doubled over laughing. We both couldn't believe it. It sucked, but at least I already knew the guy and what to expect.

​@millenniumman75 That's often from companies like Hilco which buy out these closeout stores from different chains. They own all the closeout signs and just move from chain to chain closing out stores. If stuff does not sell, it gets sent to a regional Hilco warehouse where all the unsold items go, and then get shipped out to the next chain they close down. This is why you start to see merch from other chains and completely unrelated items showing up at these sales. They are bringing IN stuff. Likewise, they have zero incentive to keep marking it down down down to zero because they will just pack it up, take down the signs and go to the next closing store.

Really; started of Iiitch family empire Detroit red wing & Detroit tigers 🐯 etc etc

Fun fact: 3 months later the very first WALMART also opened their doors, not just kmart.

Really garden city ten miles from detroit didn't know that I live in metro Detroit area

I know what you mean-the popcorn and icee scent😊

That's it! You hit it right on the head!! @@CampsitePyro

Pensions were liquidated long ago. Also how hard is it for a K-Mart cashier to get a job at Wal-Mart?

​@@RichV20The hell with Wall Fart

Correct, that is definitely the Layaway. It was a very common layout of a Kmart to have the public restrooms across from the Layaway area. Not all stores, but many did.

Thanks! Glad you liked it!

Pictionary Air Star Wars

Paramus store was where my footwear company's senior vice president resided. They only put shoe managers in the Paramus Kmart who were being trained to be future district managers. It was common for that SVP to visit every their shoe department Sunday morning to make sure the ad signs and displays were set. I would hate that pressure!

@@christopher370 I don’t think he’d be in the Paramus K-Mart on a Sunday. All Paramus stores except for grocery or convenience stores are closed. Paramus has a very strict and enforced “No Work On Sunday” ordinance that prohibits most work. Checking signs would be a violation of that ordinance unless special permission was granted by the Mayor & Council and only then under exigent circumstances.

@@JeffFrmJoisey Ah, ok. I was just going by what I heard; think my DM told me. He was probably assuming himself. I only worked in MD, VA, KY and OH, so I had no experience in that area, other than I knew it was near NYC.

Paramus, Elmwood Park, and Lodi K-Mart is where I usually shop when I shopped at K-mart although I've been to this store several times as well. I never really cared for K-Mart, they just came off a bottom-of-the-barrel and they all had that weird K-Mart smell.

I live in Missoula and still remember when Kmart was here. I actually liked going to Kmart whenever the opportunity came up, but once Walmart came here in 1994, the trips to Kmart became few and far between. WinCo Foods is now in the building where Shopko in Missoula used to be. Shopko only lives on through its optical clinics (Shopko Optical).

@@waynestell2808 I arrived one year before Walmart opened. 😀