Thank you,

They were good stores to shop at in the early days. But Zayre let themselves get mismanaged, and filed bankruptcy, then being bought out by Ames, and Ames made many bad decisions. When they took over, the senior citizen discount was not allowed on sale merchandise, causing most of the senior citizens to flock over to nearby Venture. The cash register system was a disaster too. The Chicago area stores had registers that required entering the SKU #, then ask for price, instead of showing the price once the SKU was entered. So if the cashier entered the wrong amount, it accepted the amount, and if the item was on sale, and the regular price was entered wrong, it took the wrong price instead of changing itself to the sale price. They had the register system require manager overrides to void out the transaction, and that caused sales to drop drastically. They didn’t implement scanners in my local converted Ames stores like Venture did around 1987 or 1988. So the only time Ames was really busy was when they had their going out of business sale. The Hammond Indiana store was originally supposed to stay open, but when they finally did their first going out of business sales in June 1990, all 4 stores were on the list to close. They were gone by August 1990. For the Chicago market, Ames re-entered the market when they bought out 7 of 10 Goldblatts stores, and one of the locations they opened up in in Chicago was the 87th Street & I-94 (Dan Ryan Expressway) location, that they were at before. That site went from being Zayre (don’t know what they were before Zayre) to Ames, then to Venture, then Goldblatts, back to Ames. It’s now Burlington Coat Factory. When they bought out Goldblatts, they re-entered Gary Indiana again, but this time at the Village Shopping Center around 35th Avenue & Grant Street. That site was originally Montgomery Ward, until 1979, then was vacant until 1985, when Goldblatts re-opened in Gary, after the original Goldblatts went bankrupt. Ames re-opened that store in March 2001, and business was ok, but most people in the area (especially senior citizens) were bitter with Ames that most people wouldn’t give Ames a second chance. This time around, the problem was Ames sold their merchandise for much more than Kmart, and for some of the same stuff that could be found at Dollar General & Family Dollar, was also higher than Family Dollar & Dollar General. Then in August 2001, they filed bankruptcy again, and by January 2002, they left the Chicago market again. But unlike the first going out of business sale, Ames kept marking up the merchanside to where even after 50% off, you were just about paying regular price for the stuff, and eventually when they liquidated the entire company, most of the merchandise that never got sold ended up at Big Lots & various dollar stores.

too me it seems hill’s was a much better store. seems their buyers tried to buy items that were the same but different than what other stores had.

i think people got caught up in the walmart hipe in the mid 90’s when it came to wv and left an old friend for a new one. but then again, if kmart was having trouble then it would be hard for most regional chains as well.

i can remember shopping there as a child in the mid 70’s in wv. after they closed. it became a hart’s store part of the old big bear grocery store chain. then they store moved into a former sears store and made a combined big bear/harts. the old arlans store remained vacant for around 15 years til around 7 years ago when a gabrial brothers moved into it.

you can email me if you want at csxworker@yahoo.com with any information you have.