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| Industry | bookstore |
|---|---|
| Founder | David Schlessinger |
| Defunct | 1999 |
| Headquarters | |
Area served |
Encore Books was a regional chain of bookstores based in the eastern United States until its closure in 1999.
Encore Books was started by David Schlessinger, who went on to found the Zany Brainy and Five Below retail chains. It enjoyed a prosperous early life and was sold to the Rite Aid Corporation, which later spun the company off.
By the time of its closure, the 50 Encore Books locations were owned by Lauriat's, a 127-year-old company based in Canton, Massachusetts. Problems were legion in the company's final years. A leveraged buyout, rapid expansion, and difficulty working with publishers due to competition from Borders and Barnes & Noble had forced the company into bankruptcy. Lauriat's had already gone through a round of store closings by the time the closure of the entire chain was announced. In 1999, the company closed the 71 stores that operated under the Lauriat's, Book Corner and Encore names.
Most Encore Books locations were small operations, similar to the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks stores popular in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the company operated two large stores, dubbed Encore Books and Music—complete with a music section, plush chairs, and a coffee shop—in Princeton, New Jersey, and Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Its two other largest stores operated in State College, Pennsylvania, and Middletown, New York. It operated a smaller, but very successful store on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2007, the company had 188 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.
Borders is a book and stationery retailer operating in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates by the Al Maya Group. It was founded in the United States in 1971 by brothers Tom and Louis Borders, who opened their first bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across all 50 U.S. states.
Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its peak, Woolco had hundreds of stores in the US, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. While the American stores were closed in 1983, the chain remained active in Canada until it was sold in 1994 to rival Walmart, which was looking to enter the Canadian market. All of the former UK Woolco stores were sold by Kingfisher, which had bought the UK Woolworth business, to Gateway which subsequently sold them to Asda.
Chapters Inc. is a Canadian big box bookstore banner owned by Indigo Books and Music. Formerly a separate company competing with Indigo, the combined company has continued to operate both banners since their merger in 2001. As of July 2017, it operated 89 superstores under the banners Chapters and Indigo, and 122 small format stores under the banners Coles, Indigospirit, SmithBooks and The Book Company.
Acme Markets Inc. is a supermarket chain operating 161 stores throughout Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley of New York, and Pennsylvania and, as of 1998, is a subsidiary of Albertsons, and part of its presence in the Northeast. It is headquartered in East Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, near Malvern, a Philadelphia suburb.
Weis Markets, Inc., doing business as Weis and stylized as weis, is an American food retailer headquartered in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It currently operates 200 stores with over 23,000 employees in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware. A former Pennsylvania jewelry retailer, David Weis, with a chain of department stores in the 70s and 80s, is unaffiliated with the Weis Markets brand, the popular perception that David Weis was an upscale version of Weis Markets is an urban myth, as the similar name is a mere coincidence, the jewelry retailer was named after its founder, David Weis.
Walden Book Company, Inc., doing business as Waldenbooks, was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain and a subsidiary of Borders. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a children's educational toy chain under Walden Kids. In 2011, the chain was liquidated in bankruptcy.
ShopRite is an American retailers' cooperative of supermarkets with stores in six states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store. They may be structured as sole proprietorships, closely held corporations or partnerships, cooperatives, or nonprofits. Independent stores can be contrasted with chain bookstores, which have many locations and are owned by corporations which often have divisions in other lines besides bookselling. Specialty stores such as comic book shops tend to be independent.
Zany Brainy was an American retail store chain subsidiary of FAO Schwarz. Its merchandise consisted of educational toys and multi-media products aimed at children ages 4–13, such as games and puzzles, infant development toys, books, audiocassettes, CDs, videos, arts and crafts, building toys and trains, computer software, electronic learning aids and musical instruments, science toys, plush toys and dolls, and sports-themed toys. The stores offered daily events such as workshops, concerts, and author appearances.
Brentano's was an American bookstore chain with numerous locations in the United States.
B. Dalton Bookseller was an American retail bookstore chain founded in 1966 by Bruce Dayton, a member of the same family that operated the Dayton's department store chain. B. Dalton expanded to become the largest retailer of hardcover books in the United States, with 779 stores at the peak of the chain's success. Located mainly at indoor shopping malls, B. Dalton competed primarily with Waldenbooks. Barnes & Noble acquired the chain from Dayton's in 1987 and continued to operate it until a late 2009 announcement that the last 50 stores would be liquidated by January 2010. B. Dalton was later revived by rebranding a Barnes & Noble location in 2022.
The Giant Company is an American regional supermarket chain that operates in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia under the Giant and Martin's brands. It is a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize, and headquartered in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. As of September 2020, the company operated 190 stores, 133 pharmacies, and 105 fuel stations. The chain also provides online shopping and delivery to New Jersey through Giant Direct.
Rice Epicurean Markets was an American niche grocery store chain based in Southwest Houston, Houston, Texas. There is now just one supermarket left of the chain. Prior to 2012 the company operated five Rice Epicurean Markets, which ranged in size from 25,000 to 42,000 square feet (3,900 m2). At its height, it operated 35 stores. The last Rice Epicurean Market is wholly owned by founding family members.
Food Fair, also known by its successor name Pantry Pride, was a large supermarket chain in the United States. It was founded by Samuel N. Friedland, and his brother George I. Friedland who opened the first store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the late 1920s. As of 1957, Food Fair had 275 stores, and at its peak, the chain had more than 500 stores. Friedland's family retained control of the firm through 1978, when the chain entered bankruptcy.
Clemens Markets was a supermarket chain in the Philadelphia area, founded in 1939. It was family-owned from the founding of its first store in Lansdale, Pennsylvania to the sale of the company in 2006.
Five Below, Inc. is an American chain of specialty discount stores that prices most of its products at $5 or less, plus a smaller assortment of products priced up to $25. Founded in 2002 by Tom Vellios and David Schlessinger and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the chain is aimed at tweens and teens. There are over 1,700 stores located across the United States.
National Record Mart, known as NRM for short, was an American music store chain. The first music store chain in the United States, it was founded in 1937 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and operated more than 130 locations at its peak. Other stores under its ownership included Oasis, Music X, Waves Music, and Vibes. The chain filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and closed the last of its stores in 2002.