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Company type | Public (NASDAQ: STRS) |
---|---|
Industry | Retail |
Founded | Portland, Oregon, United States (1909 ) |
Defunct | 1994 |
Fate | Liquidation |
Headquarters | Portland, Oregon [1] |
Number of locations | Approx. 320 stores (max.) [2] |
Area served | Western United States |
Products | General Merchandise |
Total assets | $80 million (1991) [2] |
Sprouse-Reitz is a defunct chain of five-and-dime stores based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The Sprouse-Reitz Company was founded in 1909 in Tacoma, Washington. [3] At its peak it had more than 470 stores in eleven states in the Western United States. [1]
Around January 1989, [3] the declining retailer tried to revive its business by rebranding its stores "Sprouse!". [2] In June 1990, with the store count at 287, CEO Robert Sprouse II, who controlled about 80 percent of the company's voting stock, said that chain would change its focus to six specific areas: toys, housewares, crafts, home furnishings, family apparel, greeting cards, wrapping paper, and other paper products. [4] In late 1990, the chain was sold for $22.9 million (~$47.2 million in 2023) to SR Partners, Inc., a joint venture among realtors TransAction Financial Corp., acquisition specialists First San Francisco Holdings, Ltd., and individual investors. [5]
In December 1993, Sprouse-Reitz Inc. liquidated and closed its remaining 84 stores after failing to find a buyer. [6] The company estimated that the last stores would close in February. [7] As of late February 1994, the last stores were scheduled to close on March 20. [1]
The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.
WinCo Foods, Inc. is a privately held, majority employee-owned American supermarket chain based in Boise, Idaho, with retail stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. It was founded in 1967 as a no-frills warehouse-style store with low prices. The stores feature extensive bulk food sections.
Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, United States, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores operate in the northwest U.S., with locations in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company was acquired by Kroger in 1998, though the stores are still branded Fred Meyer. The chain was one of the first in the United States to promote one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, bank, clothing, jewelry, home decor, home improvement, garden, electronics, restaurant, shoes, sporting goods, and toys. The Fred Meyer division is headquartered in Portland.
Papa Murphy's is a take-and-bake pizza company based in Vancouver, Washington. It began in 1995 as the merger of two local take-and-bake pizza companies: Papa Aldo's Pizza and Murphy's Pizza. The company and its franchisees operate more than 1,300 outlets in the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. In April 2019, it was announced that the company would be acquired by MTY Food Group for $190 million.
Plaid Pantry, stylized as plaid pantry is a chain of privately owned convenience stores in Oregon and Washington. There are 106 locations, primarily in the Portland metropolitan area with other locations in the Salem and Seattle areas.
Lloyd Center is a shopping mall in the Lloyd District of Portland, Oregon, United States, just northeast of downtown. It is owned by the Urban Renaissance Group and KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. The mall features three floors of shopping, with the third level serving mostly as professional office spaces, a food court, and U.S. Education Corporation's Carrington College. Lloyd Center also includes the Lloyd Center Ice Skating Rink, which has become the main draw for the mall. There are currently no anchors in the mall. There are vacant anchor spaces left by Macy's, Marshalls, Nordstrom, and Sears. Junior anchors include Barnes & Noble and Ross Dress for Less.
Kaspien Holdings, Inc. is an American company that provides software and services for ecommerce. Kaspien Holdings operates on Amazon in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and India, as well as Walmart Marketplace, eBay, Google Shopping, and Target. Its interim CEO is Goldman Sachs veteran Brock Kowalchuk, who took over March 11, 2022.
Pay 'n Save was a retail company founded by Monte Lafayette Bean in Seattle, Washington, in 1940. Over the years, Pay 'n Save was the leading drugstore chain in Washington and was the owner of several Washington-based retailers, including Lamonts and Ernst. A 1984 sale of the company to The Trump Group and a 1986 attempt to transform the retailer into a bargain-basement merchandiser resulted in a loss of nearly $50 million. By 1988, Pay 'n Save was sold to Thrifty Corporation, who later sold the stores to PayLess Drug, who retired the Pay 'n Save name. As a result, most of the retailer's divisions were spun off as separate companies or shuttered. As of 2023, Pay 'n Save's membership discount chain, Bi-Mart, is the sole surviving division of the company.
Longs Drugs is an American chain owned by parent company CVS Health with approximately 70 drugstores throughout the state of Hawaii and formerly in the Continental US.
Fred G. Meyer was an American businessman who founded the Oregon-based Fred Meyer store chain, which had 63 stores in four western states at the time of his death. He was known for successfully introducing several innovative marketing concepts.
The Old Spaghetti Factory is an Italian-American-style chain restaurant in the United States and Canada. The U.S. restaurants are owned by OSF International, based in Portland, Oregon, while the Canadian restaurants are owned by The Old Spaghetti Factory Canada Ltd. In 2003, the U.S. company alone had 45 restaurants, in 14 states and Japan, and sales of $105 million. As of 2023, the U.S. company has 42 restaurants, in 13 states and Japan. The U.S. firm also operated an Old Spaghetti Factory in Hamburg, Germany, from 1983 to 1993, but this was its only European location.
Camera World was a retailer of photographic equipment and photofinishing services based in Portland, Oregon, United States, and founded in 1977. It was an independent company until 2002, and then from 2002 to 2016 it was a brand of Ritz Camera & Image or C&A Marketing. In the mid-1990s, it was one of the largest mail-order retailers of photographic and audio equipment in the nation. The company's revenues totalled $80 million in 1998, of which $16 million were from online sales. Revenues grew to $115.7 million in 1999, and the company relocated its administrative offices and inventory to a new facility in Beaverton, Oregon, the following year. The company's only brick-and-mortar store, in downtown Portland, as well as its Internet business were sold in 2002 to Ritz Camera, which continued to operate them under the Camera World name. Ritz, in turn, was acquired by C&A Marketing in 2012, but retained the Camera World name as a Ritz brand, for both the store and the Internet business, until closure of the store. The store closed on January 21, 2016.
Haggen Food & Pharmacy is a grocery retailer in Washington State.
G.I. Joe's was a privately owned retail chain for sporting goods, ready-to-wear clothing, and auto parts; that operated stores in the Pacific Northwest region of the northwestern United States.
Lithia Motors, Inc. is an American nationwide automotive dealership group headquartered in Medford, Oregon. It is the third largest new vehicle automotive dealership group in the United States, below AutoNation and Penske Automotive Group. As of October, 2023, Lithia operates 291 stores in the United States, 14 stores in Canada and 40 in the United Kingdom. As of May 2022, Lithia operates 267 stores in 24 states, and 14 in Canada. Lithia Motors employs approximately 21,150 people.
Thomas Howard Peterson was an American retailer, pitchman, and television personality from Portland, Oregon. Peterson opened his first store in 1964, which grew to a regional consumer electronics, home appliance, and furniture chain in the 1970s. His memorable television commercials and unusual promotions made him a widely recognized personality in the Portland area by the 1980s, leading to several cameo appearances in the films of Gus Van Sant.
Norm Thompson Outfitters was a privately owned catalog and internet retailer based in Middleton, Massachusetts that was previously based in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States until September 2016. The Norm Thompson offices were closed and consolidated due to Bluestem's acquisition of their parent company, Orchard Brands, in July 2015. Founded in 1949 by Norman A. (Norm) Thompson as a mail order business, it grew to annual sales of $200 million before it was sold to Golden Gate Capital Partners in 2006. The company sells clothing, gadgets, furniture, kitchen items, and gift items from its namesake catalog as well as from its Solutions and Sahalie brands. John Difrancesco serves as president and chief executive of the 500 employee company.
VIP's, alternatively written Vip's, is a defunct restaurant chain in the Western United States that operated from 1968 until the late 1980s, based in Salem, Oregon. With more than 50 locations, it was once the largest restaurant chain based in Oregon. It was a Denny's-style restaurant, a type that was commonly known at that time as a "coffee shop" but is now more commonly known as a casual dining restaurant. Most restaurants were located near freeways and were open 24 hours. At its peak, the chain had locations in five states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada and northern California.
The J.K. Gill Company, also known as J.K. Gill and Gill's, was an office supply company specializing in books and school supplies, based in Portland, Oregon, United States. The company existed for about 130 years. Operating mainly in the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington, the company at its peak employed over 500 and had retail stores in four western states, including California and Arizona.
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