Caldor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Caldor | |
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| Type | Department store |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1951 (Port Chester, New York) |
| Headquarters | Norwalk, Connecticut |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics and housewares. |
| Website | None |
Caldor was a chain of discount department stores based in the Northeastern United States. The chain went bankrupt in 1999.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Beginning
The first store was opened by Carl and Dorothy Bennett in Port Chester, New York, in 1951; the name was taken from parts of the couple's first names. Caldor had expanded to several locations by the mid-1960s, and by the 1980s, had locations across the East Coast, stretching from New Hampshire to Virginia. As of late 1998, Caldor had 145 stores in nine states.
Caldor stores were located entirely in heavily urban or suburban neighborhoods. The company used "Where shopping is always a pleasure" as its slogan.
[edit] Sales and Bankruptcy
The Bennetts sold the company to Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG) in 1981. ADG would merge with May Department Stores in 1986. May sold the chain in November 1989 in a leveraged buyout.
As national chains such as Wal-Mart and Target moved into many of the areas with Caldor stores in the mid-1990s, the chain found itself unable to compete with the lower prices and wider selection of such stores and ended up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995. Caldor closed for good in early 1999. While some former Caldor stores were sold to Kmart, Wal-Mart, Ames, and Target, most of them were sold to Kohl's, giving that chain some of its first stores in the Northeast.
