@ 9:44 that’s my old mall. Cumberland mall, Vineland NJ. I am from the crosstown rivals…Millville , class of 1996 (Go Mike Trout) pathmark, bradlees, Camelot music store, Dry Goods, Radio Shack, all are gone now and since I’ve moved to Florida 14 years ago….i haven’t seen or heard of that mall.
In the 80s and 90s, those of us in eastern Mass. had multiple Bradlees, Zayre, Lechmere, Caldor, Ann & Hope (RI chain with stores in Mass.), and others to choose from. All of them had circulars in the Sunday papers, so we used to compare prices from store to store. Most of these chains closed within a relatively few years of each other, leaving a gap for that kind of store. K Mart and Target hadn't really infiltrated the area, and Wal-Mart was still years away. Around 2000, my nearest Target - which was brand new - was about 18 miles away and only accessible on back roads. K Mart had a few stores close to Boston, but not many out in the burbs.
I believe the first Walmart in New England was the Seabrook, NH location which opened around Summer 1991. Sam Walton had a gentleman's agreement with Ann and Hope that he would never encroach on their territory, but after he died, the family did not honor this agreement. It was all downhill for New England retail after that. I worked at Ames in Summer 1999, but everyone knew the writing was on the wall. Remember Almy's? That was one of the few that went under in the mid-1980s.
@@danpike7980 I think the first Wal-Mart in Mass. was in Hudson, which is a good 25 miles from Boston out on 495. I don't remember Almy's. I do remember King's near Watertown Square, but I'm not sure that was a chain,, and they were gone before 1980.
I’m so glad youtube recommended your videos to me. Such a great video! With the quality of these videos, can’t believe you don’t have hundreds of thousands of subscribers yet. Keep up the great work!
That old bradlees photo with the mill behind it looks a lot like fall river Massachusetts where I grew up, though it was later in the 80s and 90s. I was stationed at the new london ct subbase for most of my career and had no idea bradlees started there 😮
I was a carriage collector for the Medford Bradlees back in the early 90s. The pay sucked. The store discount was good. I still have my Sound Design clock radio purchased during my time there. It still works. It's my daily reminder of Bradlees
I remember I fired an unsatisfactory employee, little did I know this employee's father was good friends with Avram and Carol. He cussed me out on the phone for about ten minutes. I knew my time was up and quit a couple months later to go to college. These people felt you ran a company on intimidation. They were not nice people. Don't romance it. The top levels of the company didn't know how to merchandise and if I remember correctly the Stop & Shop butchers were not union butchers. They didn't buy stuff right focused too much on price and not enough on quality. I think I worked for the company about three years. I left during the leveraged buy out and many store managers were fired with no severance or pension. I think everybody was playing out the string. The company also owned Medimart and CB Perkins tobacconists. They attempted to create a hybrid store Hallmark & Tobacco. Didn't really work. The reason these store chains failed: 1) people stopped dressing & shopping like factory workers 2) the people that owned the companies sucked out all the profit so the next generation failed and 3) the real estate became too expensive.
I too am originally from The Cape and remember them as well. I remember as a kid seeing that they had the same shopping carts as Stop & Shop with the periwinkle blue handle on them, I always thought those were cool for some reason.
Bradlees was my favorite store to get records. Good memories going through the albums and the 45s. Even when I didn't have any money I would go and thumb through the records. Our mother bought our clothes there.
Excellent video. After a lifetime of retail, I really wish that some of the people from the ivory tower would come and work on the sales floor for a week and see what really goes into making them rich!!
I wasn't born until mid-1997, so I don't really have personal memory of Bradlees in New York. I never even knew it existed until roughly thirteen years after its 2001 demise. A similar story is true for "Ames", which was disbanded in September of 2002. Much of what I know about either one today, largely comes from old commercials or footage, as well as archived webpages on the Wayback Machine.
Happy you're back man! I remember these stores from when I was a kid, but they were only around in my lifetime for a few years. New England has so much retail history.
Thanks for this video!!! I really miss Bradlees, BEST, Jamesway and Caldor. Amazing stores to shop at as a kid. Always the best Transformers and GI Joe toys! 🎉🎉🎉
Actually the farming out of departments to third party vendors in the retail trade was actually standard practice back then particularly with the shoe department that continued up through the '80s for most retailers.
There was a Bradlees/StopandShop combo in Clifton, NJ. It was a neat idea-- the two stores were connected by a corridor. You could buy a sweater at Bradlees, then walk thru to Stop and Shop to pickup milk. All inside and great on snowy or rainy days. BTW back in the early 1970s Two Guys had the same concept at their Kearny, NJ location. However their supermarket name was less creative-- it was just Two Guys Supermarket. Good times.
I miss stores like this. Walmart has the worst customer service and everyone looks really unhappy therebut you get what you pay for in low prices. Target does not seem cheaper in any way by comparison. If nothing else, I wish Kmart were still around
Worked in the warehouse in Braintree in the 70's and early 80's. Pay and benefits were good because we were Teamsters. I still get a monthly pension of slightly over $100, lol, from the govt. PB.... whatever that acronym is.
Bradlee’s, Caldor, Zayre, Grants, Korvette, Kings, Woolworth, K-Mart, Kresge, McCrory’s. Did I miss any? The ‘70’s were a great time to be a consumer in New England.
The funny thing is a rumor i heard in my home town is the Walmart that took over the old building that had Bradlees was barred from going super because Stop&Shop owned the building and as such could restrict running a supermarket into the lease. Stores always seem to die and it was always a mystery in Danbury, CT because stores there always seemed full. But one store in one small city cannot float a chain.
The Wiki page for Stop & Shop has interesting info (take it for what you will)...while S&S owned Bradlees, it also owned Medi-Mart (pharmacy chain) and Perkins Tobacco. I don't remember any Perkins shops, but I do remember Medi-Mart. S&S sold Medi-Mart to Walgreens around the same time it dropped Bradlees. In Mass. and southern N.H., I don't know any Bradlees that re-opened in former Caldor locations, but most former Bradlees locations were re-opened as Kohl's. There were a number of major discount retailers in this area that were gone by the early 90s: Rich's, Stuarts, Woolco, JM Fields and Grants. Funny how many were re-opened as Caldor, Ames or Bradlees, before closing themselves.
Fresh subscriber here. Good niche topic and well researched videos. Nice job! I guess you have a massive supply of defunct retail to cover. I would like to know about Nyanza if you are looking for ideas or votes. I used to go there as a kid in Rhode Island in the 70s. I assume you have one planned for Grants.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! Yes there is certainly no shortage of topics. I would love to do a Grant’s video very soon. I’ll have it in the next viewer poll. Never heard of Nyanza before but I’ll remember it. Thank you for sharing.
You're such a great storyteller, Have you thought about expanding your channel to business that are still in business? So may success stories that you would be great at telling 😀 Just a thought! Thanks for all your hard work!
Thank you! Glad you enjoy the videos! I’ve considered it, but defunct retail has less competition on here. There’s also more stores that have failed than have succeeded, more topics for videos. But you never know what the future holds… Thanks for watching!
Bradlees met the fate of a lot of other discounted stores. Spent money to update stores and opened more locations to stay competitive. Walmart just took over 😢.
The closest Bradlees to me in North Jersey was like 30 miles. Parents very rarely went there. Since we had Kmart Hills and Jamesway. The Two Guys I vaguely remember cuz in 82 I was six or seven and that became a Jamesway when two guys closed.
Could you look in to the unwritten agreement that Publix and Kroger's " May have"??? Publix are building store in Ky . Is it really a thing?? I live a work a "K"( in Cincinnati Ohio) and would like to know.
The bradlees here in hazlet n j was next to a super Foodtown the Foodtown was shut down and hurricane Sandy destroyed it just the other day I passed the abandoned bradlees and construction work is under way for what type of store I don't know
Yeah the whole upscale arrangement is actually quite stupid for regular stores I mean in the '80s I mean Lazarus had a bankruptcy they turn around and had another one in the early mid '90s I believe it really didn't work out for them oh and by the way it failed miserably over at Sears too. Nowadays good old Kohl's and Macy's is having trouble but JCPenney isn't doing so hot either it's those fake upscale fake rich people stores that's aimed at the senseless so-called middle class. It's all preppy bullshit.
True. Everyone thought they could be Target or Kohl’s, when in actuality they were just a local version of Kmart/Walmart. Low-end gets a bad rep, but when done right it, and in a way that doesn’t make shoppers feel poor (I’m looking at you Rose’s and Ollie’s), it never goes out of style.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video! I worked at Bradlees in Ramsey, NJ during the 1980s and made some long lasting friends.😊
@ 9:44 that’s my old mall. Cumberland mall, Vineland NJ. I am from the crosstown rivals…Millville , class of 1996 (Go Mike Trout) pathmark, bradlees, Camelot music store, Dry Goods, Radio Shack, all are gone now and since I’ve moved to Florida 14 years ago….i haven’t seen or heard of that mall.
VHS class of ‘84 here! Still live in the area but moving to North Carolina in a few years.
Another store worth mentioning is Grants. There were two that I knew of, one in Milford, MA and one in Providence.
There was one in Haverhill, Ma when I was little.
We had Grants in Connecticut too
In the 80s and 90s, those of us in eastern Mass. had multiple Bradlees, Zayre, Lechmere, Caldor, Ann & Hope (RI chain with stores in Mass.), and others to choose from. All of them had circulars in the Sunday papers, so we used to compare prices from store to store. Most of these chains closed within a relatively few years of each other, leaving a gap for that kind of store. K Mart and Target hadn't really infiltrated the area, and Wal-Mart was still years away. Around 2000, my nearest Target - which was brand new - was about 18 miles away and only accessible on back roads. K Mart had a few stores close to Boston, but not many out in the burbs.
I believe the first Walmart in New England was the Seabrook, NH location which opened around Summer 1991. Sam Walton had a gentleman's agreement with Ann and Hope that he would never encroach on their territory, but after he died, the family did not honor this agreement. It was all downhill for New England retail after that. I worked at Ames in Summer 1999, but everyone knew the writing was on the wall. Remember Almy's? That was one of the few that went under in the mid-1980s.
@@danpike7980 I think the first Wal-Mart in Mass. was in Hudson, which is a good 25 miles from Boston out on 495. I don't remember Almy's. I do remember King's near Watertown Square, but I'm not sure that was a chain,, and they were gone before 1980.
We had a Kmart in Milford, MA that opened in 1971. Info indicates it opened in 1974, but it was definitely earlier than that.
@@danpike7980Actually, I believe the Walmarts in W. Boylston and Oxford, MA have been there since the mid-‘80’s.
There were less grocery stores back then but now it is flipped.
I’m so glad youtube recommended your videos to me. Such a great video! With the quality of these videos, can’t believe you don’t have hundreds of thousands of subscribers yet. Keep up the great work!
Thanks a lot! Much appreciated. Next up is Korvette’s. Hope you enjoy it!
That old bradlees photo with the mill behind it looks a lot like fall river Massachusetts where I grew up, though it was later in the 80s and 90s. I was stationed at the new london ct subbase for most of my career and had no idea bradlees started there 😮
I was a carriage collector for the Medford Bradlees back in the early 90s. The pay sucked. The store discount was good. I still have my Sound Design clock radio purchased during my time there. It still works. It's my daily reminder of Bradlees
I remember I fired an unsatisfactory employee, little did I know this employee's father was good friends with Avram and Carol. He cussed me out on the phone for about ten minutes. I knew my time was up and quit a couple months later to go to college. These people felt you ran a company on intimidation. They were not nice people. Don't romance it. The top levels of the company didn't know how to merchandise and if I remember correctly the Stop & Shop butchers were not union butchers. They didn't buy stuff right focused too much on price and not enough on quality. I think I worked for the company about three years. I left during the leveraged buy out and many store managers were fired with no severance or pension. I think everybody was playing out the string. The company also owned Medimart and CB Perkins tobacconists. They attempted to create a hybrid store Hallmark & Tobacco. Didn't really work. The reason these store chains failed: 1) people stopped dressing & shopping like factory workers 2) the people that owned the companies sucked out all the profit so the next generation failed and 3) the real estate became too expensive.
I'm from Cape cod and I remember Bradlees. Too bad they're gone now.
I too am originally from The Cape and remember them as well. I remember as a kid seeing that they had the same shopping carts as Stop & Shop with the periwinkle blue handle on them, I always thought those were cool for some reason.
Orleans and Dennis were the ones I went to most.
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
Some of my current Christmas decorations that I put up every year came from Bradlees at the Cumberland Mall in Vineland, New Jersey!
We still have things from Bradlees too 😊
Did you ever shop at the VALUE CITY also at Cumberland Mall?
@ Yes! I still own nice things from there, as well.
Bradlees was my favorite store to get records. Good memories going through the albums and the 45s. Even when I didn't have any money I would go and thumb through the records. Our mother bought our clothes there.
Lechmere and Apex were two other stores in the Northeast that were awesome, and now sorely missed.
As a young adult I considered Lechmere in Springfield, Massachusetts my "toy store" they had the best electronics around.
Excellent video. After a lifetime of retail, I really wish that some of the people from the ivory tower would come and work on the sales floor for a week and see what really goes into making them rich!!
YO!! MY MOM WON A $1000 shipping spree at Bradlees in like 1987. Me & my bro got $100 each. I got a Yamaha keyboard, which I still have to this day.
Sounds gay❤
@@N_g_er ☝ nick fuentes watcher
@@N_g_erI think nicklggler sounds more gay
That's awesome, thank you for sharing! Merry Christmas! 🎄🙏
Cool story 😊
I used to love going to the one in Fall River because they had LEGO.
Mrs B is buying!
I wasn't born until mid-1997, so I don't really have personal memory of Bradlees in New York. I never even knew it existed until roughly thirteen years after its 2001 demise. A similar story is true for "Ames", which was disbanded in September of 2002. Much of what I know about either one today, largely comes from old commercials or footage, as well as archived webpages on the Wayback Machine.
Happy you're back man! I remember these stores from when I was a kid, but they were only around in my lifetime for a few years. New England has so much retail history.
Thanks for this video!!! I really miss Bradlees, BEST, Jamesway and Caldor. Amazing stores to shop at as a kid. Always the best Transformers and GI Joe toys! 🎉🎉🎉
When I was just starting with Stop and shop each year they would give us employees a shopping night to buy Christmas Gifts, That was a great time.
I loved Bradlees!
Actually the farming out of departments to third party vendors in the retail trade was actually standard practice back then particularly with the shoe department that continued up through the '80s for most retailers.
Thank you for this. Bradlees was great. I loved going there as a child.
There was a Bradlees/StopandShop combo in Clifton, NJ. It was a neat idea-- the two stores were connected by a corridor. You could buy a sweater at Bradlees, then walk thru to Stop and Shop to pickup milk. All inside and great on snowy or rainy days.
BTW back in the early 1970s Two Guys had the same concept at their Kearny, NJ location. However their supermarket name was less creative-- it was just Two Guys Supermarket. Good times.
growing up my family used to shop at all the chains now long gone - Bradlees being one of them. A former Bradlees near me is now a Burlington
the 70s were great for shopping especially at the holidays
0:22 - This store building was a former Jefferson-Ward, a store that opened about 1980-82, and converted into Bradlees about 1990.
I remember when they were in the cape cod mall..My grandmother loved that place and was pissed when they closed in the 90s
I work to Bradley's unit 877 back in the 80s Hingham Massachusetts. can you believe I remember the unit number .northern Maine😅
There was a Bradless in East Brunswick on NJ 18.
I miss stores like this. Walmart has the worst customer service and everyone looks really unhappy therebut you get what you pay for in low prices. Target does not seem cheaper in any way by comparison. If nothing else, I wish Kmart were still around
Worked in the warehouse in Braintree in the 70's and early 80's. Pay and benefits were good because we were Teamsters. I still get a monthly pension of slightly over $100, lol, from the govt. PB.... whatever that acronym is.
Bradlee’s, Caldor, Zayre, Grants, Korvette, Kings, Woolworth, K-Mart, Kresge, McCrory’s. Did I miss any? The ‘70’s were a great time to be a consumer in New England.
The funny thing is a rumor i heard in my home town is the Walmart that took over the old building that had Bradlees was barred from going super because Stop&Shop owned the building and as such could restrict running a supermarket into the lease. Stores always seem to die and it was always a mystery in Danbury, CT because stores there always seemed full. But one store in one small city cannot float a chain.
Thanks! I enjoy these videos.
1994 Bradlees opened in Manhattan, it was euphoric
Growing up we had a Bradlees/Stop & Shop near us. I remember one of their TV ad campaigns: "Mrs. B is buying"
The Wiki page for Stop & Shop has interesting info (take it for what you will)...while S&S owned Bradlees, it also owned Medi-Mart (pharmacy chain) and Perkins Tobacco. I don't remember any Perkins shops, but I do remember Medi-Mart. S&S sold Medi-Mart to Walgreens around the same time it dropped Bradlees. In Mass. and southern N.H., I don't know any Bradlees that re-opened in former Caldor locations, but most former Bradlees locations were re-opened as Kohl's. There were a number of major discount retailers in this area that were gone by the early 90s: Rich's, Stuarts, Woolco, JM Fields and Grants. Funny how many were re-opened as Caldor, Ames or Bradlees, before closing themselves.
I worked for Stuarts, you're the first person to mention or remember them.
They were mostly Mass. and NH. Great stores owned by Arthur and Leo Klein.
I grew up near a Bradlees and there was a A&P next door not a stop and shop
Blast from the past. I can hear the their commercials with "Mrs. B"...
Yup, Mrs B is buying!
Suggestion for another video Star Market or Almacs in Rhode Island
In the 1980, that was pretty-much my mother's go-to. Many times, we went to the Neponset, Dorchester, MA, location for school clothes.
There were also Medi Mart’s next to Bradlees and Stop and Shop.
Fresh subscriber here. Good niche topic and well researched videos. Nice job! I guess you have a massive supply of defunct retail to cover. I would like to know about Nyanza if you are looking for ideas or votes. I used to go there as a kid in Rhode Island in the 70s. I assume you have one planned for Grants.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
Yes there is certainly no shortage of topics. I would love to do a Grant’s video very soon. I’ll have it in the next viewer poll.
Never heard of Nyanza before but I’ll remember it. Thank you for sharing.
You're such a great storyteller, Have you thought about expanding your channel to business that are still in business? So may success stories that you would be great at telling 😀 Just a thought! Thanks for all your hard work!
Thank you! Glad you enjoy the videos!
I’ve considered it, but defunct retail has less competition on here. There’s also more stores that have failed than have succeeded, more topics for videos. But you never know what the future holds…
Thanks for watching!
Anyone remember Mrs. B is buying ?
If you want an episode on defunct department stores, do some on stores like D.H. Holmes, Krauss, Kreegers, Gus Mayer, and Godchaux's.
Bradlees met the fate of a lot of other discounted stores. Spent money to update stores and opened more locations to stay competitive. Walmart just took over 😢.
Or be like Kmart and don't update stores and close stores. Most Kmarts I was in towards the end for them weren't updated since to 90s.
The closest Bradlees to me in North Jersey was like 30 miles. Parents very rarely went there. Since we had Kmart Hills and Jamesway. The Two Guys I vaguely remember cuz in 82 I was six or seven and that became a Jamesway when two guys closed.
And people wonder why I call Walmart the 'killer of everything nice'. Here's one example of why
I miss Bradlees and Ames.
Can you do Tower Records?
I have it on the list 👍
Could you look in to the unwritten agreement that Publix and Kroger's " May have"??? Publix are building store in Ky . Is it really a thing?? I live a work a "K"( in Cincinnati Ohio) and would like to know.
The true victim of retail evolution has been the American Worker. But, I'm sure Walmart pays a great wage and provides fantastic benefits.
The bradlees here in hazlet n j was next to a super Foodtown the Foodtown was shut down and hurricane Sandy destroyed it just the other day I passed the abandoned bradlees and construction work is under way for what type of store I don't know
There's a good reason many people refer to Stop & Shop as "Shop & Rob"...they robbed Bradlees which we always loved going to.
*Mrs B **_stopped buying!_*
LOL
Damn i thought I was the only one who remembered that ad
@@j2times2006
😆
ALMACS MAKE ALMACS
Yes! I'd go every Saturday morning with my dad to the one in the south end of fall river. I wonder what's there now
The relationship between Bradlees and Stop & Shop was quite similar to ShopKo and SuperValu Foods...
Grand Union and Grand Way
Funny how all of these chains were founded by the zog machine.
Merchants.
Walmart sells junk, Target is little selection. Two lousy stores.
Yeah the whole upscale arrangement is actually quite stupid for regular stores I mean in the '80s I mean Lazarus had a bankruptcy they turn around and had another one in the early mid '90s I believe it really didn't work out for them oh and by the way it failed miserably over at Sears too.
Nowadays good old Kohl's and Macy's is having trouble but JCPenney isn't doing so hot either it's those fake upscale fake rich people stores that's aimed at the senseless so-called middle class.
It's all preppy bullshit.
True. Everyone thought they could be Target or Kohl’s, when in actuality they were just a local version of Kmart/Walmart. Low-end gets a bad rep, but when done right it, and in a way that doesn’t make shoppers feel poor (I’m looking at you Rose’s and Ollie’s), it never goes out of style.
@@PostMortarOllie’s is just a better version of the former Bldg. 19: selling stuff that couldn’t be sold in regular stores.