A super low quality and low effort video of me visiting the last Kmart left in the U.S. A pretty shallow and underwhelming experience to say the least. Please ignore my asthmatic wheezing and random audio clipping
A few disclaimers: 1. I made a mistake when saying that there are 2 Kmart's left globally, as there are a handful in other countries. The 2 only applies to the U.S. 2. My apologies if my breathing is very prevalent, I'm asthmatic LMAO
In total there's 6 left: Bridgehampton, NY Miami, FL Tamuning, Guam St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (there's 2 locations there) St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
I miss Kmart, used to work there back in 1990 and then again in 2001 . Kmart was an American tradition a family store. It shows how everything is closing . Technology has phased kmart out out the retail business. Sad to see them close . And thank you for sharing this wonderful store
It was Eddie Lampert and his dodgy financial shenanigans (shenanigans designed to make Eddie Lampert and his mates rich at the expense of the businesses he was in charge of) that killed K-Mart (and Sears for that matter)
theres blame to be passed around everywhere but many retail chains from that time are unfortunately dying out now. society as a whole has also changed.
not technology, they did it themselves by not adapting with time. Look at walmart still doing just fine despite of struggling few times with revenue and why? coz they change while they can.
The other open location is in Bridgehampton NY (towards the far end of Long Island) and is still more or less a full location as of the time the video I watched of that one was made.
Some info about the store: The downsized Kmart used to be the garden section of the original Kmart. The original Kmart building is now an at home store.
I was born in 1995, and loved to shop at Kmart, as a kid. My local store closed in 2016, and it’s sad to see how fast they have all closed. I used to love Target, as well, but it’s lost its magic.
Fun Fact about this Kmart: The reason why it's so small is because it's actually the Garden section of their previous location. Because of all the closures and needing to downscale, this location decided to utilize the Garden Shop into the actual store itself. Which is actually really smart because not only now are they able to stay in business but also less products they have to worry about selling. They're able to focus on the essentials that people need.
That is sad too. Because my local Kmart which has now been repurposed into a Target use to have a Big Lots next door from it. It closed down 10 years after Kmart closed for good. The abandoned Big Lots is being temporarily used as a Halloween seasonal store.
They moved into the former garden center as At Home took over the main building. My former Kmart in Virginia is an At Home. I was born 78 and my childhood Kmart opened in 1980 and closed in 2014
Wow I started working for Kmart the end of 1980. I was still in HS and on pay day they gave you a handwritten flapped envelope showing hours worked, deductions and it contained cash. Usually spent most of my money I made there. Bad habit, cough! But cigarettes were $5 a carton. They paid $3.50/hr. to start and time and a half on Sundays and holidays. The store would close at 5 pm on Sundays.
I get so emotional watching these, Kmart is where I did the majority of my school shopping when it was around. so many fond memories from my childhood. this particular Kmart looks like it used to be a Toys R Us, another fond memory from my childhood lol.
A kmart used to be right behind the mobile gas station my grandmother and step grandfather franchised in the 70s before he passed away in 1980. I will never forget climbing over the short wall between with my grandmother sister and brother to go for sandwiches and icees and barbie dolls for me and star wars figures for my brother while we stopped by in the day while my grandfather was running his station. My grandmother was the bookkeeper. Just a sweet memory from a time long ago. The kmart was unfortunately torn down in maybe 2005 or so.
I worked 35 years at KMart. From an employee to an assistant manager, then back to HR. It’s sad when I first started it was fun. We stayed in our departments. Had plenty of register operators. We helped each other. Then politics came to play. Had the executives listened to their employees we wouldn’t have closed. Sure we didn’t need mass amounts of stores in one area. We had 6 in the area I worked at. Definitely didn’t need to extend counters that high.
The one in Concord California closed a few years ago around 2019 2020. My earliest memories are walking into that store and smelling the pizza and seeing the ice cream stand. Had a full on ice cream parlor inside that looks like a Baskin-Robbins. it also had a connected auto garage that you can get your car fixed at.i watched it go from a local One stop shop icon where kids would hang out buy food and play the games they had on display while Mom and Dad went shopping or got their car fixed to a husk and it was all preventable. When they ripped out the pizza parlor and the ice cream parlor that was an obvious decrease in quality when it came to the store in general. And the loss of foot traffic was immediately apparent but they never did anything about it. We saw a slight resurgence in foot traffic and people just hanging out at the store when they implemented the free to use computers but they ripped those out 3 years later and close the little internet cafe they made.
that sounds like such a fun shopping experience. it's unfortunate that so many others did that too. stores aren't what they used to be anymore. they don't care about quality or enjoyment.
when you said you felt like you shouldn't be there gave me flashbacks. when i was a kid back in the 90s that's where you went where i lived. i hadn't been to one in about 20 years and i decided to stop in when i was looking for something and immediately after entering i felt this urge to get the hell out.
As someone who was born in 88 Kmart was the Target and Walmart! My Kmart shut down about 2 years ago. We would go for family photos in the Olan Mills, lunch at the Little Cesars, layaway for school shopping/Christmas. I remember the grand opening and throwing a fit on the floor because my mom was buying my sister a purse that I wanted😂 My first time bra shopping lol, riding my bike with my mom to Kmart, baby shopping for my daughter in 06. A lot of great memories❤
I kind of remember my last trip to Kmart with my mom. She was devastated they were closing down the one closest to us. One of my last memories was in the electronics section, all the video games they were selling were pretty old, like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was 1/3 of their selection and that game was almost 7+ish years old and was their newest one. They just got so far behind that miracles couldn’t save them. It also didn’t help that Walmarts started popping up everywhere Kmart was and they wrecked them. 30 years ago, Walmart didn’t have as bad of a rep as it does now. I remember there used to be a smaller one before they remodeled that was actually pretty nice. It was like a dime store and this was in 97. Now, I’d rather have teeth pulled than step into that place and bear witness to how people behave in that store. Great Video!
Man, this is just sad, especially the clothing section. I used to love shopping at Kmart for clothes, even into the 10s. You could get decent stuff for pretty cheap. I still have a few cute dresses and pairs of shoes that have held up to this day. That’s fascinating they just shoved everything into the garden center, and they still don’t have many things to sell to fill it out. It looks like a particularly barren Family Dollar. Really interesting video. Not at all what I was anticipating.
Drove by there about a month ago. When I saw the sign, my mouth dropped and couldn't believe a Kmart still existed. The one in my town here in Tampa Bay, closed in like 2018 I believe. It sat empty for a very long time, until At Home and Sprouts Market took it over. Before it closed though, it looked very run down, dirty, and had the worst stock for the most expensive price. I wasn't surprised they went out of business.
The whole building (where At Home is) used to be Kmart and the part you’re seeing was the garden center. The blue light special was a rolling box they had with a tall pole and a blue flashing light on top. They would pick an item to have a blue light special on and roll the light to that part of the store, turn it on and announce it over the intercom
I live near here as well. I was born in 88, & family moved from NY to Miami in 1992. I have many fond memories of this K-Mart in its heyday, getting many of my first video games & music Cd's from artists like Eminem & KoRn here. It used to be bustling with lots of products and many different sections of the store selling electronics, garden equipment, plants & furniture for indoor and outdoor, fridges, the whole 9 yards. I actually worked there in 2017, and boy was it surprisingly busy, but by then the electronic section was already gone, and they were selling really really generic washing machines and refrigerators for extremely high prices, and they were running the store with the same old IBM computers from 1995, so doing something as simple as using customer points on their purchases required magic. They wanted us to make customers buy this stupid credit card that would only work at Kmart, and it was really difficult for me to genuinely sell it. This Kmart is dying one of the slowest deaths of any store ever next to the Best Buy that is just a couple of blocks down. They be taking out like five shelves a year.
I have a clip of the store right before it was moved to the garden section. Thank you for documenting this store! th-cam.com/users/shortsktjMa031Itg?si=3Ye6yYacSNNq9F7F
I'm a 90's baby. My mom used to take me to Kmart very frequently when i was a kid. They had lots of nice, affordable items for poor families. I liked kmart just as much as target and will miss it.
I remember Kmart in Goleta, California from the Fall of 1983 to 2018. Nice memories. There were a good number of Kmart’s in “Little London” (AKA Colorado Springs, Colorado) and all of them were decent for the most part. I have two magnets from the Kmart that was located on North Nevada in Little London promoting Little Caesar’s Pizza inside that specific one (they say clearly in bold letters INSIDE KMART). They could become Collectors Items since it is no longer in business; but for yours truly, there is that nostalgic, sentimental feeling that I get when I see them. It was good that “Wallyworld” (AKA Walmart) got some competition from them all those years ago. Where Kmart really went south was when the corporate folks in Michigan bought up Sears and a few other companies (and sadly bankrupted them as well). Other than that, Kmart stores were alright. Thank you for the “Blue Light Special Memories” and all of the fun shopping moments, Kmart! 🛒👍👍💯😊
I remember going to this K-Mart all the time as a kid back when the store wasn’t confined to the garden section, it’s in the perfect part of Miami for a K-Mart, the area that’s further inland away from the touristy areas and not far from where the Palmetto Expressway meets I-95. A truly unremarkable area, perfect for K-Mart.
Man K-mart used to be my jam when I was a kid, we went all the time and there was this cool Little Caesar's w/ playplace in ours. I always had memories of getting the special orange Nickelodeon VHS tapes from that Kmart. It was so sad when it closed. All I have left to remember them by I found a few years ago while cleaning out the garage. I found my 2nd birthday party party hat from Little Caesar's in 1995. Nostalgia hits hard and if you really learn why K-marts and Sears' went so downhill it might just make you infuriated. That being said though, fun times.
This place feels more like a Roses or Ollie's than a K-Mart. In fact one K-Mart near me split into a Roses, an Ollie's, and a gym. There used to be 8 locations in my tri-county area in coastal Mississippi, with several locations shuttering in 2002 and replaced by other discount stores such as Big Lots. The last location in my area closed in 2019. When I was a kid, K-Mart was a worthy rival to Wal-Mart and actually had more local stores than Wal-Mart did (until 1999 there were only 5 Wal-Marts, vs. 8 K-Marts). I miss the gumball machines and the coin-operated rides in front of the store.
Back in my childhood back in the 90's. My dad used to take me shopping at my local Kmart every Saturday. We would shop for Plastic golf balls, Line for my dad's lawn edger, one gallon bubble soap for blowing bubbles, and Craftsman hardware tools. I also remember shopping at night with the whole household in the evening to by camping supplies the day before my family went camping. Oh good good times. 12 years ago was the last time I remember shopping at my local Kmart but by myself as an adult but for toiletries and other necessities only. It was so sad too because more than half the shelfs were completely empty and it would close its doors for good in 2013. It got repurposed into Target in 2018.
Thank you for sharing this man. Its comments like these I like to see because they're so personal. Your childhood sounded so fun and I love the traditioin of going every Saturday lol
Been a while since our local Kmart closed. They had a small deli section where you could get a sub sandwich for a ridiculously low price - not great, but not enormously different from Subway. Also a great place for hunting and fishing supplies.
One of my earliest memories is shopping in Kmart with my mom in the 80s. The blue light at that time was a revolving blue light like you would see on top of an 80s police car, mounted on top of a pole on a mobile cart. When the announcement came on and the blue light came on everyone would make a mad rush towards it to get in on the deal. Back then it was a much bigger store than in your video, not as big as a full size Walmart is today but more comparable to an average grocery store in size, with all the racks low enough that you could see the blue light flashing throughout the store.
Kmart always felt like time traveling to the early 90s or before ( born in 94 myself) but this store doesn't resemble it other than the random selection of items
That’s a really weird Kmart! I was born in 1975, so I definitely saw it in its hey day. Up here in northern Michigan, Kmart was all we had, until the first Walmart showed up in 1990. That’s when Kmart started going downhill. Then they started adding Meijer to every town and that’s when all the Kmart stores in Michigan closed.
idk where this location is at (somewhere in miami i think?) but there’s a few locations in US territories like guam and the USVI that are still open if i remember correctly. also a separate and formerly related australian chain that is pretty dominant over there still exists as well
I remember my dad buying me a PS2 at a Kmart in New Hartford, NY (I know! It's been a long time ago now). That Kmart was bigger than this one but it's been so long ago since I went there before it even closed. I can't even remember what it even looked like inside. All I remember was it was a little bigger than that one in your video.
We had a Kmart but I don’t really remember it. All I can remember is that they had this thing and it was a video machine. I remember you pressed a button of a movie and it showed a preview of the movie on a screen. The building sat empty for years and now it’s a hardware store. I don’t even remember when our Kmart even closed to be honest I was still really young maybe 8 or 9 years old at the time. Plus I live in Canada and we had Zeller’s and that store was round for the longest time and was one of the best stores.
I worked at a Kmart around 2011 for about a year. They always put those sale stickers up and rotate them out weekly. We would spend one night every weekend placing sheets of stickers on a majority of the products in the store. I guess people are more likely to buy a product if they believe it is on "sale".
Used to work at Kmart in 2014 as a cashier. Was my first job. I still remember the day (October 15th) when they told us we were closing down. I still have my badge and blue polos and I can still remember my clock in number. I can't say I miss the customers lol but I do miss the workers AND liquidator he was dope! I'll always have the memories 🥲
In the 90s k mart was almost like what Target is today, i faintly remember Big Kmart but i remember being smaller than wal marts but just as packed. My parents used to go to the Kmart to buy pretty much everything From clothes to jewelry, shoes, food. I also remember them having like a small food court with like pizza, popcorn and drinks like i said almost to what Target is today
Kmart used to sell VHS tapes for $6.00 back in the day and I remember buying quite a few from them. Still have them too. In fact, their electronics section was pretty alive and abundant back then, had all the new movie releases and plenty of catalogue titles to choose from. What a shame this store chain has turned into, it's not even a chain anymore lol.
My Mom loved and shopped at Kmart all the time. My brother worked there many years ago. The store to the right the "at Home" used to be the main building of Kmart. What you're walking in used to be just Garden and Lawn Furniture. They must have downsized the store back while ago.
There needs to preservation for these stores somehow, like the Blockbuster in Oregon, or that one Planet X because that's a Gamestop property. Something like a larger company like Walgreens or Target keeping that one last flagship store open
I've never seen this Kmart. I have to say, it is wild they are even bothering keeping this store open. Also, aside from thosse dresses, there were no clothes? So weird. I'm not too far from the one in Bridgehampton, NY and I've been making a trip of it a couple of times a year. That one is significantly larger and somewhat decently stocked. In fact, they even put some money towards upkeep last year. Kmart truly is an enigma at this point.
All of the K-Marts in New Jersey are even closed. The only two K-Marts in New Jersey I ever came across back in 2020 (which was a year before it shut down) was in Kearny, New Jersey and Belleville, New Jersey.
The blue light was usually on a small rolling cart by the front cash registers. Once the store turned the blue light on the sale would last for 15 minutes.
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s Kmart was thee go to place for shopping for me anyways way more then Walmart people these days don’t realize that they were both really on in the same Walmart wasn’t selling food yet that’s how they took off a one stop shop approach Kmart tried it with just the basic necessity grocery items but it they just couldn’t compete then they merged with sears prices starting going up where Walmart could afford do drop prices and then is what ultimately killed Kmart it’s like blockbuster and dine in pizza huts on a Friday night nothing will ever compare to them days
I remember Kmart as a kid before it was even called Big K. K-Mart in my time where huge stores prob bigger than most Wal Marts, i remember K-Mart use to have a food court. A place to chill. this K-Mart looks like a 99 cent store or a family dollar, K-Mart will be a store of the past just like Sears and many others, How times change,
70s was peak Kmart. 80s Walmart was rapidly expanding. 90s it was Target's turn. First decade of 2000s began the diabetic rot where appendages died and began falling off, rapidly.
K-Mart in the 90s and early 2000's was a big competitor to Target. Both stores had nearly idential layouts, color schemes, and prices. I remember the food court that had Little Cesars and Icee. It was always packed and there were sales up the wahoo. The competition was too fierce with Target and Walmart.
With six stores left in the company and only two in the continental United States, I think it’s safe to say they actually do have limited stock, too. I worked for Kmart from 1991-2018, and for the last decade our inventory levels were significantly lower than what they had been in the past, and it got worse with each passing year.
They have limited stock for sure. If you're an LP for a LARGE chain then it makes sense from your end. I don't think KMart has an LPM, and if they do, it must be one of the easiest jobs ever. They don't make enough money.
Their hayday was the 70s and 80s..... Thats a security camera. The blue light used to be on a cart that they would roll to the place where the items were. Loved Kmart.
i don’t remember having KMart where i live. we had Zellers. it was our version of Target. Zellers were bought out to turn them into Target. Target only lasted 2 years before going under.
Kmart was part of my childhood and adulthood until the ones in the vicinity closed. I liked their products far more than Walmart and much of the Target stuff at the time.
Yup I remember Kmart back in early 2000. Was spot back then and with blue light sale and during black friday it was popping! Also in My area they had little Cesar's pizza!!
We had a full sized Kamart with I oil change and tire department in rhe back ..in my town of Wake Village it closed several years ago.. yea blue light specials were a thing.. I’d go in for a popcorn 🍿 and and Icee frozen drink and brows the records in the music Department.. this was wayyyy back when. Come to think of it o think I bought my Nirvana Cassette from K mart in the 90s. When I was a little kid they had a restaurant inside and would play “Muzak” in the speakers . it was a staple of inexpensed goods too bad they closed
Geez before Walmart we had Kmart! My sister and I would always go through it and had fun! I was maybe 9 or 10 when I went shopping. We would shop for different things. It was a great store! I’m 42 now that was like 32 years ago! Gosh how times have changed! I still remember that Kmart! This Kmart is different p. When I went before Walmart came the store was packed with stuff!
As a Canadian, this is sadder than Target Canada by the end... Much less when K-Mart Canada became part of Zellers which of course became Target Canada... And even then the selection was better and less sad than this country store looking set up...
I've worked for Kmart in the 90's looks the same. Spending to much on labels and stretching out the merchandise. Literally no reason to even step into the store for anything 😭
Wow seeing this brings me back memories, i live in los angeles, california and i remember going to kmart amd getting the pizza from there, the pizza was yummy
I see no customers which I would say means that there prices are not competitive. The former Kmarts in my area had a large cafeteria in them. We would go there for lunch some times.
I still remember stores such as Service Merchandise, Zayres, Ames, Incredible Universe, Circuit City, CompUSA, Radio Shack, Sears, Walden Books, Kay Bee Toy Store, Toys R'Us, Montgomery Wards, and the list goes on. Those were the days.
A few disclaimers:
1. I made a mistake when saying that there are 2 Kmart's left globally, as there are a handful in other countries. The 2 only applies to the U.S.
2. My apologies if my breathing is very prevalent, I'm asthmatic LMAO
In total there's 6 left:
Bridgehampton, NY
Miami, FL
Tamuning, Guam
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands (there's 2 locations there)
St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
The Kmarts in "other countries" (Australia and New Zealand) are owned by a company that is now unrelated to US Kmart.
There’s k mart in Guam 🇬🇺 us territory
Australia has a separately owned Kmart that's still going strong
@@xismlg as an American, we tend to be ethnocentric. The things going on in the far reaches of the world don’t count.
K-Mart, we're open! Come on in!... Seriously, for the love of God please come in.
LMAOOOOOOOO
It's depressing really.
_Please spend some money here!_ *PLEASE.* 🙏
ACTUALLY loled thus thanks!
@@YaowBucketHEAD We could start a Gofund me for Kmart and Blockbuster just to keep the 90s ALIVE AND WELL!
@@wmst5065 If I lived there I'd shop there. When my town had a Kmart I went there at least once a week.
I miss Kmart, used to work there back in 1990 and then again in 2001 . Kmart was an American tradition a family store. It shows how everything is closing . Technology has phased kmart out out the retail business. Sad to see them close . And thank you for sharing this wonderful store
Nah they did it to themselves with bad management and advertisements
It was Eddie Lampert and his dodgy financial shenanigans (shenanigans designed to make Eddie Lampert and his mates rich at the expense of the businesses he was in charge of) that killed K-Mart (and Sears for that matter)
theres blame to be passed around everywhere but many retail chains from that time are unfortunately dying out now. society as a whole has also changed.
not technology, they did it themselves by not adapting with time. Look at walmart still doing just fine despite of struggling few times with revenue and why? coz they change while they can.
Nah. Other businesses have still made it. KMart just stopped investing in the customer. They got a good payday though.
This isn't a K-Mart from what I remember, it's a sad corpse and micro version of what K-Mart used to be.
No shit captain obvious
@@surferbri5346rude
🥴
are you gonna cry?
The other open location is in Bridgehampton NY (towards the far end of Long Island) and is still more or less a full location as of the time the video I watched of that one was made.
Some info about the store: The downsized Kmart used to be the garden section of the original Kmart. The original Kmart building is now an at home store.
I was born in 1995, and loved to shop at Kmart, as a kid. My local store closed in 2016, and it’s sad to see how fast they have all closed. I used to love Target, as well, but it’s lost its magic.
hell yeah dude. many of the places i shopped as a kid are mere shells of what they used to be as well. corporatism at its finest
@@xismlg Yes! Idk how old you are, but do you remember Hills/Ames?
When i was a child i do@@Tristin471
The one by my house closed around the pandemic.
Fun Fact about this Kmart: The reason why it's so small is because it's actually the Garden section of their previous location. Because of all the closures and needing to downscale, this location decided to utilize the Garden Shop into the actual store itself. Which is actually really smart because not only now are they able to stay in business but also less products they have to worry about selling. They're able to focus on the essentials that people need.
In the late 80’s, I lived in the apartment complex across the street. Shopped there all the time as we did not have Target or Walmart.
That Kmart looks like a Big Lots
It really does. 😂
Yeah lmaoo
Yea when they were going out of business. The Big Lots we had was pretty big and all of the isles were filled.
That is sad too. Because my local Kmart which has now been repurposed into a Target use to have a Big Lots next door from it. It closed down 10 years after Kmart closed for good. The abandoned Big Lots is being temporarily used as a Halloween seasonal store.
Big Lots prepping for their own bankruptcy soon too. Their stock tanked 30% last week.
They moved into the former garden center as At Home took over the main building. My former Kmart in Virginia is an At Home. I was born 78 and my childhood Kmart opened in 1980 and closed in 2014
i hate at home, they replaced my big kmart from where im from
Same here in Sandy Utah around where I live. It was a K Mart and I believe they closed in the 1990s, it is currently an at home store.
Wow I started working for Kmart the end of 1980. I was still in HS and on pay day they gave you a handwritten flapped envelope showing hours worked, deductions and it contained cash. Usually spent most of my money I made there. Bad habit, cough! But cigarettes were $5 a carton. They paid $3.50/hr. to start and time and a half on Sundays and holidays. The store would close at 5 pm on Sundays.
Yeah, my local one in Dale City Va became an At Home, too. Same with the one in Chantilly
@@pleasantness1704 yes, that is mine. That Kmart closed 10 years ago this December
I get so emotional watching these, Kmart is where I did the majority of my school shopping when it was around. so many fond memories from my childhood.
this particular Kmart looks like it used to be a Toys R Us, another fond memory from my childhood lol.
A kmart used to be right behind the mobile gas station my grandmother and step grandfather franchised in the 70s before he passed away in 1980. I will never forget climbing over the short wall between with my grandmother sister and brother to go for sandwiches and icees and barbie dolls for me and star wars figures for my brother while we stopped by in the day while my grandfather was running his station. My grandmother was the bookkeeper. Just a sweet memory from a time long ago. The kmart was unfortunately torn down in maybe 2005 or so.
I worked 35 years at KMart. From an employee to an assistant manager, then back to HR. It’s sad when I first started it was fun. We stayed in our departments. Had plenty of register operators. We helped each other. Then politics came to play. Had the executives listened to their employees we wouldn’t have closed. Sure we didn’t need mass amounts of stores in one area. We had 6 in the area I worked at. Definitely didn’t need to extend counters that high.
The one in Concord California closed a few years ago around 2019 2020. My earliest memories are walking into that store and smelling the pizza and seeing the ice cream stand. Had a full on ice cream parlor inside that looks like a Baskin-Robbins. it also had a connected auto garage that you can get your car fixed at.i watched it go from a local One stop shop icon where kids would hang out buy food and play the games they had on display while Mom and Dad went shopping or got their car fixed to a husk and it was all preventable. When they ripped out the pizza parlor and the ice cream parlor that was an obvious decrease in quality when it came to the store in general. And the loss of foot traffic was immediately apparent but they never did anything about it. We saw a slight resurgence in foot traffic and people just hanging out at the store when they implemented the free to use computers but they ripped those out 3 years later and close the little internet cafe they made.
that sounds like such a fun shopping experience. it's unfortunate that so many others did that too. stores aren't what they used to be anymore. they don't care about quality or enjoyment.
when you said you felt like you shouldn't be there gave me flashbacks. when i was a kid back in the 90s that's where you went where i lived. i hadn't been to one in about 20 years and i decided to stop in when i was looking for something and immediately after entering i felt this urge to get the hell out.
As someone who was born in 88 Kmart was the Target and Walmart! My Kmart shut down about 2 years ago. We would go for family photos in the Olan Mills, lunch at the Little Cesars, layaway for school shopping/Christmas. I remember the grand opening and throwing a fit on the floor because my mom was buying my sister a purse that I wanted😂 My first time bra shopping lol, riding my bike with my mom to Kmart, baby shopping for my daughter in 06. A lot of great memories❤
I kind of remember my last trip to Kmart with my mom. She was devastated they were closing down the one closest to us. One of my last memories was in the electronics section, all the video games they were selling were pretty old, like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was 1/3 of their selection and that game was almost 7+ish years old and was their newest one. They just got so far behind that miracles couldn’t save them. It also didn’t help that Walmarts started popping up everywhere Kmart was and they wrecked them. 30 years ago, Walmart didn’t have as bad of a rep as it does now. I remember there used to be a smaller one before they remodeled that was actually pretty nice. It was like a dime store and this was in 97. Now, I’d rather have teeth pulled than step into that place and bear witness to how people behave in that store. Great Video!
Man, this is just sad, especially the clothing section. I used to love shopping at Kmart for clothes, even into the 10s. You could get decent stuff for pretty cheap. I still have a few cute dresses and pairs of shoes that have held up to this day.
That’s fascinating they just shoved everything into the garden center, and they still don’t have many things to sell to fill it out. It looks like a particularly barren Family Dollar. Really interesting video. Not at all what I was anticipating.
Drove by there about a month ago. When I saw the sign, my mouth dropped and couldn't believe a Kmart still existed. The one in my town here in Tampa Bay, closed in like 2018 I believe. It sat empty for a very long time, until At Home and Sprouts Market took it over. Before it closed though, it looked very run down, dirty, and had the worst stock for the most expensive price. I wasn't surprised they went out of business.
The whole building (where At Home is) used to be Kmart and the part you’re seeing was the garden center.
The blue light special was a rolling box they had with a tall pole and a blue flashing light on top. They would pick an item to have a blue light special on and roll the light to that part of the store, turn it on and announce it over the intercom
Miss K marts layaway.
I live near here as well. I was born in 88, & family moved from NY to Miami in 1992. I have many fond memories of this K-Mart in its heyday, getting many of my first video games & music Cd's from artists like Eminem & KoRn here. It used to be bustling with lots of products and many different sections of the store selling electronics, garden equipment, plants & furniture for indoor and outdoor, fridges, the whole 9 yards.
I actually worked there in 2017, and boy was it surprisingly busy, but by then the electronic section was already gone, and they were selling really really generic washing machines and refrigerators for extremely high prices, and they were running the store with the same old IBM computers from 1995, so doing something as simple as using customer points on their purchases required magic. They wanted us to make customers buy this stupid credit card that would only work at Kmart, and it was really difficult for me to genuinely sell it. This Kmart is dying one of the slowest deaths of any store ever next to the Best Buy that is just a couple of blocks down. They be taking out like five shelves a year.
I have a clip of the store right before it was moved to the garden section. Thank you for documenting this store! th-cam.com/users/shortsktjMa031Itg?si=3Ye6yYacSNNq9F7F
I'm a 90's baby. My mom used to take me to Kmart very frequently when i was a kid. They had lots of nice, affordable items for poor families. I liked kmart just as much as target and will miss it.
For a minute, I thought that was Rite Aid. 🤕
I remember Kmart in Goleta, California from the Fall of 1983 to 2018. Nice memories. There were a good number of Kmart’s in “Little London” (AKA Colorado Springs, Colorado) and all of them were decent for the most part. I have two magnets from the Kmart that was located on North Nevada in Little London promoting Little Caesar’s Pizza inside that specific one (they say clearly in bold letters INSIDE KMART). They could become Collectors Items since it is no longer in business; but for yours truly, there is that nostalgic, sentimental feeling that I get when I see them. It was good that “Wallyworld” (AKA Walmart) got some competition from them all those years ago. Where Kmart really went south was when the corporate folks in Michigan bought up Sears and a few other companies (and sadly bankrupted them as well). Other than that, Kmart stores were alright. Thank you for the “Blue Light Special Memories” and all of the fun shopping moments, Kmart! 🛒👍👍💯😊
I remember going to this K-Mart all the time as a kid back when the store wasn’t confined to the garden section, it’s in the perfect part of Miami for a K-Mart, the area that’s further inland away from the touristy areas and not far from where the Palmetto Expressway meets I-95. A truly unremarkable area, perfect for K-Mart.
Man K-mart used to be my jam when I was a kid, we went all the time and there was this cool Little Caesar's w/ playplace in ours. I always had memories of getting the special orange Nickelodeon VHS tapes from that Kmart. It was so sad when it closed. All I have left to remember them by I found a few years ago while cleaning out the garage. I found my 2nd birthday party party hat from Little Caesar's in 1995. Nostalgia hits hard and if you really learn why K-marts and Sears' went so downhill it might just make you infuriated. That being said though, fun times.
This place feels more like a Roses or Ollie's than a K-Mart. In fact one K-Mart near me split into a Roses, an Ollie's, and a gym. There used to be 8 locations in my tri-county area in coastal Mississippi, with several locations shuttering in 2002 and replaced by other discount stores such as Big Lots. The last location in my area closed in 2019. When I was a kid, K-Mart was a worthy rival to Wal-Mart and actually had more local stores than Wal-Mart did (until 1999 there were only 5 Wal-Marts, vs. 8 K-Marts). I miss the gumball machines and the coin-operated rides in front of the store.
Back in my childhood back in the 90's. My dad used to take me shopping at my local Kmart every Saturday. We would shop for Plastic golf balls, Line for my dad's lawn edger, one gallon bubble soap for blowing bubbles, and Craftsman hardware tools. I also remember shopping at night with the whole household in the evening to by camping supplies the day before my family went camping. Oh good good times. 12 years ago was the last time I remember shopping at my local Kmart but by myself as an adult but for toiletries and other necessities only. It was so sad too because more than half the shelfs were completely empty and it would close its doors for good in 2013. It got repurposed into Target in 2018.
Thank you for sharing this man. Its comments like these I like to see because they're so personal. Your childhood sounded so fun and I love the traditioin of going every Saturday lol
Been a while since our local Kmart closed. They had a small deli section where you could get a sub sandwich for a ridiculously low price - not great, but not enormously different from Subway. Also a great place for hunting and fishing supplies.
One of my earliest memories is shopping in Kmart with my mom in the 80s. The blue light at that time was a revolving blue light like you would see on top of an 80s police car, mounted on top of a pole on a mobile cart. When the announcement came on and the blue light came on everyone would make a mad rush towards it to get in on the deal. Back then it was a much bigger store than in your video, not as big as a full size Walmart is today but more comparable to an average grocery store in size, with all the racks low enough that you could see the blue light flashing throughout the store.
That sounds very entertaining. I miss when companies did cool things like that. Nowadays it feels like the life has been sucked out of everything.
Kmart always felt like time traveling to the early 90s or before ( born in 94 myself) but this store doesn't resemble it other than the random selection of items
@@JeremyJud yeah it feels very out of touch with its former self
It’s like being inside a ghost ship.
That’s a really weird Kmart! I was born in 1975, so I definitely saw it in its hey day. Up here in northern Michigan, Kmart was all we had, until the first Walmart showed up in 1990. That’s when Kmart started going downhill. Then they started adding Meijer to every town and that’s when all the Kmart stores in Michigan closed.
i wish i could go back when kmarts were open good times
I wish I could also
Where are the 2 remaining stores at?????🤗
It's this store in Miami and the other is in Bridgehampton, New York.
We need k mart back !
The last Kmart I visited was 1001 Hertel Ave Buffalo NY in 2015 it was sad RIP Kmart
idk where this location is at (somewhere in miami i think?) but there’s a few locations in US territories like guam and the USVI that are still open if i remember correctly. also a separate and formerly related australian chain that is pretty dominant over there still exists as well
I remember my dad buying me a PS2 at a Kmart in New Hartford, NY (I know! It's been a long time ago now). That Kmart was bigger than this one but it's been so long ago since I went there before it even closed. I can't even remember what it even looked like inside. All I remember was it was a little bigger than that one in your video.
We had a Kmart but I don’t really remember it. All I can remember is that they had this thing and it was a video machine. I remember you pressed a button of a movie and it showed a preview of the movie on a screen. The building sat empty for years and now it’s a hardware store. I don’t even remember when our Kmart even closed to be honest I was still really young maybe 8 or 9 years old at the time. Plus I live in Canada and we had Zeller’s and that store was round for the longest time and was one of the best stores.
I worked at a Kmart around 2011 for about a year. They always put those sale stickers up and rotate them out weekly. We would spend one night every weekend placing sheets of stickers on a majority of the products in the store. I guess people are more likely to buy a product if they believe it is on "sale".
A guy's father in my childhood neighborhood worked in Kmart as a pharmacist.
I was also born in 2005 and have a fascination with K-mart. I wish to visit one one day even if they look this sad
Apparently there's a some in the Virgin Islands and Guam and a TON in Australia and new zealand so you've got plenty of time my brotha
Used to work at Kmart in 2014 as a cashier. Was my first job. I still remember the day (October 15th) when they told us we were closing down. I still have my badge and blue polos and I can still remember my clock in number. I can't say I miss the customers lol but I do miss the workers AND liquidator he was dope! I'll always have the memories 🥲
My local KMart had a cafe in it. My mom and her neighbor went there often to eat lunch :) I shopped there quite a bit in the 80s and 90s.
In the 90s k mart was almost like what Target is today, i faintly remember Big Kmart but i remember being smaller than wal marts but just as packed. My parents used to go to the Kmart to buy pretty much everything From clothes to jewelry, shoes, food. I also remember them having like a small food court with like pizza, popcorn and drinks like i said almost to what Target is today
Kmart used to sell VHS tapes for $6.00 back in the day and I remember buying quite a few from them. Still have them too. In fact, their electronics section was pretty alive and abundant back then, had all the new movie releases and plenty of catalogue titles to choose from. What a shame this store chain has turned into, it's not even a chain anymore lol.
My Mom loved and shopped at Kmart all the time. My brother worked there many years ago. The store to the right the "at Home" used to be the main building of Kmart. What you're walking in used to be just Garden and Lawn Furniture. They must have downsized the store back while ago.
By the amount of customers in there looks like there might be only one location soon
Despite its size, it still has quite a bit of merchandise. They have the essentials.
There needs to preservation for these stores somehow, like the Blockbuster in Oregon, or that one Planet X because that's a Gamestop property. Something like a larger company like Walgreens or Target keeping that one last flagship store open
They'll feinitely do that. There's still a ton left in Australia and New Zealand
I've never seen this Kmart. I have to say, it is wild they are even bothering keeping this store open. Also, aside from thosse dresses, there were no clothes? So weird. I'm not too far from the one in Bridgehampton, NY and I've been making a trip of it a couple of times a year. That one is significantly larger and somewhat decently stocked. In fact, they even put some money towards upkeep last year. Kmart truly is an enigma at this point.
I felt like I was in that store in a dream some time ago.
Many memories as a kid in the late 90s to early 2000s. The last thing was some socks in 2018
My best friends Mom was an Undercover Loss Prevention Officer for KMart when I was in High School, we'd go in and laugh when we seen her. 🤭🤭
All of the K-Marts in New Jersey are even closed. The only two K-Marts in New Jersey I ever came across back in 2020 (which was a year before it shut down) was in Kearny, New Jersey and Belleville, New Jersey.
The blue light was usually on a small rolling cart by the front cash registers. Once the store turned the blue light on the sale would last for 15 minutes.
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s Kmart was thee go to place for shopping for me anyways way more then Walmart people these days don’t realize that they were both really on in the same Walmart wasn’t selling food yet that’s how they took off a one stop shop approach Kmart tried it with just the basic necessity grocery items but it they just couldn’t compete then they merged with sears prices starting going up where Walmart could afford do drop prices and then is what ultimately killed Kmart it’s like blockbuster and dine in pizza huts on a Friday night nothing will ever compare to them days
I remember Kmart as a kid before it was even called Big K.
K-Mart in my time where huge stores prob bigger than most Wal Marts,
i remember K-Mart use to have a food court. A place to chill.
this K-Mart looks like a 99 cent store or a family dollar, K-Mart will be a store of the past just like Sears and many others,
How times change,
70s was peak Kmart. 80s Walmart was rapidly expanding. 90s it was Target's turn. First decade of 2000s began the diabetic rot where appendages died and began falling off, rapidly.
A retail form of diabetes, that's an interesting way of looking at it.
The end was in the early 2010s
K-Mart in the 90s and early 2000's was a big competitor to Target. Both stores had nearly idential layouts, color schemes, and prices. I remember the food court that had Little Cesars and Icee. It was always packed and there were sales up the wahoo. The competition was too fierce with Target and Walmart.
I remember shopping 🛒 at Kmart as a child and a teenager in the 1990s with my parents as I was born in 1983.
I went to Kmart by my house all the way to the end,a friend bought a garbage can,one of very few items left!
This isnt Kmart. Why did they bother. I thought they did this to clear stock but its still here a year later.
2:25 they don’t have limited stock. They are minimizing exposure to shoplifters. I’m a loss prevention manager at a large grocery chain
With six stores left in the company and only two in the continental United States, I think it’s safe to say they actually do have limited stock, too.
I worked for Kmart from 1991-2018, and for the last decade our inventory levels were significantly lower than what they had been in the past, and it got worse with each passing year.
They have limited stock for sure. If you're an LP for a LARGE chain then it makes sense from your end. I don't think KMart has an LPM, and if they do, it must be one of the easiest jobs ever. They don't make enough money.
Their hayday was the 70s and 80s..... Thats a security camera. The blue light used to be on a cart that they would roll to the place where the items were. Loved Kmart.
I think there’s a Kmart still here by Reading,PA
This Kmart is giving Dollar Tree vibes
i don’t remember having KMart where i live. we had Zellers. it was our version of Target. Zellers were bought out to turn them into Target. Target only lasted 2 years before going under.
Kmart was part of my childhood and adulthood until the ones in the vicinity closed. I liked their products far more than Walmart and much of the Target stuff at the time.
I used to always go to Kmart in the summers with my grandmother. It was always the best times plus they always had a little Caesars in them.
were you talking about the Kmart in westwood New Jersey?
Yuppp
Yup I remember Kmart back in early 2000. Was spot back then and with blue light sale and during black friday it was popping! Also in My area they had little Cesar's pizza!!
We had a full sized Kamart with I oil change and tire department in rhe back ..in my town of Wake Village it closed several years ago.. yea blue light specials were a thing.. I’d go in for a popcorn 🍿 and and Icee frozen drink and brows the records in the music Department.. this was wayyyy back when. Come to think of it o think I bought my Nirvana Cassette from K mart in the 90s. When I was a little kid they had a restaurant inside and would play “Muzak” in the speakers . it was a staple of inexpensed goods too bad they closed
What a trip. Thanks for the video. RIP Kmart
Anytime!
I miss Kmart for sure! It was pretty dang good back in the 90’s
Still have Kmarts in the Virgin Islands
Was that a CVS turned into a KMart
I bet it’s trippy when you guys visit an Australian shopping center 😂
Geez before Walmart we had Kmart! My sister and I would always go through it and had fun! I was maybe 9 or 10 when I went shopping. We would shop for different things. It was a great store! I’m 42 now that was like 32 years ago! Gosh how times have changed! I still remember that Kmart! This Kmart is different p. When I went before Walmart came the store was packed with stuff!
I remember Kmart in the 90s and the food court was pretty good
As a Canadian, this is sadder than Target Canada by the end... Much less when K-Mart Canada became part of Zellers which of course became Target Canada... And even then the selection was better and less sad than this country store looking set up...
we have Kmart in austraila and new Zealand! So it's only the USA not globally.
If there was a store begging to close…it’s Kmart! The blue light was on a post that can be rolled around.
damn….this store is but a shell of what it use to be…it’s so sad :(
I've worked for Kmart in the 90's looks the same. Spending to much on labels and stretching out the merchandise. Literally no reason to even step into the store for anything 😭
Wow seeing this brings me back memories, i live in los angeles, california and i remember going to kmart amd getting the pizza from there, the pizza was yummy
Pretty much Target took over what KMart was including having a lil food court thing they had at every store. This is like a convience store kmart.
One of the last times I was in k mart, I remember seeing a guy with one of the new Windows Lumia phones
DAMN
@@xismlg hell yea man. Long ass time ago. Speaking of which I swore I wrote this comment like yesterday, been 4 weeks 🤣
Where is this Kmart located at?, what state?
Florida...
Globally? Kmart is actually popular here in Australia and NZ.
That’s the garden center in the old stores the other store beside it I bet was original main entrance
This store is circling the drain. No shoppers seen, no employees...
I see no customers which I would say means that there prices are not competitive. The former Kmarts in my area had a large cafeteria in them. We would go there for lunch some times.
3:52 "Save $0" 😆
what a bargain
Blockbuster, 99 Cents Only Stores, and Kmart are all about to close or have closed.
I still remember stores such as Service Merchandise, Zayres, Ames, Incredible Universe, Circuit City, CompUSA, Radio Shack, Sears, Walden Books, Kay Bee Toy Store, Toys R'Us, Montgomery Wards, and the list goes on. Those were the days.
Yo, do you know if anyone was working there? It looked kinda of empty.
Well why is targets logo an upside down flag with a target on it?
rest in peace kmart