Kash n' Karry #893 (Pre-Delhaize) / Kash n' Karry #1794 (Delhaize era) / Big Lots #5190
4233 S. Florida Avenue, Lakeland, FL - Palm Center
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| Today's post is a presentation of Polk County retail |
After dealing with buying and selling closeout merchandise to various parties since 1967 (particularly auto parts), the Consolidated Stores Corporation decided to live up to its name and open a store of its own in 1982 to sell all these closeout deals directly to the public for a fraction of the price it would normally retail for. Beginning in an old Kroger building in Columbus, OH, the chain "Odd Lots" was born and was looking to bring closeout shopping to the masses. However, as Odd Lots began to take its closeout format to the national level by opening stores outside of Ohio, there was a problem. Pharmacy chain Revco bought a New Jersey-based closeout retailer in 1983 called "Odd Lot Trading Company", which Revco was also looking to take national. To prevent a legal battle against a large company like Revco, the Ohio-based "Odd Lots" began to use the name "Big Lots" as it grew outside of its original territory, and a household name was born. After taking additional closeout chains under its belt in the 1990's like MacFrugal's and Pic n' Save (as well as a brief stint owning KB Toys from 1996-2000), Consolidated Stores decided to "consolidate" all of its closeout brands under one name - Big Lots - the company's most widely used banner, and changed the company's corporate name to Big Lots, Inc. as part of the effort as well. This graphic I found on Big Lots' website is a nice summary of the chain's history, however, that "now" portion needs a little updating...
If I knew how to use Photoshop, I would have placed a nice yellow "Going out of Business" banner under the Big Lots sign in that "Now" photo on the timeline. As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, Big Lots declared bankruptcy in September 2024 after waves of store closures stemming from recent financial turbulence starting in late 2023, with over 500 stores axed from late 2023 to just prior to the bankruptcy declaration in fall 2024. While initially planning to salvage its ~900 remaining stores as a going concern by selling the company's remaining assets to private equity firm Nexus Capital, that deal would fall apart by December 2024, leading Big Lots to convert their bankruptcy into an all out liquidation. After a tumultuous 2024 for all parties involved, Big Lots did eventually make a deal in January 2025 where it would sell its remaining assets to Gordon Brothers liquidators, who would then sell 200-400 Big Lots stores (as well as the Big Lots branding and other IP) to Variety Wholesalers, owners of the Roses and Maxway chains (among others). Being a chain focused primarily in the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Upper Midwestern states, all of the Big Lots stores purchased by Variety Wholesalers fall within that footprint, filling some gaps and entering a few new fringe markets for the chain. However, we'll talk more about Variety Wholesalers' plans for Big Lots, what Florida stores they purchased, and how Big Lots got themselves into this whole mess to begin with as we go through today's post (although we have seen bits and pieces of what's contributed to Big Lots downfall in some of my recent posts as well). I also have a new MFR feature to introduce at the end of this post too, so plenty to talk about today!
While we'll get to more of the overarching story of Big Lots' demise in a moment, let's spend a little bit of time talking about the Big Lots store we'll be touring as part of my tribute to the former king of closeout retailing, whose liquidation will conclude only a few weeks after this post goes live:
Long before Big Lots arrived in this building in South Lakeland (not far from the famous Lakeland Food World prototype we toured this past summer on AFB), it began its life as home to a Kash n' Karry. Kash n' Karry was one of the 4 original anchors to the Palm Center shopping plaza when it opened on March 22, 1985, joining fellow anchors Wal-Mart, Bealls, and Walgreens, as well as a strip of smaller stores arranged in an open-air mall format. While certainly not as impressive its the Food World down the street when it opened, Kash n' Karry's new store seemed to have good appeal with the Lakeland residents looking for an affordable place to shop, as price was one of Kash n' Karry's big focuses while under the ownership of Lucky Stores in the 1980's.
Much to my surprise, I was able to dig up a photo of the South Lakeland Kash n' Karry while it was open, also showcasing its neighbor Walgreens. While the exterior was a little more decorative than usual with the fancy arches, this store was a pretty typical 1980's Kash n' Karry inside.
And speaking of inside, while not the greatest photo in the world, I also managed to find an interior photo of this store from the Kash n' Karry days too! Kash n' Karry interior photos are pretty scarce, so even a poor quality black and white newspaper scan is a win for me. The above photo was taken in 1993, so the hanging promotional signs were from Kash n' Karry's days as an independent chain after splitting from Lucky in 1988 (following American Store's purchase of Lucky that year). The aisle markers look to be a variant of the advertisement-based ones common in supermarkets in the 1980's and 1990's, but other than that, I can't make out many other details.
While Kash n' Karry continued to struggle with mounting pressure from the rise of Publix and Walmart in the late 1990's and early 2000's, the chain's new owner, Delhaize America, decided it was time for a change. As part of the upcoming reimagining of Kash n' Karry as Sweetbay Supermarkets, Delhaize announced the closure of 34 underperforming Kash n' Karry stores in January 2004. Most of the stores closed in that wave were in some of Kash n' Karry's weaker outlying markets, like Eastern and Central Florida, both of which were areas Kash n' Karry pulled out of completely at the time so the Sweetbay conversions could be focused on the chain's stronger Gulf Coast home base. That closure sweep also led to the demise of all but one of the Kash n' Karry stores left in Polk County too, the North Lakeland store on US 98 being the only survivor. Polk County is a tough place to be a supermarket that isn't named Publix, Walmart, or Aldi, and I'm surprised Delhaize left that one store in the area too, which survived until a 2013 closure wave right before the remaining Sweetbay stores were sold to Southeastern Grocers. Anyway, that was a very long-winded way of me saying that the South Lakeland Kash n' Karry closed in 2004 and remained empty until Big Lots came around in 2011. However, Big Lots can trace its history in Lakeland back much further than 2011:
Lakeland's first Big Lots store opened for business on June 26, 1994 at the former Searstown Plaza on Lakeland's east side (a shopping center famous in Floridian supermarket lore as being home to one of the two (and sole remaining) original Publix tile mosaics by John Garth, the precursor to the more common Pati Mills tile murals). While you can learn more about the Searstown Publix here, the Big Lots a few doors down threw quite the grand opening bash in Lakeland, as Closeout Man had now arrived to save shoppers from paying too much! The little blurb in the ad about "What is Big Lots?" is an interesting read, and if you're curious to compare, this was the most recent answer to "What is Big Lots?" that I pulled from the company's website if you want to see how the company pivoted from what they were 30 years ago: "With a mission to help people Live BIG and Save LOTS we are proud to be the go-to designation for unexpected finds at unmistakable value." While there's still a tiny bit of closeout shopping referenced in there, there certainly isn't a passion for it like the 1994 description gave us!
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| Searstown Big Lots GSV - May 2011 |
Big Lots remained at Searstown until 2011, when the company decided it was time to open a larger, more modern store that could offer a full selection of furniture to the shoppers of Lakeland. Interestingly, instead of just moving the original store to a new location, Big Lots did something a bit different here in Lakeland - the original store was replaced by two new stores that opened within a month of each other. Opening on October 7, 2011, the first of Lakeland's new Big Lots stores opened on the southern side of town on South Florida Avenue (the store we'll be touring today). The second location opened on November 3, 2011 on the north side of Lakeland near Lakeland Square Mall in a former Circuit City. The original Lakeland Big Lots at Searstown closed upon the opening of the new North Lakeland store in November 2011, with the former Searstown Big Lots now home to a furniture store.
Both of Lakeland's Big Lots stores survived until the company announced its total liquidation in December 2024, and neither of these stores were chosen by Variety Wholesalers to be part of the "Big Lots 2.0" era. In all, Variety Wholesalers will be taking 10 Floridian Big Lots stores under their control, those being the locations in Brandon, Callaway, Crystal River, Fort Myers Palm Beach Blvd., Jacksonville Merrill Road, Marianna, Milton, North Fort Myers, Ormond Beach, Ruskin, St. Cloud, and Spring Hill. It was rumored that Variety Wholesalers would be taking more Floridian Big Lots stores than that, but it appears the company changed its mind and opted to take a smaller number of stores (closer to the reported 200 of the original 200-400 under consideration) and forego taking any distribution centers that were supposed to be part of the original deal with Gordon Brothers too. If nothing else, at least it's something, and the Big Lots name will live on in some form, even if "Big Lots 2.0" will be nothing more than a Roses store in all but name.
Entering the store, we find plenty of liquidation signage, as well as a glimpse of Kash n' Karry's original vestibule.
Beyond the vestibule though, that's where the Kash n' Karry remnants end, as Big Lots gutted and rebuilt most of the interior prior to opening this store in 2011. However, that isn't to say there were some more interesting Kash n' Karry to Big Lots conversions out there, but that will be a post for another day.
The front right corner of the store was home to "The Lot", Big Lots ever changing promotional closeout area that usually held a theme of some kind (either aligning with the season or a brand, like Disney). Prior to the short-lived rebranding as a closeout-focused store after the initial bankruptcy filing in Summer 2024, "The Lot" was Big Lots' way to reintroduce closeouts to the store on a small scale as the company tried to become "America's Discount Home Store", a rural-oriented discount store, a furniture store with some groceries, and all the other ideas that ended up backfiring on Big Lots as they began to stray away from what they really were in the 2010's.
As the liquidations began, "The Lot" just became a dumping ground for whatever stuff was still in the back that needed to be brought out to the floor, particularly when it came to excess seasonal merchandise that needed a home (like the leftover Christmas trees seen above, as well as the Valentine's Day and Easter stuff that was beginning to arrive that would never live to see its intended planogram).
Here's a look from the right side of the store out toward the front left corner. If I have my bearings correct on Kash n' Karry's 1980's layout, the combined deli/bakery would have been in the front right corner behind me (where "The Lot" was), with the pharmacy in the front left corner.
As far as Big Lots' layout was concerned, the right side of the store was home to housewares, with furniture in the back of the store where Kash n' Karry's meat and dairy departments were located. The middle of the store was home to food, cleaning products, and a little bit of overflow from housewares.
Roughly 3 weeks into the liquidation by the time of my visit, this store was surprisingly empty in areas (like this aisle in the housewares department). I've been to a number of Big Lots liquidations over the last few weeks and I've found the amount of merchandise left in the stores to be all over the place. While this store was getting rather empty only 3 weeks in, I was in stores in mid-February 2025 that were still mostly stocked with hardly an empty shelf anywhere.
A giant bin of pillows blocks our view across the center aisle, but we can still make out the toy department on the other side of the store (and we'll check that out before long too).
Making our way to the back of the store, we find what's left of the furniture department. According to the furniture sales lady walking around, what we see out here was all that was left to sell in terms of furniture, being mostly the old floor displays.
Some beds line the wall where Kash n' Karry's meat department used to be, with chests of drawers replacing the chests of coolers that once resided here.
Expanding so much into furniture seems to be credited by many as a part of Big Lots downfall. When you look at the numbers, Big Lots actually built furniture into a decent part of its overall business, so financially, furniture wasn't a burden, but many say it was too much of a distraction on the company. Since furniture sales grew so much over the years, that's credited with Big Lots pivoting into ideas like "America's Discount Home Store" and trying out concepts like a housewares and furniture only store, feeling furniture - not closeouts - was the answer to growing the chain. However, the bankruptcy declaration seemed to be the big awakening for Big Lots, as following that announcement in September 2024, Big Lots brought back their old mascot "Closeout Man", adopted a more whimsical theme reminiscent of their 1990's ads, and began to talk about closeouts as their focus once again. Clearly that all panned out to be too little too late, and Big Lots learned a painful lesson on straying too far from their original business.
Moving along to the center store aisles, we find stuff like cleaning supplies, food, paper products, and a little bit of household goods. In this part of the store, I did spot a few items that Big Lots brought in as part of their short-lived foray into buying more closeout goods again, starting with this find:
Quite far from home in Florida were these ShopRite brand freezer bags, tucked in amongst some name brand and random no-name zipper bags.
At this point in the closing sale, Big Lots wasn't taking any discounts on food, paper products, and cleaning supplies, so those items were pretty well stocked overall since there weren't any great deals to be had...
…but other parts of the store where there were more markdowns were a little more sparse, like this aisle.
While there wasn't much product to browse in this aisle, I did find some more interesting closeouts in the grocery department:
Because I can always find a way to squeeze an Albertsons reference into a post, here's some Signature Select brand applesauce pouches Big Lots had. Big Lots must have gotten a lot of this applesauce dumped on them by Albertsons, as pretty much every Big Lots I've visited these last few weeks had a bunch of these in stock, and it's not moving too quick either.
From that little taste of Albertsons, here's a little taste of the store's left wall. Health and beauty was located in this part of the store, followed by toys, pet supplies, and then the seasonal department.
Toys, along with home, furniture, and seasonal, were the only four departments that had a hanging sign denoting them. These signs are original to the store's 2011 opening, part of a more elaborate decor package from the time (which this store seemed to get a more watered down version of).
The seasonal department was located in the back left corner of the store, and was mostly empty when I was here. What little remained of seasonal merchandise was consolidated to "The Lot" and a few of the aisles before the large open pad area where patio furniture and Christmas trees would be displayed depending on the time of the year (although being in Florida, there is a period of seeing patio furniture stocked next to the Christmas trees too).
A lone charcoal grill and a few random boxed pieces of patio furniture were all that was left in the seasonal display area, with the little bit of regular furniture that was left off in the distance.
Leaving seasonal, here's a look down the store's left side actionway, looking quite open as Big Lots' old pallet displays and tables that would have once lined the middle of this aisle disappeared.
From health and beauty, here's a final look at this store's interior, with the check lanes positioned along the row of windows that separate the salesfloor from the vestibule.
And speaking of the vestibule, here we are in it again as we exit this store for the final time.
The fall of Big Lots is yet another sad tale of a chain that lost its way. While closeout and liquidation stores have been around for years in one form or another (typically as an independent or regional operation), Big Lots was the company that brought broadline closeout retailing national. However, it seems that as closeout chains grow, the pool of closeout merchandise needed fill all those stores begins to thin, and that too may have been another reason for Big Lots to begin playing around in areas like home furnishings and decor. While other closeout chains like Ollie's and Ocean State Job Lot seem to be doing fine right now, both of those companies are much smaller than Big Lots was as it its peak a few years ago (Ollie's has around 500 stores now compared to the nearly 1,400 Big Lots had in 2022, and Ocean State only has around 150 stores). In addition to Big Lots, other closeout chains like Bargain Hunt and Dirt Cheap have also liquidated or begun liquidation recently as well. While Bargain Hunt and Dirt Cheap are arguably a step below Big Lots and Ollie's in terms of merchandise (selling returns and such), it hasn't been a good year for closeout stores, so hopefully Ollie's and Ocean State can maintain themselves and not make the same mistakes of their counterparts.
While we're here, we might as well take a look at the rest of the Palm Center shopping plaza, which is somewhat interesting considering its open-air mall design. Before we get to the "mall" portion of the center, next door to Big Lots we see the old Walgreens space. After moving to a new freestanding building across the street in 1999, the Walgreens space became home to Bealls Outlet. Bealls Outlet remained in this space until 2017, and sat empty until NAPA Auto Parts moved in around 2022.
Next to NAPA Auto Parts is our first entrance into the open air mall, after which are the remaining front-facing tenants of the Big Lots wing of the plaza - Cicis Pizza, a store that sells scrubs, and a medical office. Beyond that is the archway that denotes the entrance to Access Church, which occupies the plaza's old Bealls full-line department store space.
Instead of walking along the front of the plaza, we'll turn and enter the "mall" portion of the complex. Entering the corridor between NAPA and Cicis, there's a barber shop to my right, and a Christian bookstore straight ahead.
Beyond those two businesses, the corridor becomes pretty quiet, as the remainder of the space is home to another church and another medical office, neither of which were open the day I visited. While it was rather desolate while I was here, the "mall" corridor itself was quite nice with the landscaping beds and string lights hanging from above.
The storefronts that face the parking lot only have public access from the front, with back doors and receiving entrances facing the "mall" corridor (as seen to my left). As such, only the businesses to my right are publicly accessible from the corridor. I guess it made the most sense to have the storefronts on the parking lot side face outward rather than into the corridor, but this arrangement takes away from the true "mall" feel of the complex and makes it come across as more of an oddly designed shopping center instead.
Eventually, the corridor turns to the left and the former Bealls department store building comes into view.
The former Bealls space officially resides in the back corridor, occupying the "center court" of Palm Center. In front of the old Bealls is another cutaway to the parking lot, giving the Bealls building plenty of visibility even though it is tucked away behind this courtyard. Bealls remained at Palm Center until 2006 (co-existing with its Outlet counterpart in the old Walgreens for a little while), when a more modern Bealls store was constructed one interchange east of here on the Polk Parkway next to the new South Lakeland Lowe's store. Following Bealls move, this building housed a Tuesday Morning store until 2016, and sat empty until 2024 when it (and some adjoining space) became home to Access Church.
To the left of the old Bealls building is that additional space Access Church took over as part of the construction of the church's new South Lakeland campus. Access took over most of the back strip between the old Bealls and the old Walmart building, with the exception of the last storefront attached to the old Walmart, which houses a consignment shop.
The Bealls to Walmart wing is much shorter than the Walgreens to Bealls wing, and as such, here we are at the parking lot again, looking back to where we first entered the mall corridor.
Lastly, here's a look at the old Palm Center Wal-Mart space. While there isn't much in terms of Wal-Mart remnants left to look at now that the building has been split between Staples, Planet Fitness, and ABC Liquors, the old Wal-Mart actually has a bit of interesting background to it:
Opening on April 30, 1985, the Palm Center Wal-Mart was Lakeland's first location for the Bentonville, AR-based discount chain, a seemingly innocent enough company with national ambitions at the time. The 80,000 square foot Palm Center Wal-Mart was one of the company's new prototypes of the time, a design that looked like this and was designed to rival the size and selection of other growing discount chains at the time.
This early 1994 aerial image give us our best glimpse at the original South Lakeland Wal-Mart while it was open. For Wal-Mart, this store was a huge success - so much so that it failed its 5-year evaluation and was deemed "inadequate" for the volume it was doing, prompting a review by corporate to either find a way to expand this store or relocate it.
Due to the constraints of the Palm Center site, corporate decided it would be better to relocate the South Lakeland store to a larger property that could better handle the demand being placed on the store. After rumors of relocation began in 1991, it was formally announced in 1993 that Wal-Mart had purchased the old South Lakeland Zayre/Ames building about a mile to the north, which would be demolished and replaced with a modern 127,000 square foot Wal-Mart store. Wal-Mart made its move to the old Zayre/Ames site in the summer of 1994, leaving a large gaping hole at Palm Center to be filled. However, it wasn't long before a new life for the old Palm Center Wal-Mart had been found:
After demolishing about a third of the southernmost part of the old Wal-Mart building for a new outdoor lumber yard, Scotty's Hardware fixed up the remaining two-thirds of the old Wal-Mart building for a store of their own, which opened in March 1995. Due to pressures from the expansion of Lowe's and Home Depot, Scotty's began to run into trouble in the late 1990's, and as such, began to try a few strange concepts to stay afloat. One of Scotty's crazier prototypes of the time was "Scotty's Bargain Outlet", which debuted in early 2000. Scotty's Bargain Outlet converted a traditional Scotty's Hardware store into a hybrid closeout/dollar store, essentially trying to turn Scotty's into Big Lots. In the cases of some of Scotty's larger locations that were converted, as part of the "right sizing" process of the Bargain Outlet conversions, some stores (like this one) had the excess space sublet to another tenant (that being Staples here, who opened in 2000 when this store converted to the Bargain Outlet format).
As you can imagine, when a company known for selling one thing tries to rebrand itself as something totally different (where have we heard this story before?), it typically doesn't go well. In Scotty's case, the Scotty's Bargain Outlet stores were a huge flop, with the South Lakeland Scotty's Bargain Outlet closing in October 2000, mere months after it converted to the new format. Following the closure of Scotty's, Staples continued on in their sublet portion of the old Wal-Mart building, with the remainder of the building (which retained its original 1980's Wal-Mart entryway design through the Scotty's era) sitting empty until the early 2010's, when the empty Scotty's space was divided into Planet Fitness and ABC Liquors, with the old lumberyard turned into additional parking.
Here's a parting shot of the old Wal-Mart building as we turn our attention back to the star of this post, Big Lots, for a few final thoughts:
From my understanding, all traces of the original Big Lots company will cease to exist by March 17, 2025, with all of the remaining stores closing between mid-February 2025 and March 17th depending on remaining inventory levels. Even though the Big Lots name will live on in parts of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic under Variety Wholesalers, I don't think the new "Big Lots 2.0" will be the same as the original (although I guess it remains to be seen just what Variety Wholesalers' vision for their newly acquired Big Lots stores will be). A pioneer in its area, Big Lots will become yet another sad story of a retail chain that lost it way. Unlike other chains that were mismanaged or hurt by the uptick in online retailing, Big Lots forgot what it was and how it got to be so big. I hoped that the original Big Lots would be able to pull itself through this mess and come out as a smaller chain that could continue on, but I guess the fact that "Big Lots" will remain in any form after all this is a consolation I can accept. As the handful of Big Lots stores in Florida reopen under new ownership I'm sure I'll stop by to see what those are about, and I of course have "lots" of coverage of the OG Big Lots in my archives for the future too, including some of those more interesting stores with funky old relics of retailers past inside. In addition to this post, to mark the end of "The Closeout Store", I'll "closeout" this post by announcing two new additions to the MFR Store Location Database (in quite some time too) - one of those new contributions being a list of all the Big Lots locations that dotted Florida from the chain's entrance into the state in August 1992 until the very end in 2025. If you're still in a Big Lots mood after scanning through that list, The Sing Oil Blogger also has a post about Big Lots that went live today where you'll not only learn more about Big Lots' recent woes, but also about how Winn-Dixie Marketplace came to be. And once you're totally tired of hearing about Big Lots, there's also a second addition to the Store Location Database too - that being a list of all the Xtra Super Food Center locations. While totally unrelated to today's post, I figured I'd add that list at the same time as the Big Lots one since I didn't have anything about Xtra coming up in the near future, and fellow blogger Pseudo3D managed to compile a bit of research on the chain that led to the creation of that list as well. If you're looking to kill a little time, be sure to check out those new lists, and be sure to come back to MFR and AFB for more from me in the future!
So until the next post,
AFB
