K-Mart: The Rise, Fall, 80s Blue Light Specials and Slush Puppies Nostalgia

[@myshadowstalksme]

My gosh do I miss the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. What a time to be alive.

[@m42037]

The 90s Kmart changed

[@KentKaliber]

BEST era ever. Especially 80s and 90s. By 2010, things were really changing negatively.

[@m42037]

@@KentKaliber The 70s and 80s were the best until they changed in the mid 90s

[@dmacarthur5356]

A moment of silence to all of us kids that showed up on the first day of school rocking some bright white Trax sneakers. This is why Gen X is so mentally tough.

[@waynetaylor8082]

Don't forget the Rustler jeans! I'm still amazed we survived, being Soo "traumatized?!"

[@aarondavis4341]

I was lucky my dad was a steel worker back before it all went under..I got to go to Kmart for BRITISH KNIGHTS shoes..who remember those!

[@sc3ku]

As a millennial I got Shaq and Franklin shoes. No end to my misery until my mom used her Sears card to start buying me Chuck Taylors

[@wardelljordan1199]

I got the brown ones

[@MeoMiyo]

I had them same shoes in the 70s, such great times.

[@redlady8296]

Oh I miss slush puppies. Slush Puppies was one of the best things of the 80s for me.

[@djquinn11]

And the $.99 subs

[@pwallace5359]

They were delicious. Miss them too.

[@tweetygirl818]

I don't know if they taste the same, but i've seen slush puppies in shop rite (if u have one in your area) in those pouches that look like capri suns.

[@myshadowstalksme]

I used to pump so much cherry syrup into mine lol. People would trash them in these days, probably steal the syrup.

[@redlady8296]

@@tweetygirl818 unfortunately there isn’t a shop rite in my area. Thanks for letting me know about the frozen packs.

[@alvinhang8721]

The store of my youth. My dad loved K-Mart. We go there almost every weekends.

[@Jarretthicks12]

I worked at Kmart for 2 and a half years up until it closed. It didn’t pay nothing but it was most fun job I had

[@anthonyjagers7770]

I remember. In the late 70's K-mart was King!

[@elizabethpeterson1644]

When I was a teenager got really good pieces of clothing. I remembered get good stuff that I liked. Even music, shoes, school supplies, clothing, and even got a slushy in Coca Cola or Cherry favorite. I liked the smaller old school Kmart.

[@VidWatcher01]

K mart was my 1st job

[@Captain-Cosmo]

Our KMart also had cotton candy. The combination of the smell of salty/oily popcorn and sweet cotton candy was pretty good, whether you liked shopping there or not. Don't forget LAYAWAY. But should we lament the passing of KMart? Dunno. When KMart came into a town, a lot of traditional mom & pop stores usually went under. Remember in That 70s Show when Bob's successful business went under after the KMart-clone came to town?

[@glam2gobeauty811]

Lovedddd Kmart food court ❤ i can still remember the 🍕

[@keithe2150]

I remember going to the store in like 1982 with a friend who lived near one, and as we were walking around, heading towards the checkout counter, I noticed a huge pile of pickles in the walkway about 500 jars of pickles in glass jars. this would be for stores like this sold food, and I would say to myself who would come here to buy pickles. Well, I miss the pickles and I miss the stores. It was always fun to go there and as you said it was always an adventure.

[@GLElite]

I used to go to Kmart every Friday night with my parents back in the early 80s. It was the highlight of the week! There were no other stores around like it. I can remember the store exactly as it was. They never updated the stores. I can still picture the floor, the lights and that small tile print at the cash registers.

[@ninademci1500]

Slush puppies taste great!

[@jamiethomas5845]

Kmart and goodwill was where my mother shopped for me and my siblings. The shopping at the mall was rare.

[@brianspangenberg9598]

When I was in college(1982) I worked at Kmart after school. Had a a lot of fun announcing and running the blue light specials, people would come running to the blue light cart and made sure they received their price markdown. I was the hero with the old school sticker price gun. 😝

[@lorilxn1597]

I worked in the deli, cut 1/4" piece off top of my thumb using the slicer for onions. Sandwiches started going blur light at 8 pm and we closed at 10 pm. Enjoyed working there.

[@shannon_w.]

I just found your channel today and I am OBSESSED!!! I have been feeling so nostalgic lately for my childhood (the 80's) because of how crazy this world is now! Your channel brings me right back and I thank you for that. I live in N.J. I am gonna have to take a trip up to Westwood and look for the blue light specials 😉

[@rockfresh5359]

I remember them from the late 90s to the early 2000s , they had the best hotdogs ‼️

[@eksit101]

When you were too poor to even get a slush puppy... Thanks for bringing up all those horrible memories!

[@bricknmotor]

Now I wanna shop at Kmart. So thanks for that. 😆😆😆

[@andrewwoulfe6579]

I worked at K-Mart back in 1984. Fun fact Part time employees were paid in cash every Friday at an 8am meeting. The thought being we would spend our paycheck before we left the store. The "pre K-Mart store in my small Midwestern town was called "Jupiter" It was actually a Kresge store with lunch counter and soda fountain, but for some reason it was called Jupiter.

[@jemontaguemk]

My aunt worked at Kmart when I was a kid and I remember her telling me about being paid in cash. Wild

[@jdubbs8242]

I worked at a K-Mart in the mid-90's and I could already see the decline. There was no air conditioning anymore (too expensive to fix) They had shut down a lot of things like the eatery and had really scaled back on the brands they offered. I saw a lot less premium brands and a lot more store brands (Martha Stewart stuff) which were not always very good. It didn't seem like management had much of a plan to turn things around. Sad to see things end.

[@michaelvrooman5681]

K-Mart in the 70s had a very large automotive department. I bought tune up parts and tools at our K- Mart in Escanaba Michigan

[@AngryOvaries]

Kmart I worked at in Ohio was allowed to bring back the blue light special for a bit before they went out of buisness. (Walmart moved in 😒) Since I was in charge of the front desk (CSS) I helped with it and always enjoyed watching everyone run to the area we set it up in. We would change up where we put it to give everyone a fair chance to find us. 😂 One company I have never regretted working for. Work hard and they took care of you truly like family.

[@chrisbealey6478]

Remember the K Tell albums ? They were usually a collection of rock classics of the 70s every household had a few .

[@flicknfreckles]

Nice vid 👍 Please do one on 80's Pick N Saves.

[@JeffMitchell-lv4zx]

I heard that the band KISS invested in Kmart back in the 70s & thats why Kmart always had loads of KISS merch.

[@jupitermichaels]

Does anyone remember “Hills”? I vaguely remember they had these creepy holiday commercials and their tagline was “Hills is where the toys are”

[@kittiew260]

Yes, I recall hills. It was my 1st job toy department at Christmas. For sure, a challenging 1st job. Sadly, all gone as well.

[@michaellazor5667]

Back in the 90s, I always preferred to go to Kmart over Walmart. It was more inviting and cheerful. Plus, they used to have an employee assisting at every department.

[@eyeseer1]

Loved the VHS/ Nintendo sector of K-Mart with a great car battery rebate area. They had a great Little Caesars & Icee shop. In 2013, Black Friday they had 11 cashiers and no customers. I knew they were in dire times only to see them close in 2018.

[@1313coffeeguy]

Our first color TV was an KMC product.

[@sandyaw3057]

I and my kids loved K Mart, I’d go Christmas shopping there every year and put a lot on layaway. I personally liked K Mart way more than Walmart, the quality was better for one thing. Everything that was good is disappearing, including compassion and respect.

[@Lynxdoc]

Our Kmart didn't have Slush Puppies but rather ICEE - Never saw a Slush Puppie in the wild but I went to a summer camp and they had a SP cup tacked to a wall of a staff Cabin with a sign that said "Slush Puppie Shrine"

[@Elder-Sage]

Same, ICEE was omnipresent in Kmart stores across northern Texas. Never saw a Slush Puppy till after both companies were acquired by J&J in early 2000's

[@unclesaluki]

K mart always had the best winter coats.

[@thomaswade6902]

I worked at one as a teenager. They used to sell some awesome sub sandwiches

[@cactifunguy]

Kmart has over 300 locations in New Zealand and Australia, with their corporate office in Melbourne.

[@echohunter4199]

I worked at the Klamath Falls, OR K-Mart in 1984 for a few months until I couldn’t take the idiots anymore. I was in the home improvement section and I was a one man show, I unloaded the truck with the forklift, stocked shelves, mixed paint colors and ran the register. It was one old fat lady that broke the camels back so while she was bent over on the counter slowly writing out the check with about 8 people behind her getting impatient I picked up the phone at the register, called the Army Recruiter and said “so, is that assignment to Germany still an option? Great, I’ll be by after work today.” A month later I was in Frankfurt, Germany. At the time I was in the Army National Guard so I was MOS qualified already. My pay was $3.90 an hour then and the minimum was $3.75.

[@chadlewis4079]

Buying a power tool, lingerie, and sneakers in the same store was a trip, yo.

[@robwilliams7270]

Ship my pants!!! Big gas savings!!!

[@lonnybush5612]

Santa brought me my presents from Kmart in the 1970s.

[@jhhone]

You didn't mention one of their greatest assets Jaclyn Smith Fashions!

[@sgzartan]

I remember in 1984 seeing Optimus Prime for $17.88 in their print advertisement.

[@Randy.E.R]

God only knows how much money Kmart made from my family over the years. I grew up in a small town of about 3,000 in the Southern California desert. Our Dad didn't make much money as a laborer at one of the local plants, but Mom knew how to stretch a dollar raising three kids on Dad's blue-collar wages. But that's about how everyone lived in town during the early 1970s. Every two weeks, after Dad's payday, Mom headed south to the next biggest town where she did the grocery shopping at Gemco and then across town to Kmart for everything else. If we behaved in the store, we each got to pick out a 45rpm record to buy. If you have no idea what a 45rpm record is, my guess is that you are under 50 years old. After leaving Kmart, Mom usually stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken (it wasn't called KFC then) and bought a bucket of chicken to eat in the car on the way home. That was the only fast food we ever ate; twice a month. Mom actually cooked. I won't say they were simpler times, just different. I can't say we grew up poor because that's how everyone around us lived. That was what we knew as normal. Shopping at Kmart for clothes was what fit our budget.

[@johnjones393]

To be accurate, Kmart actually acquired Sears in 2004, one year after Kmart emerged from bankruptcy.

[@4everseekingwisdom690]

Attention Kmart shoppers....

[@seatspud]

Heard this in Beetlejuice's voice.

[@sarahsimpkins1311]

Where mom bought our school clothes in the 80s

[@scrambler69-xk3kv]

Forgot to mention the story of two young men who stole a canoe from our K Mart. They carried it right out the door because everyone assumed they had paid for it and that they had probably paid for it in sporting goods. Story goes that the cashier for the department was back in the stockroom when they made off with it.

[@thechemtrailkid]

we have to go back....

[@mrg8581]

30 dollars for Pound Puppies in 1985. 0:28.

[@harrietamidala1691]

Mom told me that when I was very young, I begged her to take me to Kmart because that’s where Christmas is. The funniest part about the story is that we’re Jewish.

[@kateclark8400]

Wait. Pound puppies were $30?!? Isn’t that like $75 or something now?

[@Justintime2grow]

Kmart was the Walmart of the 80s basically.

[@abbyarnold4477]

Kmart began dying out in the 80s but the 70s was their best decade . You're probably to young to know that Mr youtuber .

[@sarahmillett8454]

Kids now a days won’t understand when we had to buy champion brand clothes at Kmart, you were not cool. Lol

[@raulduke6105]

And…..submarine sandwiches 😋

[@oogabooga1971]

There is a K Mart in Guam that's booming!

[@hansgruber6122]

The moral of the story is Competition is good and in the end the consumer wins by lower prices. Now that Walmart dominates they have no competition and the customer pays higher prices, subpar customer service and filthy stores. Customer is last. Good old days are long gone and buried. I avoid walmart like the plague and shop elsewhere when I can. Their slogan used to be lower prices everyday. Should now be higher prices everyday to screw you. They are a monopoly.

[@TwiceVisible]

7:08 That is wrong actually. Kmart did not sell to Sears. Kmart Holdings (which owned Kmart stores) purchased Sears for $11 billion dollars. They renamed Kmart Holdings to Sears Holdings during the merger.

[@darrenlatuska8485]

Sub sandwiches were the best 👌

[@cretejake34301]

Kmart westwood nj close

[@eileenkung5839]

Like kmart.close.2023.

[@SouthernFoodieGal]

Kmart, JC Penney, & Sears each had a HUGE Christmas catalog that are a core memory for me! My Mom kept the JC Penney's Christmas catalog for my birth year and I honestly cherish it, even if it's just a bunch of paper to anyone else. Great flashback to my childhood!! Thanks for sharing.

[@bryany6565]

Oh yeah, my parents kept sears books from my brother and I yeat lf biths. As kids they were the xmas holy grail.

[@dulllynn8312]

I couldn't wait for the sears Christmas catalogue..poured over it...I remember the way it smelled...like a news paper

[@SouthernFoodieGal]

@@dulllynn8312 yes! That smell lives on in my memories!

[@scoobysnacks3740]

Don’t forget about Brendles and service merchandise catalogs.

[@SouthernFoodieGal]

@@scoobysnacks3740we didn't have a Brendles, but we definitely had a Service Merchandise!! Great reminder, thanks!

[@shannenspence3318]

K Mart had the best cafetaria. That was probably my favorite thing about K Mart. I remember going Christmas shopping with my mom at K Mart and we always ate in the cafeteria.

[@luigivincenz3843]

agreed! My Mom and Dad used to bring me there. I didnt care about the ambiance because the food was great (well, everything looked good to kids is delicious)

[@myshadowstalksme]

The smell of popcorn in the air. The 80s were beyond awesome.

[@alkohallick2901]

Cafeteria?

[@deductivereasoning4257]

K-nuggets and the taco snack stand...

[@michaeleverett2650]

You mean snack bar

[@jeremiahm1413]

In 1991, I remember being 10 years old and saving $200 for a brand new Super NES the day it launched. We went to K-Mart in Pensacola near Cordova mall, and I ran to the electronics section to see one, single Super NES left. I snagged it, and we went to the front checkout, only for me to learn a very important lesson: sales tax. The total was $212, and I had $200. Looking up at my mom with totally defeated eyes, I couldn't even muster up the courage to ask her to cover the difference....but she did, and I was so relieved. I learned a very valuable lesson that day, actually two: factor in sales tax, and my Mom was my heroine that day

[@anthonyrowland9072]

i was 13 when our local k-mart closed in 1993 and everything had a higher percent off by the week, so the store got more ransacked. i waited until everything in the store was 40% and got 3 snes games for like $60. super off road: the baja (hilarious game), super r-type, and somehow starfox. i used to get those big ass little caesars pizzas and an icee with my mom there too. lol

[@m42037]

@@anthonyrowland9072 Kmart made a big change in the mid 90s to that "red look" red sign and everything inside looked almost like Target looks today, boring. The 70-80s Kmart was the bomb, and the concession in back, that little eatery was cool, I can still smell that Kmart cafeteria in my mind when I was young. My grandfather loved the subs. Today SE Michigan is boring, all Walmart, target and CVS everywhere 🤮

[@adamb89]

Similar experience with the NES in 1986 but the result was my mom laughed and made me go put it back, telling me that it was a lesson in what happens if you're stupid enough to have hopes and dreams.

[@jeremiahm1413]

@@adamb89 Your mother was a psychopath.

[@keithchristy9026]

I miss shopping at Kmart. 😢

[@loydkline]

❤️ Kmart 🍿 popcorn & layaway; toys section

[@dulllynn8312]

So do I

[@angelas2200]

My KMart used to sell the best ham sandwiches at the deli in front of the store. Five sandwiches stacked on top of each other like a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. In 1997, I also worked security at their world headquarters in Troy, Michigan.

[@sickpunch1]

ham, lettuce, and mustard on a burger bun. legendary. i was a kid devouring those on the way home.

[@markfortin421]

And lets not forget the sub sandwiches...with the onions...I worked for K-Mart in the mid-sixties when things were really good, and it was actually FUN to go to work...(I was 16 at the time) Bought my first car and a nice stereo with money I made there.

[@vistatiger7493]

the smell of popcorn popping when you walked in the door. Nothing like it unless you are at the cinema.

[@arthuridis]

That building headquarters is still sitting there closed up and abandoned on prime property in that area. Still looks the same. (Update: It's headed for the wrecking ball.)

[@STARFIGHT88]

Soft 🥨 was the best

[@CommishTV]

Worked at Kmart 1981-1987 while in high school and college. It was a GREAT place to work. Made lots of friends there and it helped me to grow up by learning how to deal with many types of people.

[@chrisbrown8602]

I worked at Kmart during High School, from 1974-1976. I left when I joined the Air Force. It was definitely a special time!

[@jenniferthomas999]

I worked at Kresges in 86 and Kmart from 88 -96. For the most part I enjoyed it.I wished they could have pulled through..

[@Ibhenriksen]

FYI The original blue light specials were a sight to see. They would actually dim the store lights down low and would JUST have the blue lights to get the consumers' undivided attention. (Around the mid 80s and only select stores would do that) Then it would go defunct.

[@pwallace5359]

That’s so neat! I remember shopping Christmas blue light specials in the mid 1990s and it was really exciting. 😊

[@oogabooga1971]

I miss the good old days. The last time I was at K Mart, it was in Hemet, Ca. Around 2007 and it was with a client that I did caregiving for, Mr. Spurlin. We sat in the snack bar and talked. I miss him. I also had a cat named K-Mart. ❤

[@thegamingchef3304]

These days if they turned the lights down someone would fake an injury and say they couldn't see and sue Kmart 😂. Y'all know it is true.

[@Ibhenriksen]

@@thegamingchef3304 Is K-Mart even around anymore?

[@thegamingchef3304]

@@Ibhenriksen 2 left.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

Man, the nostalgia is real. I want to go back. The world is too fucked up now.

[@digital_crickets]

I have been amazed by the evolving story of K-Mart and Sears joining forces to fail together. There should be college courses about these companies, addressing what caused the most dominant retail giants of the 80's to dissolve into obsolescence in 25 years. There are reasons that Walmart survived, and these reasons should be explored and taught.

[@stargazer1682]

Right? It ended up like some sort of corporate suicide pact. And the thing that gets me is how Sears started as essentially the Amazon of the early 20th century; yet somehow it had gotten so far removed from those roots it didn't know how to compete with Amazon. I wondered the about the Walmart comparison too, which I think is fair to a degree, since there was arguably a hair's difference between Walmart and Kmart, especially back in the day. Some of it is probably their distribution network, which I don't know how that might compare to what KMart had. I wonder how much of it is the way they undercut their employees by ensuring most don't qualify as full time and the corporate welfare they get. I can't imagine Sears and KMart _weren't_ exploiting their employees; I can't recall a lot of particularly good stories coming out of the store we had until fairly recently. Yet clearly they still weren't doing something right.

[@monaural2.988]

The computer and the internet were the number one reason all of the landscape changed for retail. Just like many other things. The bottom line was you never had to leave your house. Amazon and Walmart are now a monopoly.

[@CAROLDDISCOVER-1983]

They are taught. But then Kmart lost and so did Sears. Now Walmart got what they wanted bend over backwards kissing everybody asses then they kicked their asses out the door because they're going to close in 5 minutes. Where do we have to go shop? Want to go to walk in the mind baby outfitters Target 🎯???? There were many regional retailers that went out of business as well. Styx bear and Fuller. Venture and more. Sears always thought they were doing their customers a favor. You know charging higher prices and get the same thing down the road for less. Kmart thought they were invincible and they got the holier-than-thou attitude. I can remember a couple of examples when I was told well it's over there someplace I don't have time. Also well I guess you could go shop at Walmart if you don't like it here. Those two responses were from Kmart employees. You know they just normal danos like Walmart was so much below them. Are both discount stores. Walmart lowball them on price and Drew them into it and they could not match them. But go back further in time. Early on Kmart paid no attention to Walmart. Even as Wal-Mart stores grew exponentially in numbers and by time Kmart decided we better look at this, it's just too late. All they would have to do is hang on because now the people who are pissed off at Walmart would go to Kmart. Just like their parents or maybe grandparents got pissed off at Kmart and started shopping at Walmart. Just a couple of insights and opinions that are clouded by my personal experiences. But I wish there were more Kmart's around.

[@jackson5116]

One word- greed. Both Kmart and Sears lost focus of their core business due to greedy shareholders wanting more, so Sears went to credit cards, and Kmart into buying other stores. Both ultimately failed, because both lost sight of what originally made them who they were.

[@monaural2.988]

@@jackson5116 And the saddest part of all? This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. So many parts and good ideas in America, flushed down the commode because of shareholder greed and the “thirst to be first”. I don’t think we’ll ever learn, really.

[@jeremy1350]

K Mart in Miami (When I was a kid - circa 1972 and beyond) was where we bought all of our K-Tell music albums. It's where I got my first books (C.S. Lewis - The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe) There was an actual cart that was rolled around the store with the famous flashing Blue Light, for the Blue Light Specials in each particular location. K mart was always a shopping adventure.

[@PaladinLarec]

I have fond memories of friday nights in the 80s/early 90s going to K-mart with my folks after we had dinner. Me and my dad would go to the cafeteria and get a slushie. They always had cool toys too and lots of books and games. In our town, back in the 80s anyway, it was the *only* department store in the county.

[@MoggieLou]

Whenever my mom would go to Kmart I'd tag along and try to hassle, beg a G.I. Joe out of it.

[@macrosense]

When I worked at k-mart we usually had four to 8 front end cashiers, a cashier supervisor, two or three customer service specialists, department managers and supervisors all working at the same time! In addition to the stock clerks.

[@vistatiger7493]

Our Kmart would have every aisle manned with cashiers especially on weekends. Never seen that at Walmart even in the busiest periods.

[@justthisguy1948]

@@vistatiger7493 yea Walmart in Kissimmee got like 100 cash registers and a cashier for every one busiest Walmart in the world even at 3 am

[@nealwhaley63]

I worked at Venture and that sounds like a typical daytime shift’s staffing. Closing shift had fewer faces as you only had two goals: guest service and recovery.

[@OrsonBuggy1958]

Growing up in the 70's the only K-Mart in the area was pretty good size. There was a pet store inside as well as a sitdown restaurant. It even had an auto bay because they sold tires. Ironically, it's now a Wal-Mart grocery store.

[@stargazer1682]

Damn, a pet "store" department jogged a memory, or at least part of one. i can't remember if it was our KMart or a Walmart out of town that had something like that in early 90s. I know most of the walmarts in the area carried fish; and I _think_ one or two of them still do. I feel like our KMart might have had that too, but I can't quite picture it. And carrying small pets beyond fish sounds very familiar. Our kmart had a Little Caesar's in it for a while. That was probably the only things they did better at the time compared to Walmart, which had its own little diner with some of the worst junk food; prepped and served like it was an afterthought by whichever cashier seemed to draw the short straw that day.

[@michaelvrooman5681]

I remember when Woolworths had fish, birds and rodent pets for sale

[@Beef5]

​@stargazer1682 yeah man. I loved those walls of fish tanks full of every fish known to mankind.

[@jackson5116]

I remember that pet department. They had a huge assortment of pets too. I got my first aquarium from them around 1980.

[@JerseyJeff84]

I grew up going to K-Mart. Absolutely enjoyed going with my parents: whether it was for back-to-school, Christmas time to put the hottest toys or bikes on Lay-A-Away, etc.

[@jamesrichey2434]

As a former employee from '89 til '03, I sure do miss it. It was like a family and I always had to do the Blue Light Specials, which I didn't mind because I liked doing them. Those were the days.

[@artmcfarter2678]

My very first job was at K-Mart. This was in 1980 and we were paid in cash.

[@eLeMeNOhPeaQ]

They were still paying in cash in 1990. I believe their reasoning for paying in cash was; with money immediately in-hand, it'd be hard for us to leave the store without buying something.

[@laurenchristianna2092]

​@@eLeMeNOhPeaQWell... did you? Buy things with your $$ before you left the store on payday?

[@eLeMeNOhPeaQ]

@@laurenchristianna2092 Not always. But, if I did, it might have been to put some money down on a boombox I had on Layaway! LOL Or, maybe some food, or an Icee.

[@veganguy74]

I’ll never forget the lunch counter at our local Kmart back in the 1980s. It was always fun to get grilled cheese sandwiches there.

[@luvbeinghiswife1148]

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup when it was cold outside and the store was decorated for Christmas. 🤗🎅🎄⛄❄

[@hamblinhomestead4046]

I've worked Kmart for 16 years, on and off since 1996, and even transferred from Massachusetts to Florida. I know there was a store in Lantana, Boca Raton, and Ft. Lauderdale, but don't recall a Miami location. All the years I worked, the restaurants never sold Slush Puppies, but Icee's. And the restaurant would change it's name every few years(Eatery, Eatery Express, K Cafe, before just being promoted as Little Caesars, Nathan's, etc.). There is even a privately owned store in Australia that seems to be doing quite well.

[@Eventwow]

I started working for Kmart back in 1998 at the very end of the Kmart golden years. 2001 came and went and well Kmart went bankrupt and a few went to jail. Haha. Long time ago. I remember talking to the new CEO on live Sat tv before the fall when I was the electronics manager.

[@BigFunnyGiant]

As far as I remember, and I also just checked, Kmart actually acquired Sears. I dug up news articles still online from 2004 and 2005 and they all say as much. I've gotten into arguments over this in the past because it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's what the articles (and Wikipedia, take that with a grain of salt) actually say. After the merger Kmart's parent company apparently took the Sears name.

[@larimejohnson]

Kmart did buy out Sears but that's because Lampert owned both companies at the same time. After bankruptcy Kmart came out shedding tons of debt and was actually making money whereas Sears was dead. Lampert acquired Kmart and then used Kmart's money to try to resurrect Sears because he liked that brand name/company better. After Sears was bought out he put both companies under "Sears Holding" and proceeded to dismantle Kmart to save Sears. In the end he killed both companies. He used Kmart's money/profit to keep Sears afloat until he sucked everything possible out of Kmart.

[@cactusjackNV]

Exactly Kmart bought Sears. That was what killed both stores even more than the extenuating circumstances.

[@yourstrulyEbby]

Yes!! I used to make my Sears credit card payments at the Kmart customer service desk.

[@PeterAngles-jq7gr]

Eddie Lampert really destroyed them

[@e.m.87]

Thank you! Getting old and nostalgia go hand-in-hand; stuff like this calls to very early memories I don't often access. I'm not quite old enough to remember blue-light special specials, but I do remember the popcorn, eatery, slushies -- and even a sizable live pet & fish department. As a very young kid (in the later 80s), it did seem like a retail amusement park. By the time I was in my teens, K-mart was totally uncool.

[@angeldesigns1385]

I remember the eatery having some of the best cheeseburgers and fries. From time, to time, my grandmother would take us there just to eat.. I also can’t forget those pudding cups with the dollops of whipped cream and cherry on top ether!😋😔

[@boyguapito1]

In Puerto Rico, we had both Kresge (until 1986) and Kmart. Going to Kmart on Saturdays was a thing for Me that I always looked forward to. I remember the Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars for $1.17, the smell of fresh donuts… I can still remember those great memories.

[@SamGuthrie1977]

Yeah, I bought all my Matchbox and Hot Wheels there back in the early 80's too. I always got excited going into the toy aisle at K-Mart. Great times.

[@blmartech]

In Dundalk, MD there was a Kresge until late 80s, maybe early 90s. They had a deli that had the best honey ham.

[@PeterAngles-jq7gr]

I was in a Walmart today. Hot Wheels cars were $1.18

[@ohiorichkidbeats]

That was amazing how you brought me back to the years of shopping at Kmart with mom and grandma, good memories, thank you so much, this put a smile on my face ❤I subscribed

[@TS1964]

I worked a couple years '82-85 in the men's department. It was a great job for a teenager and it actually had a real career path back in the day. In fact, my store was the first to get name brand jeans like Chic, Sergio Valente, Sassoon, Jordache and Guess!

[@tiredofit4761]

I loved KMart. Their submarine sandwiches were so good!! I moved from Maryland to Arkansas in 1990 and it was all Walmart. I had never even heard of Walmart before then

[@kendric2000-q3d]

Late 70s early 80s. Every Friday, my parents would go to dinner at Long John Silvers...their favorite place and then off to K-mart. Every darned week. I loved it, I would just go the the toy section to pick something out, I had a $5 limit. LOL. So many Star Wars figures.

[@SimpleMindedGenius73]

This is definitely NOT how anyone I knew felt about K-Mart in the 80s. At least not is kids. Where I grew up, Reno Nevada, being told you got your clothes at K-Mart was an insult. But I still liked going there with my grandma. She always got me a slushee.

[@willp.8120]

Kmart clothing quality was never really all that good. Walmart clothing today is far superior.

[@jackson5116]

@@willp.8120 in the 80's, no, but Kmart did create some good brands in the 90's under Antonini and Hall- Basic Editions and Route 66 being he best known.

[@michaeleverett2650]

@@willp.8120 who says they're not good quality, I still have Kmart cloths to this day from 1988 1992 1998 2000 2001 and 2002.

[@redfive5856]

The blue light special was a Kmart standard from the 60s until 91, it wasn't strictly an 80s thing.

[@willp.8120]

They later brought back the blue light specials, I think, in the 2000s.

[@ProDemocracyMan]

I miss the good old days, cruising Kmart parking lot when I was a teenager. Good memories

[@chrischreative2245]

Great toy section in 80’s. Transformers, Star Wars, all the kool lines

[@nboothful]

As an 80s kid, what I loved about Kmart were the less mainstream toys. The had an isle full of plastic model kits and supplies. No other big box store had this. They were only $5 or $6 and kept kept me quiet for days so my mom let me get one every trip to Kmart. Also the food counter had this weird smell like popcorn and potato wedges under a heat lamp. Let’s not forget those awful kids ride-on machines out front. I always regretted riding those.

[@tytotheler92]

I remember this too. I bought and built many models from Kmart

[@jackson5116]

People talk about their love of Toys R Us, or KB, but man alive my Kmart toy department defintiely rivaled those stores! Hell, it likely surpssed them with the assortments they had!

[@DerkuiDerkui]

I remember buying Lion King on VHS at Kmart back in early 1995 the night before it was suppose to be released and bringing it to school the next day to watch in class because the teacher was amazed I got a copy early.

[@CrankyBeach]

Our local original Kmart (opened about 1976, I think) is now a Home Depot. The next one up the road was closed down for a long time, and now it's a Walmart. But up until just a few years ago, there was another Kmart about an hour away, and it was right on the way to where we would celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family. We would always stop at Kmart, as it was open until early afternoon Thanksgiving Day, and we joked about it being our annual "pilgrimage." Then it shut down, and the location has since reopened as a Target. I used to get my film developed at Kmart, and I well remember the excitement of going to pick up my pictures and see how they turned out.

[@jnels2007]

I went to K-Mart for the last time in late 2019 at the North Hollywood location in Los Angeles before it closed for good. It was crazy to go in a K-Mart again as it was such a mainstay as a kid but then failed alongside Sears which is equally as wild to me

[@try8042]

I remember going to Kmart in Fl about 5 years ago in Miami. It’s exactly the same. They did have really good towels for super cheap.

[@scottsteeves]

I worked at K-Mart in the late 70s- early 80s and it was a good place to work. I worked in the auto shop, the pay was good and they sent the mechanics to schools for alignment, brakes, and tune ups. The schools were put on by Raybestos, Sun systems and Trw.

[@stargazer1682]

We had a K-Mart in town, in fact it held on pretty long and only closed in 2019. It was built in the late 80s/early 90s. I grew up in the 80s and I swear to God, I never heard that commercial before. I knew of the Blue Light Special, and I even remember at one point our K-Mart trying to re-implement that, but only ever on a select, crappy products no one wanted to begin with; and I never once actually saw it get used or heard about it going off. I'd only go there if I absolutely had to, especially in later years. The prices were never competitive, most of the products were junk. Too many experiences of buying clothes or shoes or a watch that would break or fall apart literally a week after buying them. Eventually you can't ignore the pattern. The flip side was that it was the closest store with a lot of home goods stuff without going out of town. Places like Dollar Tree or Ace might carry a few of those things (often at significant mark-up than anywhere else), but there's a lot of things those store don't have; and with K-Mart gone, there's just nowhere in town to find those things; and then you have to go out of town. By the end though, our K-Mart was just depressing. It was genuinely like they were waiting for someone to put the store out of its misery. The poorly maintained infrastructure, the genuinely 25-30 year old checkouts. Just hugh sections of the store they had no use for. I remember going in there probably within a year of it closing, to find half the electronics section randomly replaced with mattresses and large appliances - which they had never sold before; and seemed out of place. You definitely felt bad for the employees, but the corporation just didn't give a damn and hadn't for a long time. They didn't care about modernizing, or just maintaining the buildings. I doubt they cared about the employees.

[@garciadavid582]

What memories 😑 when kids were kids. Boys were boys.girls were girls. Basic styles. I'm glad I grew up in 1980s ..Running into friends there K.