where will ken shop now?
Ken Hoffman mourns the closing of his favorite store, 99 Cents Only
All locations of 99 Cents Only are closing.
One of my favorite stores is going out of business. The 99 Cents Only chain is closing all 379 of its locations from California to Texas, including 16 in Houston. The shutdown already has started and will be complete by June 3.
I love the 99 Cents Only store, although in recent years it’s been difficult to find anything in there for 99 cents. They kept the name, though, because $1.49 Only doesn’t have the same ring. Contrary to the old saying, the buck long ago stopped there.
The 99 Cents Only chain started in 1982 selling “closeouts and branded and general merchandise.” Or as my mother used to call these places — “the junk store.”
The company cited several reasons for closing in its bankruptcy filing: the pandemic, inflation, and shoplifting. Business analysts gave another reason. The typical 99 Cents Only store was large, averaging 20,000 square feet, and expensive to operate while competing dollar stores like Family Dollar and Dollar Tree are half that size.
I will miss the 99 Only store. I would drop by there about once a month with my cheapskate shopping list: reading glasses, sunglasses, shampoo (for the guest bathroom), 2-liter soda, and iPhone charger cords. Dollar store reading glasses may not be what the optometrist prescribed or the height of fashion, but who sees me wearing them? Plus, I lose them or sit on them and it’s not a big deal.
Same with sunglasses. I wear them, I lose them, I’m okay. The soda sometimes tastes a little funky but I drink too much Diet Pepsi anyway. The iPhone cords stop working in a couple of months. Car air fresheners, 99 cents. The same new car smell is $4.98 at the supermarket. Whenever I need to buy a greeting or birthday card, it’s the 99 Cents store.
Here’s a terrific 99 Cents find: wood stakes that hold up tomato plants in your backyard. I grow tomatoes every spring and summer. Garden stores sell these stakes for $1 each. The 99 Cents store sells eight of them in a bunch for $1.
You can buy condoms and pregnancy tests at the cash register for a real good price. Although family planning at the dollar store might not be the most responsible plan.
The 99 Cents store also sells wine. I’m no sommelier but I don’t think the dollar store house brand will impress your date. “It’s a shy little Chablis … I hear 2024 will be a good year for this vineyard.”
The 99 Cents Only store also sold food cheap. Every so often I get on a kick to eat more healthfully, and the 99 Cents stores sold Dole salad bags for one dollar. That’s less than half the price at supermarkets. I once thought about doing a series of stories: the 99 Cents Diet Plan. I would eat only food from the dollar store for two months and see what happened. Nothing happened, because I didn’t make it past lunch the first day.
I have two 99 Cents and More stores in my shopping zone: on Stella Link by 610, the other on Bellaire Boulevard close to Chimney Rock. The Stella Link store already has been ravaged. The Bellaire Boulevard store is a feeding frenzy because many items are 30 percent off. I hit that store one last time last weekend, four pairs reading glasses, a pack of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, shampoo —for everybody else not me — and a bag of bananas.
Next week, I’ll be paying double.
