⛓️🕯️In Memoriam of Caldor 🕯️⛓️
The vast majority of my childhood memories involve not friends or family, but long-defunct brands and stores. Browsing several floors of Borders Books, sticking a straw into a box of Ecto Cooler – it’s like I was alive in a different world.
Nothing quite hits me like the loss of Caldor, though. The original logo, a yellowish-brown rainbow that was so ugly it later became beautiful, went out of style the year I was born. The red-and-white sleek design that replaced it pops into my head at least once a week, and I’m happy to admit that I have seriously considered buying a T-shirt with this printed on it.
Caldor was once up there with the big department stores, believe it or not. A discount-focused operation, it expanded through the ’60s and ’70s while other shops closed, unable to keep up with changing economic times. By the 1980s, it was acquired by Associated Dry Goods for a whopping $333 million dollars, and co-founder Carl Bennett retired. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end for the business – but for me, it was the start of retail nirvana.
My mom was the one to always take me to Caldor, which is probably why I’m so fond of it. They carried everything you could possibly want and didn’t charge you much money for it. Back-to-school accessories, summer clothes, winter jackets – it was a lifestyle brand for those of us who were lower-middle-class. Sears wasn’t in the budget, but Caldor always came through, dropping their big Sunday flyer into the newspaper with sales and new VHS releases. The fact that it was exclusive to the Northeastern U.S. added to its appeal.
Eventually, they went under, thanks to a series of bankruptcies, bad decisions, and the lack of Carl Bennett’s guidance. It wasn’t until I was writing this that I discovered how much they innovated: loose floor plans to allow for expanded seasonal merchandise, name brands at deep discounts, and – shocker – putting all of their data into computers for analysis! Raise a glass of Coca-Cola (no generic, the actual brand for a super-low price) and thank Caldor, a store that was there when I needed it most.
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