Another retailer was killed by the pandemic. On September 9th, Groupe Dynamite, owners of the Dynamite and Garage chain filed for creditors protection and will be filing for Chapter 15 Bankruptcy in the US. It's unknown right now how many stores are going to close, but I can confirm that the one in the blog's coverage area already closed with signage intact. They operate 400 stores under both banners.
A picture of a Knob Hill basket. Credit: Wikipedia For today’s lost retail post I’ll be talking about an old, local chain of grocery stores called Knob Hill Farms. Knob Hill Farms was a chain of 10 warehouse-like “food terminals” in the Toronto area. These stores were pretty large for a supermarket at the time they operated ranging from 65,000 sqft to a gigantic 335,000 sqft. Due to financial issues, Knob Hill Farms closed/sold all their stores in 2000. History Knob Hill Farms was founded in 1954 by Steve Stavro as a more conventional grocery chain operating 9 markets in Toronto. It wasn’t until 1963 that Stravro opened his first 65,000 sqft “food terminal” in Markham. In 1971, Knob Hill Farms expanded into Pickering with its second terminal. Knob Hill Farms than opened their first Toronto store in 1975 and second Toronto terminal opened in 1977. Their fifth store, which was billed as the largest food store in North America at the time, opened in 1978 in Mississauga....
A Chapter 15 bankruptcy filing was a new one for me, lol. Jokes aside though, this is sad to hear, as always. So many companies have been adversely affected by this pandemic: not only the virus threat itself, but also all the shutdowns and restrictions that seemingly arbitrarily choose what is "essential" and what is not...
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of a chapter 15 too. According to Wikipedia, it has to do with international cases. I agree, this pandemic and shutdown impacted a lot of industries, especially retail.
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