Bed, Bath, & The Great Beyond; Part I (#14a)

At the time of this post's publication, the last Bed Bath & Beyond stores on the Pacific Coast have just closed their doors for the last time. Three months into a lengthy liquidation sale, the 52-year brick-and-mortar era of the iconic retailer, once the nation's largest big-box home goods retailer, has finally come to a close.

While perhaps not as epic or influential as Oppenheimer, the tale of Bed Bath & Beyond's downfall was one I was determined to document. And document it I did: over the past three months, I made twenty visits to seven of the company's remaining Metro Detroit stores, taking over 500 photographs along the way.

(note: since I don't own a car, and usually use public transportation to get around, I wasn't able to visit the Rochester Hills Bed Bath & Beyond, nor the Canton Buy Buy Baby, as both of those communities choose not to participate in our regional transit system; I did, however, get around that issue in Novi, as their BBBY location is only a two-mile walk from the edge of the system.)

The story begins, however, before the bankruptcy, with visits to a few locations during their closing sales in earlier waves. Michigan seemed to dodge the chain's earlier downsizing efforts, losing just three stores (in Allen Park, Wyoming, and Jackson) to the chain's "200 closures by 2022" plan between September 2020 and September 2022. Five Metro Detroit locations, however, were slated for closure in late 2022: Auburn Hills, Chesterfield, Farmington Hills, Northville, and White Lake.

I first stumbled upon the closing sale on a September visit to Farmington Hills, the chain's first Michigan store, and the one I visited most as a child. Things were just getting started; definitely still in the '15-30%' phase.

I was a bit surprised that the closing signs were custom-printed to match BBBY's usual signage, rather than the usual red-and-yellow stock signs; perhaps that was a symbol of the somewhat-rosy outlook they at least hoped to maintain with customers.

Merchandise still lined most of the shelves, and everything seemed like business-as-usual.

The only empty shelves I noticed were in the health-and-beauty department (which I believe once bore the Harmon Face Values brand).

When I returned on October 21st, however, things had progressed: the '15-30%' had become '30-50%,' and more products had disappeared from the shelves as discounts deepened. A proper store-closing banner was finally affixed to the store's exterior, promising, as ever that the sale covered 'this location only.'

A few fixtures began to disappear, as signs rose teasing their eventual sale. 

Hilco, the sale contractor, put out a signup sheet for those interested in purchasing the store's contents. They seemed unfazed by my ask for decor, however, as they never responded to mine.

All sales, were, of course, final, and BBBY's big blue coupons were no good; though curiously, they did offer Welcome Rewards members their usual discounts.

By November 13, when I returned for my final visit, the fixture sale was in full swing.

40-70% was then taken off merchandise prices, though fixtures were sold at full price.

As the store's shelves were listed for sale, many still bore supplies for bed and bath, though the selection continued to thin as discounts increased.

The fixture sale also brought the opening of the store's stockroom for prospective fixture purchasers to browse. I couldn't help but take a look inside.

At first, I was greeted by a seemingly endless sea of empty shelves, with a few supplies scattered about.

As I ventured to the center of the labyrinth, I stumbled upon some of the liquidation signs, with interchangeable numbers and percentages sorted into boxes.

It was then that I found the store's true October surprise.

Later in its existence, the Farmington Hills store was expanded, with much of the space being allocated to a small World Market store-within-a-store. To my shock, a lot of the World Market decor still remained in the stockroom!

Even the coolers were still there... though their contents weren't exactly fit for consumption.

A few more old signs were scattered among a slew of equipment.

A fair bit of merchandise remained as I left the Hunters' Square store for the last time, not to return until well after its December 2022 closure.

Initially unbeknownst to me, a closing sale was quietly underway at another BBBY in the area: the one at Great Lakes Crossing. It went unreported in many outlets at the time (the Free Press didn't find out until months after it closed), so it's not surprising that I didn't find out before stumbling upon the sale on a mall trip with a friend in October

By then, it was already at the 50-to-70% phase, 11 days from shuttering, with the interior only a shell of its former self.

It was sort of funny to see my friend's reaction, as she'd never seen a store liquidating like this. Sort of an interesting change in perspective when you're used to that sort of thing.

Fixtures of all sorts were up for sale, down to the most mundane supplies...

As a mall store, this BBBY had a pretty unusual layout: a tunnel, of sorts, ran from the checkout at the front, behind the shelves, to the exterior entrance at rear. I have fond memories of that corridor from visiting the store when I was younger; particularly pertaining to the bifold doors at its end, which were, of course, replaced.

The GLCO store closed on October 16, 2022. I paid the store another visit the next month, on a seemingly lucky day: I'd stumbled upon a crew painting over its exterior labelscar.

Five hours later, the labelscar was covered in white.

It would eventually be converted to house a Friends-themed traveling exhibit.

With Bed Bath & Beyond out of sight and out of mind as those five met their demise, I stumbled upon another closing: the Ann Arbor location, in the Arborland Center on the city's east side.

At the time of my January 28th visit, it was already at the '40-to-60%' stage, with the fixture sale in progress.

Merchandise was missing accordingly, though the Arborland staff were better about hiding it, covering empty shelves with curtains, and populating vacant sections with fixtures.

Funnily enough, after leaving the store, I spotted a car taking laps on Washtenaw Avenue with a sign on its roof advertising the store's closing.

This seemed sort of weird to see for a store that wasn't, as of yet, bankrupt; a bad omen perhaps.

Since this mega-post is taking far longer than expected to write, I'll have to split it into two parts. The second, chronicling the chain's actual bankruptcy liquidation sale, will be posted later this week.