6 Stores Tennesseans Still Miss and the Reasons They Closed

There’s something strange about walking past a building you remember as one store and seeing a completely different name on the front.

That’s what happened with several beloved Tennessee retailers.

Some went under in bankruptcy, while others were bought out and renamed even though the stores themselves survived.

Here are some of the stores Tennesseans still miss and the stories behind their disappearance.

1. Woolworth’s

Woolworth’s ran a five-and-dime store in nearly every Tennessee town for generations.

Shoppers picked up candy, fabric, and school supplies all under one roof.

F.W. Woolworth Co. shut down every remaining U.S. store on July 17, 1997, closing about 400 locations in a single stroke.

Discount superstores had already pulled shoppers away by then.

Wal-Mart and its rivals sold the same candy and fabric, plus enough parking for the whole neighborhood.

It happened in an afternoon.

The company didn’t reopen under a new name.

It became the parent of Foot Locker and left the five-and-dime business behind for good.

2. Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward ran department stores nationwide for decades, including stores across Tennessee, as part of a catalog empire that once rivaled Sears.

The company announced on Dec. 28, 2000, that it would liquidate all 250 stores and shut down for good.

A weak holiday season had finished off a company already running on borrowed time.

Montgomery Ward filed for bankruptcy in 1997.

It emerged under the ownership of GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric (GE), in 1999.

The company couldn’t hold on a second time.

No stores survived the announcement.

The whole chain was gone by spring 2001, ending 129 years in business.

The Montgomery Ward name still exists today as an online catalog.

No Tennessee store stands behind it anymore.

3. Service Merchandise

Service Merchandise turned a Tennessee catalog showroom into one of the largest retailers in the country, running its headquarters out of Brentwood for about two decades.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 15, 1999, carrying about $1.3 billion in debt to retailers and creditors.

Reorganization never worked.

The Sept. 11 attacks crushed sales even further, and the company gave up trying to save Service Merchandise.

Service Merchandise announced in January 2002 that it would liquidate everything, closing more than 200 stores in 32 states.

The last stores stayed open into mid-2002, working through liquidation sales for months, not weeks.

A company founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1934 didn’t make it to its 70th year.

4. Goody's Family Clothing

Goody's Family Clothing got its start in Athens, Tennessee, in 1953, as a store called Goodfriend's.

The company moved its headquarters to Knoxville in 1990 and grew into one of the biggest clothing chains in the South.

A $327 million buyout by two New York investment firms loaded Goody's with debt in 2006.

Goody's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2008.

Some stores closed, but the company kept operating.

A second bankruptcy filing came in January 2009.

A rough holiday shopping season had wiped out what little cash the company had left.

This time, Goody's liquidated all 287 of its stores across 20 states.

There wasn't a third chance.

Fifty-five years of business ended inside three months.

Stage Stores bought the Goody's trademark that same year and reopened stores under the name in 2010, including locations in Springfield and Hermitage, Tennessee.

The revival lasted about a decade.

Stage Stores filed its own bankruptcy in 2020 and liquidated every store it owned, Goody's included, ending the name's run in Tennessee for good.

5. Circuit City

Circuit City sold TVs, stereos, and computers at stores across Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga for more than two decades.

The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 10, 2008, as the recession gutted holiday shopping nationwide.

A buyer never showed up.

Circuit City announced in January 2009 that it would liquidate all 567 stores nationwide.

The last one turned off its lights on March 8, 2009.

About 34,000 jobs disappeared with it.

A different company bought the Circuit City name and website a few months later.

None of that brought a store back to Tennessee.

6. Stein Mart

Stein Mart stocked discounted clothing and home decor at stores in Cool Springs, Chattanooga, Memphis, Knoxville, and several other Tennessee cities.

The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2020, after years of shrinking sales collided with the pandemic.

Store traffic had already been sliding for years.

The pandemic finished the job.

All 279 locations across 30 states closed for good by the end of that year.

Tennessee lost every one of its Stein Mart stores within those same few months.

New owners later relaunched Stein Mart as an online-only brand.

Tennessee's stores never came back.

Castner Knott

Castner Knott didn't liquidate the way the stores above it did.

Dillard's paid close to $3 billion for parent company Mercantile Stores in 1998 and folded every Castner Knott location into its own name almost overnight.

Five Nashville-area mall stores took a stranger path.

They went to Proffitt's instead, then to Hecht's in 2001, then to Macy's once Federated bought out May Company in 2006.

The sign changed three times.

Either way, the Castner Knott name was gone within a couple of years, even though the buildings kept selling clothes under someone else's sign.

Proffitt's

Proffitt's built a department store empire out of Knoxville that eventually grew big enough to buy Saks Fifth Avenue.

That reversal is what ended it.

Parent company Saks Incorporated sold the Proffitt's and McRae's store divisions to Belk in 2005 for $622 million.

Every Proffitt's location switched over to the Belk name by March 2006.

The Proffitt's name had been part of Tennessee retail for nearly 87 years by then.

Belk erased it completely.