Last week’s fourth-quarter earnings report for Dollar Tree Inc., which owns the Family Dollar chain, set media outlets nationwide buzzing with the news buried deep in the press release: the chain plans to close some 1,000 stores across the nation.
At several local stores The Texas Spur checked with, managers aren’t yet certain of their stores’ fates.
In Spur, which posted its closing earlier in the week, Family Dollar store manager Angie Hadderton said she and her staff of seven would probably learn the final date of their closure this week. That store opened in September 2022.
On Monday morning the Spur location parking lot was packed, and lines of shoppers filled shopping carts with merchandise that was already marked 50 percent off. Prominent signs throughout the store proclaimed, “Store closing. All sales final. No refunds.”
Last week in a corporate press release Dollar Tree announced, “As a result of this review, we plan on closing approximately 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of fiscal 2024. Additionally, approximately 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores will close over the next several years at the end of each store’s current lease term.”
Matador Family Dollar store manager Sabrina Barclay said their store is not scheduled to close. Matador’s Family Dollar/ Dollar Tree opened on the east side of the small town November 23, 2021, shortly before a Dollar General opened on the west side. Dollar General was out of commission during the second half of 2023 after being destroyed in a June 21 tornado, but it was completely rebuilt on the same site and reopened this spring.
In Paducah, the Family Dollar store manager told the Texas Spur, “We won’t know whether or not we’re going to close until the week we’re going to close. We will get a call the week that we are supposed to close, if we’re going to have to.”
STORE CLOSING Monday morning, the Spur Family Dollar store was packed inside and out with shoppers. The store had already discounted all merchandise 50 percent and had posted signs that it was closing. | TEXAS SPUR PHOTOS
