Mervyns - Fashion Company Profile
Mervyns was the Hayward, California middle-scale department store chain founded by Mervin G. Morris in 1949 - a West Coast family retailer for nearly sixty years, until its Chapter 7 liquidation closed the last stores at the end of 2008.
Company Snapshot
- Status
- Closed - the company announced a Chapter 7 liquidation on October 17, 2008, and all remaining stores closed by December 31, 2008
- Type
- Defunct - formerly a department store chain; a subsidiary of Dayton Hudson (later Target Corporation) from 1978 to 2004, then sold to a private investor group
- Headquarters
- Hayward, California, United States
- Founded
- 1949, in Hayward, California, by Mervin G. Morris
Company Profile
Mervyns has closed, so there is no official company website to link and no shop box on this page. The chain announced on October 17, 2008 that it would liquidate through a Chapter 7 filing, and all remaining locations closed by December 31, 2008; the Morris family later bought back the Mervyns name and intellectual property, but the department store chain itself did not return. The fuller record - the 1975 California store list, the Dayton Hudson years from 1978, the 2004 sale by Target and the contraction from 189 stores in 2006 to the 2008 liquidation - is kept in full on the history page.
The chain's own account of its appeal is kept in the record. Mervyns delivered the right balance of style, quality and value for families, focusing its fashion merchandise so that it matched what customers wanted in closet and home, leaving them more time for family itself. Its stated goal was to satisfy customer expectations better than the competition by offering style, quality and excellent service at a good price. Those sentences belong to the company's operating years and are filed here as its self-description, not as a present offer; the store network they describe closed at the end of 2008, as the final section records.
Mervyns History
The earlier record for this company - its history, past brand line-ups, figures and photographs from the periods described - is kept on a separate page for historical reference.
Mervyns History & Historical Profile →Common Questions
When did Mervyns close?
The company announced a Chapter 7 liquidation on October 17, 2008, and all remaining stores closed by December 31, 2008.
Who founded Mervyns?
Mervin G. Morris, who founded the chain in Hayward, California in 1949. Dayton Hudson Corporation acquired it in 1978, and Target sold it to a private investor group in 2004.
How big was Mervyns?
At its later peak it ran 189 stores in 10 states in 2006, down to 177 stores in 7 states a year later, concentrated in California and the West.
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