Onebyone

I got an email this morning announcing the closing of all Alco stores. I use to make a special trip to buy name brand fabric at Alco but haven't been back to one since they took the fabric dept out of the stores several years ago.

ManiacQuilter2

What part of the country are these stores in?? I never heard of them. When I moved south in CA, there was a Hobby Lobby which I had never been in before. I don't go there if I am broke. Too many pretty items that I always want to take home with me.

Onebyone

Alco stores are usually in small towns too small for a Walmart or Kmart. They are like a mini Walmart.

lclang

Our town of about 25,000 has a Walmart, had a K-mart, and it closed, now our Alco is closing. It used to carry mill ends of quilting and other fabrics and they were very reasonably priced. I think the beginning of the end was when they closed out the fabric as I bought tons of fabris there. We also had a Ben Franklin and it closed. So now all we have is Walmart and if you want to go anywhere else you will drive 100 miles round trip one direction and more in any other direction. No wonder we order on line so much!

Onebyone

The Alco manager at the one I bought fabric from told me he didn't understand why the fabric was taken out of the store because during slow periods the fabric dept made the biggest profit. He said it thought it was big mistake but corporate said too much paid time was wasted cutting fabric. I guess they know best as seen by the latest outcome. LOL

quiltingshorttimer

Amazing--they didn't want to pay someone to actually work??? I'm sad our Alco is closing--I have to drive to the next town for a Walmart and our town has NO other stores with variety. While our Alco sure didn't have fabric (too new) you could buy needles, scissors, etc and nice home décor stuff. But they took out all the kids clothes and stuck in cheap furniture--like we all go out and buy new furniture all the time! Our local manager said that while they are closing, they will continue to get new stuff until the warehouse is empty. So not sure how long that will take.

nanacc

We lost Alco in all the towns around us a while ago. Miss it. We used to get some pretty good deals on some name brand fabric and upholstery fabric.