The last full-sized Kmart in the continental United States has closed.
On October 21, the last large Kmart of its kind in the U.S., save for Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, closed when the Bridgehampton location, roughly 95 miles east of Manhattan, shut its doors for good Sunday evening.
Now, all that remains is a smaller Kmart in Miami with limited stock.
“Thank you to the Bridgehampton community for years of patronage and support,” read a sign on the storefront, which served as a Kmart for roughly a quarter century.
“The Hampton Kmart has fallen,” posted one user on the social media platform X.
The Long Island Business Journal says the 83,935-square-foot Bridgehampton Commons location is expected to be replaced with a Target. For their part, Target has yet to confirm the news.
“We are continually evaluating potential store locations to serve new guests, but I don’t have any new-store news to share at this time,” a Target spokesperson told LIBN.
The closure brought Kmart fans and curious customers eager for sales to the Bridgehampton location.
“It’s just this weird nostalgia for us,” one patron with a “Kmart 4 Eva” tattoo on her forearm, Ms. McCourtney, told The New York Times.
“Walking the aisles of Kmart just made me so calm and happy… Probably because I was always doing it with you,” McCourtney said while looking at her sister, who also has a Kmart tattoo.
The Lone Star State has not had a Kmart location since 2020. The last store to survive in Texas was located in South McAllen, near the U.S.-Mexican border.
At one point, there were over 2,000 Kmart locations across the United States. In 2005, the company merged with Sears but struggled to stay relevant amid an increasingly online-purchased consumer base. Kmart and Sears have shuttered more than 3,500 stores and cut roughly a quarter-million jobs in the past 15 years.