Big Bear Stores - Decline and Closure

Decline and Closure

In 1976, the company went private in a leveraged buyout, by six company executives. Big Bear again went public in 1983. The company's success began to falter in the late-1980s with new competition from alternative formats like Cub Foods and Meijer entering its market area. Due to the increased competitive situation, the chain made the hard decision to put itself on the auction block in late 1988 after 54 years as an independent company, including periods of both public and private ownership. Big Bear was bought out in April 1989 for $35 per share, or $352 million, for all outstanding common stock by a large supermarket holding company Penn Traffic, which owns several regional chains. In 1993, Big Bear Stores became a division of the Penn Traffic Company, and went through a series of changes in business and marketing strategies. One of the changes including the removal of longtime Big Bear President Steven Breech and his leadership team. Breech's replacement, Phillip Hawkins, a former Vons Supermarket CEO was promoted as a turn around specialist. One of his first tasks was responding to reduced sales volumes at most store locations by lowering overhead costs as much as possible. As long-time Columbus area shoppers complained about declining conditions in the Columbus area stores, Hawkins and company launched its infamous "All We Did Was Listen" advertising campaign in June 1997, which featured Hawkins speaking in front of Big Bear employees in a reassuring tone of voice. Hawkins plan was to take Big Bear from its role as an upper market chain to a more "competitive" level by reducing overhead in store operations. As sales volumes continued to drop due to increased competition, it resulted in lower payroll costs which caused conditions in the stores to decline. As the Big Bear division began to have cash flow issues in 2003, product suppliers pulled their items from store shelves as most accounts went past due. Employees within Big Bear made a joke of Hawkins and his "All we did was listen" as hollow proof that management "listened" to employee and shopper concerns, but it seemed that was all they were prepared to do. By the end of Hawkins brief tenure, Big Bear was hemorrhaging red ink and closing stores. The chain's demise was finalized in 2004 when the last Big Bear store closed its doors, following Penn Traffic's second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a decade. Better store locations were acquired and reopened as Giant Eagle or Kroger stores; as of March 2005 many former Big Bear stores (especially in West Virginia) remain empty, ghosts of a once ubiquitous supermarket chain.