History
The family-owned company (Ritz Camera Centers, Inc., predecessor in interest to Ritz Camera & Image, LLC) was founded as a portrait studio in 1918 by Benjamin A. Ritz, in the Ritz Hotel Atlantic City, New Jersey. Whether the occasion was a wedding, graduation or confirmation, the tradition in Atlantic City in the early 20th century was to have it captured with a B. A. Ritz portrait. In 1936, Benjamin and his brother Edward opened the first Ritz film-processing lab in Washington, D.C. Ritz Camera is headed by Edward's son, David Ritz.
Ritz Camera Centers, Inc. owed much of its expansion to the acquisition of its competitors. Ritz Camera's largest acquisition was Wolf Camera, which it acquired out of bankruptcy in 2001. Wolf Camera's financial difficulty was largely due to its own unprofitable $64.5 million acquisition of the 450-store Fox Photo chain from Eastman Kodak.
Wolf Camera had grown to approximately 700 locations, half of which had been closed by the time it was acquired by Ritz.
After the acquisition of Wolf Camera, Ritz Camera Centers claimed nearly 1,200 camera store locations. Due to the decline of film and with the strained economy, the company closed a number of stores between 2002 and 2005. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on February 22, 2009.
On June 22, 2012, Ritz Camera and Image filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time.
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