'There’s nothing temporary about a temporary store': How Spirit Halloween’s CEO took it from 130 stores to 1,550 — and swallowed your mall’s Hot Topic

profile of a man in black button down (Credit: Steven Silverstein)

Every year after Halloween, Spirit Halloween’s stores empty out and the signs come down. To shoppers, the chain disappears, until next September or so, when another store pops up somewhere in the neighborhood. But to Steven Silverstein, it never closes.

“There’s nothing temporary about a temporary store,” Silverstein, CEO of Spencer Spirit Holdings, told Fortune. “We are 24/7, 365 Halloween, and you just don’t see it.”