When a store closes and the sign out front is removed, the ghostly imprint of the name often remains on the side of the building for years if no other business replaces it. There’s a term for the lingering outline of the still-readable letters in the buildup of dust and grime: label scar. Though the discount department store Zellers has largely disappeared from the Canadian landscape since its closure roughly a decade ago, the ghosts of its name and logo were still identifiable on buildings across the country years later.
Founded in 1931 in London, Ontario, Zellers reached its zenith in the late ’90s with about 350 locations coast to coast. In 2011, after years of increased competition from the expansion of US discount stores such as Walmart into Canadian territory, the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had acquired Zellers in the 1970s, transferred the leases of nearly 220 Zellers stores to Target, effectively snuffing out the retailer (a handful of Zellers liquidation outlets lingered until 2020). But Target faltered in Canada, losing almost $1 billion less than a year after launching. It pulled out in 2015, shutting down all its locations in the country. Since then, suburban and exurban landscapes have been haunted by big, empty stores. Canadians on social media have regularly shared images of these dead spaces as well as calls to bring back the homegrown bargain brand. Since Target’s retreat, they have frequently waxed poetic about Zellers’ in-house diner, the Skillet, or its teddy bear mascot Zeddy, or shared retro videos and photos of the stores. These outpourings regularly spawn articles pointing out the spikes in nostalgia. Since 2020, the online outlet Narcity has published more than twenty stories about Zellers, many of which feature TikToks and tweets about the brand. In “Zellers, Terrazzo, and Vibes: An Ode to the ’90s Shopping Mall,” Toronto Star reporter Karon Liu wrote that Zellers met with an “unjust end.” Readers seemed to agree and voted Zellers their favourite nostalgic mall store out of sixteen contenders in the Star ’s 2021 mall madness bracket.
