Mervyns

Mervyn's LLC

The final logo used from 2004 until the closure.
Former type	Private
Industry	Retail
Fate	Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation
Founded	July 29, 1949; 67 years ago (1949-07-29) San Lorenzo, California, U.S.
Founder	Mervin G. Morris
Defunct	December 31, 2008
Headquarters	Hayward, California, United States
Area served	Southwestern United States
Key people	John Goodman (CEO, 2008)
Services	Sale of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares.
Owner	Target Corporation (1978-2004) Sun Capital Partners (2004-2008)

Mervyn's was an American middle scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris. It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares. Many of the company's stores were in shopping malls. Based on 2005 revenue, Mervyn's was the eighty-third largest retailer in the United States.

In 2006, Mervyn's had 189 stores in 10 states. One year later, Mervyn's had reduced its store count to 177 stores in 7 states. On October 17, 2008, the company announced that it would liquidate its assets through a Chapter 7 filing. All remaining locations were closed by December 31 of that year. The Morris family, having bought back intellectual property rights to the company in 2009, announced plans to relaunch Mervyn's as an internet-based enterprise.

Mervin G. Morris founded the first Mervyn's store in San Lorenzo, California on July 29, 1949. The store was supposed to be named Mervin's, but the architect suggested that a spelling with a y instead of an i would be more visually appealing. Mervyn's was located in the midst of San Lorenzo Village, a planned residential community nestled between the cities of Hayward and San Leandro, composed of two- and three-bedroom tract homes built between 1944 and the 1950s. Mervyn's carved a niche for itself by having a relatively no-frills shopping environment that reduced overhead, enabling the store to price merchandise lower than competing department stores in the area. Mervyn's also offered basics, such as jeans, t-shirts, underwear and similar garments, as well as household linens, that were deemed "seconds" by the manufacturers, with their flaws minor and undetectable by most, at significantly reduced prices. During the 1950s and 1960s, this made Mervyn's popular with the young families comprising the majority of San Lorenzo's population. This marketing strategy was later abandoned before Mervyn's expanded beyond its original single location, but Mervyn's remained popular as a lower-priced alternative to national department store chains.