Venture Stores

Venture Stores, Inc.

Former type	Defunct
Traded as	: VEN
Industry	Retail (Department & Discount)
Fate	Bankruptcy
Founded	1968 (1968) St. Louis, Missouri
Defunct	1998 (1998)
Headquarters	O'Fallon, Missouri
Key people	Robert Wildrick, Julian Seeherman
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, and housewares.
Number of employees	10,000
Website	www.venturestores.com (archived at Deadmalls.com)

Venture Stores, Inc. was a chain of retail stores aimed at the discount department store market. John Geisse, of Target Stores, and May Department Stores Executive Vice President Dave Babcock founded the chain in 1968. Venture Stores expanded to operate over 70 stores with major market share in St. Louis, Chicago and Kansas City, and expanded across various areas in the US over a period of nearly 30 years, becoming the largest discount chain in Chicago. In January 1998, Venture Stores entered a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed within four months.

The chain was founded in 1968 when Target founder John F. Geisse went to work for May Department Stores. Under an antitrust settlement reached with the Department of Justice, May was unable to acquire any more retail chains at the time, and the department store company needed a way to compete against the emerging discount store chains. When May's Executive Vice President Dave Babcock learned that Geisse had resigned from Target Stores, he spoke with Geisse about starting a new discount retailer, resulting in the founding of Venture.

The first Venture store opened in 1970 in the St. Louis suburb of Overland (after Venture closed, the location became a Kmart, which later closed & was demolished for the current Home Depot). In 1976, Geisse retired and left Venture Stores, which had by that time expanded to 20 units.

In 1978, Venture Stores purchased 23 Turn Style locations in the Chicago area from Jewel food stores, and expanded to over 40 locations in the Chicago market area, with many city locations. It was the largest discount chain in Chicago with inner city locations other than Zayre/Ames. In 1990, Venture separated from May and became a private corporation.