JOANN

However, Evan Minn shows us how retailers are reinventing the store and giving shoppers a reason to get off the couch just in time for holiday shopping.

From Rite Aid to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Forever 21, some of the biggest retail names have disappeared from storefronts.

The U.S. lost roughly 5,000 establishments in 2025 from a year earlier, with reports 40,000 more could close in the next five years.

But experts say that doesn't mean the death of brick and mortar.

Yep.

We formally became a nonprofit in 2023, in May, and uh, we weren't sure yet what to do with the structure of the organization, but JOANN Fabrics stepped in early on and were-

Mm

... am- great partners for us.

Yeah.

It was amazing.

Now, if you know, if you've been into JOANN's, they, they had a certain kind of yarn there.

It wasn't the kind of yarn that we was always being used by, you know, Loose Ends.

This final note on the way out today, it's the time of year when Spirit Halloween stores are popping up in strip malls and vacant storefronts all over the country, and there are lots of vacancies to fill after some big retail bankruptcies.

Axios found that the most common previous occupant of a Spirit Halloween was JOANN Fabrics, the beloved-by-many craft chain that went out of business last year.

153 of the stores analyzed by Axios were former JOANNs locations.

Big Lots came in second with 103, and former Spirit competitor Party City was close behind at 100 stores.

And if you think it's too early to be shopping for Halloween, clearly you don't have a 12-year-old in your house.

But that was, that's just, it's toga adjacent.

I was like, we'll go to Joann Fabrics and buy some brown sheep.

Drape me up, Tanya.

And shave my head.

You know, private equity firms are having such a bad year earlier this year.

they were all in the news we talked about this here on the channel about freezing investors redemption so if you had money in these companies you couldn't even take it out if you wanted to which was a huge red flag because they're worried about the funds collapsing well now we just got a report showing how vulnerable these private equity funds really are some of the biggest bankruptcies we saw happen over the past year were companies like saxe fifth avenue eddie bauer Joann Fabrics, Kmart, and Stewart Healthcare, all of those companies were owned by big private equity firms.

That's something that they all had in common.

And the reason why that's important is because those private equity firms are on the brink of collapse right now.

So my basic ...

I have a lot of remnants, because I bought a lot of remnants at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and because most quilting doesn't require large amounts of each fabric.

It's not like you need a yard and a half of 10 different fabrics.

Usually, you know, a lot of quilts get made with fat quarters.

I went to 10 different fabric stores on my travels, and that's what I wanna talk about today.

I think this will be a good follow-up episode to the previous one about life after Jo-Ann Fabrics, because I noticed a few things as I was shopping at these different fabric stores, and I wanna share that with you, share my observations with you.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today.

When I left here on Tuesday, the 25th of August, I drove to Spokane Valley, where the Quilting Bee is located, and that's a store that I shop at fairly often.