Binny's buys Sam's

[JohnHansell]

In case you haven't heard the news yet. The Chicago Tribune reports about it here. And my take on it is here.

[OscarV]

Congrats to Binny's for coming out on top.

The more competition the better for the consumer so this might not be good news for us.

I hope Binny's remembers when Sam's was on top.

But I have met Brett and our own South Side Joe, they are great people and I wish them luck in the future.

[cowdery]

Sam's started to slide when the last of the first generation died and the sons took over. I'm not saying they were responsible (I don't know), but that was the timing. I wrote my personal homage more than a year ago, here.

I can also track Sam's decline from when they started to clean the place up. In its first two locations, Sam's was a no-frills warehouse store, just a big room full of stacked cases, with the top one cut to display the merchandise. Very few fixtures. On the weekend, the place was so stuffed with people and merchandise you could barely move around. Forget about pushing a cart.

When they cleaned up their act they were just another liquor store and vulnerable to Binny's, which came into being at about that time.

I also remember Zimmerman's, and its owner "Max the Hat," which Binny's bought several years ago. It's now their River North store. It was a no-frills warehouse too, like Sam's, a little smaller but also closer to the Loop.

Certainly the end of an era

[fishnbowljoe]

Now if they would only open a store in the Rockford area. Please! I know of a couple of good locations. :grin: Joe