Joann Fabrics and Crafts, located on Willow Pass Rd. in Concord, will close forever in the coming weeks, according to the company.
The company filed for bankruptcy, and plans to close over 500 of their 800 stores, including dozens in California.
QUESTION: Will you miss Joann Fabrics and Crafts?
Very sad – I hate to see stores close, especially the good ones.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO that’s actually so sad, when do the sales start?
so sad, good store
No! Who else sells apparel fabric how far do we have to drive? What other Joanns in the Bay Area are closing?
Joann’s is back in bankruptcy, and this time they’re going to liquidate all of their stores. My wife is very disappointed.
Not sure it’s “all” it says closing over 500 out of 850 so I’m just trying to figure how far I have to drive to a store that survives.
From what I can tell San Jose is not liquidating, but closer to our area is discount fabrics and stone mountain daughter in Berkeley
They shouldnt have had people working there that looked like they escaped from Halloween.
Going to that store was a strange experience with the intentionally odd employess.%100 woke and very very weird.That store belonged in San Fransisco.
JUDGE MUCH??? Maybe you should take a long look in the mirror. But that’s me judging as well.
Totally agree. I wrote them an email about the state of the store. When I walked in, I couldn’t believe it. It is such a disappointment, given the variety of inventory they carry.
whenwillyoulearn, you are a sick person; these people are losing their jobs and all you can do is speak ill of them…I will miss the store and hope to find material elsewhere and well as jobs for the unemployed people as well…!
Aaaawwwww man i love that store!!!!!! Yes i will miss it staff members are so so nice!!!!
Staff were super friendly when I got dragged in years ago, it was a nice store. Sad.
Sadly, the store isn’t what in use to be, …. not maintained as well as in the past.
Hobby Lobby has lots to offer and is clean and organized.
Hope this store stays around.
Most of what Hobby Lobby has is cheap made in China home decor crap. And I really don’t need the owners churchy books greeting me when I walk in the door. Thankful Michael’s is still around a long with a couple of fabulous locally owned fabric stores
@Well Folks – I am so sorry this is happening to you.
@ Well Folks ~
Joann, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby, all have cheap made in China home decor.
Not much getting around that. Even craft items too.
The big Park & Shop anchors are slowly disappearing. It is difficult to fill these large spaces and they often go to “creative” uses like the bizarre church that went into the movie theater. The western side of it between Market and Willow Pass would be better redeveloped as housing. Things change very slowly.
Yes, going to miss it very much! Everyone is so nice and helpful.
Will not go to hobby lobby found people to be rude and not helpful.
Sad to hear this but not surprised. Our tiny JoAnn’s is closing as well. I loved this JoAnn’s when I lived in Concord as it was about a mile walk for me when the weather was nice. The exercise was good and walking kept me from over buying as I had had to carry everything home.
I actually still stopped at this JoAnn’s when I came back to the area as it really was one of the best JoAnn’s I’ve ever been to
Too bad. I have even shopped there several times. Signs of the times. If you haven’t noticed there is a group who seems to think you should be locked up at home and you order everything online and have it delivered it to you. What a crazy idea.
I used to go to Joann Fabrics more often when it was located in the mall that had Montgomery Wards and the dome theater. Once it moved to Park & Shop I rarely went.
In Park & ShopConcord the big box building on the north side was a Burlington coat store, then Fry’s Electronics, and now it’s some sort of private playground.
The Burlington coat store moved from the “Fry’s” building to the smaller half of the building Joann Fabrics is now. Burlington coat shrank more and disappeared with some sort of random junk store taking the spot.
In the main west side building there was the movie theater / church / and now ???
I used to go to Bay Books regularly.
The back or north side building on the west side had that beauty school which I think moved to the southeast building, ARF Thrift store (I refuse to use their new name), and some sort if discount grocery store that was a marvel to me as they sold things like Wonder Bread and Ho Hos. Who eats Wonder Bread and Ho Hos? for breakfast? That spot is now available for lease.
The good news for this mall is that there are very few for-lease signs. The local economy continues to do well. However, businesses seem to constantly come and go. There are very few that have continued to operate for 50 years or more. All of the long lasting businesses that I can recall own the buildings they operate out of.
Curious if this is, in part, to a dramatic decline in crafters. I had never gone into a Joann’s until my significant other started dragging me there. I saw/see tons of types of fabrics, that don’t seem to move. The lines to have the ladies cut the stuff is long, and it is a slow going process, was that always the case, and our patience has decreased? Has Amazon stopped people from using these textiles for themselves? No clue. Regardless, not a positive story.
Rising rents have made many businesses unaffordable. Land used to be cheap enough that pretty much anyone who was willing to work could make or service enough widgets that they could afford to buy some land with a building on it. The invention of the relatively low cost automobile in the early 1900s essentially created more land which led to a mid-1900s economic boom. That land is now occupied which drives up prices for those seeking a place to live or set up their widget shop.
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Falling transportation costs also greatly increased the number of customers you could sell your widgets to. China ended up being a place with plenty of land and via low cost transportation have been selling their widgets. In a sense, China lucked out as their political revolutions prevented them from keeping up with the developing world for a few decades. China seems to be catching up meaning their land prices should reach parity with the developed world.
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The resulting shortage of affordable resources worldwide results in life is becoming a day to day scramble to find food and housing. It’s not the life of leisure we saw in magazines, before the magazines went out of business… People don’t have time for hobbies. The invention and then miniaturization of electronics plus the creation of software means devices can no longer be understood and repaired.
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We are living in a time that science fiction writers had not generally predicted.