Home goods chain is shutting stores
11 of 16 Pier 1 sites in Bay Area on closure list
Pier 1 Imports plans to close 11 of 16 stores in the Bay Area, employees confirmed to The Chronicle.
Stores in Colma, Cupertino, Fremont, Los Gatos, Napa, Novato, Redwood City, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Rafael and Walnut Creek are set to close. The closures will begin in February and may run through April, employees at some of the locations said when reached by phone.
Amid reports that it is considering a bankruptcy filing, the Fort Worth, Texas, home goods retailer said last week that it would close up to 450 stores, nearly half of its locations, across the country, though it did not provide a list. The company had 4,000 employees as of March.
“Although decisions that impact our associates are never easy, reducing the number of our brickandmortar locations is a necessary business decision,” CEO Robert Riesbeck said in a statement when the company announced its decision to close stores.
The retailer has struggled with sluggish sales for years, and has faced competition from both online sellers like Wayfair and Amazon, as well as bigbox stores like Walmart. Pier 1’s sales fell 13.3% to $358.4 million in the three months that ended in November, its most recent fiscal quarter, compared with the same period in 2018. It reported a loss of $59 million for the quarter.
“While the planned store closures and cost cuts
will reduce the company’s cash burn ... losses will continue in the near term,” Raya Sokolyanska, lead analyst for Pier 1 at credit rating agency Moody’s, wrote in a research note last week.
Pier 1 did not respond to requests for comment.
Five Bay Area stores are still listed on Pier 1’s website, including Concord, Dublin, San Jose and Santa Rosa. Employees at those stores said they would remain open. The Antioch location is also listed, but no one there answered the phone.
Business Insider reported Wednesday that Pier 1 had removed several stores from its website in recent days.
Pier 1’s roots are in the Bay Area. The business began in 1962 with a store in San Mateo called Cost Plus Imports, though it soon changed its name and moved to Fort Worth. It has no relation to Cost Plus World Market, a company that was started in San Francisco in 1958 and is headquartered in Alameda today.