Retail took big hit in 2020. Here’s the Chapter 11 obituaries

At the end of Idaho’s sixth month of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Idaho Business Review decided to take stock of the state of brick-and-mortar retail business around the state. We began by looking at which had gone under and which has announced store closures.

To start, we made a list of everyone we could identify as having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a process that can lead to either reorganization and survival or to going out of business and/or liquidating all brick-and-mortar store locations.

Our count of chains filing for Chapter 11 in 2020 was 31. Out of those, four were famous national names but with no Idaho presence. Another four were brands with at least one Idaho location that completely liquidated their retail locations. Two of the four started their liquidation before the pandemic and were closing stores early in the year.

Nine of the Chapter 11 filers had locations in Idaho, representing 16 retail brands between them. Some closed Idaho locations and others did not. The other 12 businesses were newer national brands or large regional brands with no locations or widespread recognition in Idaho. We did not list these 12 in our compilation.

In addition to the Chapter 11 list, we also compiled firms with Idaho locations that have announced they will be closing locations around the country, though most have not published their closure lists yet.

When the number of Idaho locations from both the Chapter 11 and store closure lists are added up, they encompass a total of 226 different retail goods or food service locations around the state.

Because some firms own more than one brand or owned a brand better known than its parent corporation, the names of the retail brands are shown in bold type.

These chains have announced they intend to close locations but have not filed for Chapter 11.