JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Between the vampire teeth, the giant balloons, the streamers and the glittery napkins, one store laid claim to celebrations across America - Party City. Well, that juggernaut is now bankrupt, turning off the music and shutting it all down. NPR's Alina Selyukh has this remembrance.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: What came first - America's obsession with Halloween or Party City?
(SOUNDBITE OF AD)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) This is thriller.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Party City Halloween.
STEVE MANDELL: After my first year in the business, I said, wow.
SELYUKH: That's Steve Mandell who, in 1986, launched Party City with a single store in New Jersey.
MANDELL: I never, never expected Halloween to be anything like it.
SELYUKH: And his original idea was to focus on party supplies - a one-stop-shop for birthday or holiday get-togethers.
MANDELL: Napkins and cups and plates.
SELYUKH: But that first year, he realized costumes were the gold mine.
MANDELL: We actually enlarged our original store to really accommodate Halloween the right way the second year.
SELYUKH: Soon, there were more stores, a franchise. By the time Mandell left in 1999, Party City was a national chain. This was the era of category killers - one megastore dominating some facet of shopping, the heyday of Toys 'R' Us and Barnes & Noble and, for parties, Party City.
THERESA PEVERLEY: The first and only place we shopped was Party City. That's where you went.
SELYUKH: Theresa Peverly, then on a college student budget, outfitted her entire backyard wedding reception at Party City, buying so much ribbon to tie up her silverware and napkins.
PEVERLEY: I think I got a little excited 'cause I think I bought nine or 10 spools. Twenty-six years later, we still have some of these spools of ribbons, and we have tied them for baby presents and graduations. And it just makes me laugh and think fondly about Party City when I have to get more ribbon out.
SELYUKH: When you ask people for memories of Party City, shoppers recall meaningful milestones - a retirement, a sorority reunion, their mom's last day of chemotherapy, their son's 4th birthday in a pandemic lockdown. One woman thinks back to the shortage of miniature flags after the September 11 attacks. A teacher describes a giant balloon arch she'd bought for a school event.
At Party City in Maryland, cashier Christina Marin remembers the first time someone gave her sealed results of an ultrasound scan.
CHRISTINA MARIN: I was the first person to know, like, the gender. It was really special.
SELYUKH: They wanted a gender reveal balloon.
MARIN: I was nervous 'cause the balloons, they get really big, and sometimes they pop. And I didn't want it to pop and all the confetti come out (ph).
SELYUKH: In fact, if you ask workers for Party City memories, balloons float to the top.
JONATHAN DARCANGELO: Everyone on Saturdays and Sundays is on balloon duty. You tie balloons pretty much all day long.
SELYUKH: Jonathan Darcangelo started as a stocker in the late '90s and left as a manager in 2003, having tied ribbons on thousands of balloons.
DARCANGELO: Sometimes I laugh. I think my fingers might have a permanent curve in it from doing all these balloons. Years later, I can still tie a balloon pretty fast, so I still have the technique down.
SELYUKH: Darcangelo first got the job in high school. A lot of people did. Party City's teenage employees gave the stores a come-as-you-are vibe, with workers dressed in Halloween costumes, cracking up about ill-prepared shoppers stuffing a dozen balloons into a two-door car.
DARCANGELO: They didn't realize, like, oh, well, I bought all these balloons, how am I going to get them home, you know?
SELYUKH: The balloons and the wigs and the costumes, they're fun to buy in person, which shielded Party City from online competition for a long time. In 2012, the chain was bought by private equity and loaded with massive debt. This was manageable while sales grew, until they didn't.
DARCANGELO: Unfortunately, with internet retail, just - there was no reason to go there except for balloons, and you can't make that much money on balloons, I guess.
SELYUKH: In fact, a helium shortage made that business tricky. Meanwhile, shoppers defected to Spirit Halloween and Amazon and Walmart - even Home Depot with its giant skeletons. Then the pandemic killed parties, then high inflation, and Party City's debt haunted the chain to death.
SHERRI SWARTZIT: I'm really going to miss this place. I'm very upset that they're closing, really upset.
SELYUKH: Sherri Swartzit found liquidation sales at her neighborhood Party City, shopping for her grandson's 6th birthday party the night before. Next time...
SWARTZIT: I guess I'm going to have to be more organized and do it off of Amazon 'cause now Amazon will own the world.
SELYUKH: The aisles around her scream 20 to 75% off candy and placemats and Easter baskets. One shopper tells me the prices still seem too high, though she might return at the last second, she says, to see if the discounts get bigger. Alina Selyukh, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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