Picture a Saturday at an Ontario mall in the 1990s and you can probably still map it out from memory: a department store at each end, a record store, a bookstore, an electronics shop and a few places to buy jeans. Here's what was in that mall, and what happened to each store, with the dates checked.
A department store at each end
Eaton's, Sears and The Bay anchored malls across the province, and all three are gone now. Eaton's filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in August 1999. The last Sears Canada stores closed on Jan. 14, 2018. Hudson's Bay closed every store on June 1, 2025. Our malls feature has the rest of that story.
A record store
Sam the Record Man grew out of Sam Sniderman's Yonge Street flagship, which opened in 1961. The chain started franchising in 1969 and had about 140 stores across Canada by the early 1980s. The famous Yonge Street store, with its giant illuminated records out front, closed in 2007.
HMV was the other big mall music store. In January 2017, HMV Canada went into receivership, and all 102 of its stores were set to close by April 30 that year.
A Coles bookstore
Coles was a mall staple, and by 2021 it was owned by Indigo. The Coles in Sault Ste. Marie's Cambrian Mall, for one, shut in March 2021 after 36 years.
Electronics Boutique
The game store went through a few names. GameStop, which owned the Canadian chain, switched every store to the GameStop name in 2021. Then, in 2025, French-Canadian entrepreneur Stephan Tetrault bought the Canadian business, which has more than 185 stores and is based in Brampton, and brought back the EB Games name. He told Retail Insider the move was about bringing back something Canadians loved.
RadioShack
Canada's RadioShack stores were run by InterTAN. In 2005, after RadioShack won an injunction over the use of its name, they were renamed The Source by Circuit City, beginning with the Toronto Eaton Centre store. Bell bought The Source in 2009. In 2024, Bell and Best Buy announced that 165 locations would become Best Buy Express stores and the rest would close.
Thriftys
Thriftys was where a lot of Ontario teenagers bought jeans. It belonged to Dylex, the Toronto retail group, until Dylex was broken up. In November 2000, American Eagle Outfitters bought Bluenotes, Thriftys and Braemar, and converted 46 Braemar stores into American Eagle shops. By early 2004, there were about 110 Bluenotes/Thriftys stores in Canada. That November, American Eagle sold the chain to Toronto's YM Inc.
Status: still here, sort of. Bluenotes still sells online and in stores in 2026, and the fine print on its website still names the operating company as Thrifty's Inc.
Le Château
Le Château was founded in Montreal in 1959 and was the go-to store for something sharp for a dance or a party. In October 2020, it filed for creditor protection and began liquidating all 123 of its stores, citing the pandemic and weak demand for occasion wear.
Jacob
Jacob, founded in 1977, went into creditor protection in 2010. In October 2014, it closed its remaining 92 stores. The company blamed a difficult economy and a significant drop in mall traffic.
Northern Reflections
Woolworth Canada created Northern Reflections in 1985, and the brand has changed hands since. Status: still here. Putman Investments bought the brand in January 2025, and it marked its 40th anniversary later that year with just over 100 stores.
And the rest of the mall
The food court and the arcade get their own stories. See The Stores You Remember From the Food Court and Ontario's Lost Arcades.
Details checked October 2026. Hours and seasons change — confirm with each business before you go.
