Harts Discount Store
Image by Nicholas Eckhart
It is amazing this is still here. This hasn’t been Harts since 1991 and Big Bear Plus hasn’t operated here for over ten years now.
This opened on March 20th, 1974 as two separate Big Bear (grocery store) and Harts (discount store) stores. Both Big Bear and Harts was owned by Big Bear Stores; they were frequently built attached to each other but were still separate stores.
In 1988 Big Bear came out with a new concept called Big Bear Plus where both Harts and Big Bear were combined into one store. I recall one Big Bear Plus store I was in to be a lot like an older Kmart (it had a drop ceiling with the strips of exposed lighting) with a grocery store added into the existing store. Big Bear Plus stores were no where near the size of most supercenters / hypermarkets; they ranged in size from 70,000 square feet to 140,000 square feet. Most Big Bear Plus stores were around 100,000 square feet, give or take 10,000.
This Big Bear Plus store in Lancaster was 98,000 square feet after Harts and Big Bear stores combined here in mid 1991. All Harts stores not merged with a Big Bear grocery store were closed in the mid-1990s. There was another Big Bear grocery store on the other side of Lancaster but it had no attached Harts store., that store closed in 1999. This store was closed along with the rest of the Big Bear chain in 2004. Most of the building is currently empty but Tractor Supply Company has moved into part of the old Harts part of the store.
Bear Bear Grocery Store / Harts discount store (later Big Bear Plus) – 1710 East Main Street – Lancaster, Ohio
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