same name see venture department store . venture stores inc. former type defunct traded as nyse ven industry retail department & discount fate bankruptcy founded 1970 st. louis missouri defunct 1998 headquarters o fallon missouri key people robert wildrick julian seeherman products clothing footwear bedding furniture jewelry beauty products electronics and housewares . number of employees 10 000 slogan high quality low prices . website www.venturestores.com archived at deadmalls.com venture stores inc. was a chain of retail stores aimed at the discount department store market . john geisse of target stores and may department stores executive vice president dave babcock founded the chain in 1968 . venture stores expanded to operate over 70 stores with major market share in st. louis chicago and kansas city and expanded across various areas in the us over a period of nearly 30 years becoming the largest discount chain in chicago . in january 1998 venture stores entered a chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed within four months . contents 1 history 2 dining 3 bankruptcy 4 references 5 external links history edit the chain was founded in 1968 when target founder john f. geisse went to work for may department stores . 1 under an antitrust settlement reached with the department of justice may was unable to acquire any more retail chains at the time and the department store company needed a way to compete against the emerging discount store chains . when may s executive vice president dave babcock learned that geisse had resigned from target stores he spoke with geisse about starting a new discount retailer resulting in the founding of venture . the first venture store opened in 1970 in the st. louis suburb of overland after venture closed the location became a kmart which later closed & was demolished for the current home depot . in 1976 geisse retired and left venture stores which had by that time expanded to 20 units . 1 in 1978 venture stores purchased 23 turn style locations in the chicago area from jewel food stores and expanded to over 40 locations in the chicago market area with many city locations . it was the largest discount chain in chicago with inner city locations other than zayre ames . in 1990 venture separated from may and became a private corporation . venture s advertising slogan during the 1980s was save with style . or sws 2 in the 1990s venture would employ two other slogans ; the first tied to a companywide remodeling initiative aimed at making the stores more like kohl s was see what s new for you . at the time venture closed the slogan was see what a little money can buy . dining edit as was a common trend in american department stores many venture stores offered a dining area inside the store . this area would sell standard american fare from hamburgers and hot dogs to popcorn and icee drinks . venture s small eatery was known as cafe venture . bankruptcy edit sign for the venture store in davenport iowa in 1998 by the late 1990s the chain found that it was unable to compete against other retail chains such as kmart target and wal mart . venture tried to return to its founding principles as an upscale discounter and remodeled most of its 90 stores . citation needed while facing vast competition venture made a fatal mistake trying to expand into texas instead of protecting its core markets . citation needed venture sold the texas stores to kmart in 1996 and closed its distribution center in corsicana texas . the company entered chapter 11 bankruptcy on january 20 1998 and tried to operate with a smaller number of stores . the effort was not successful and the company announced its closing on april 27 1998 . most of the former venture buildings were absorbed into other chains such as kmart kohl s shopko and burlington coat factory . 3 references edit a b discount pioneer geisse dead at 71 john geisse obituary retailing career . discount store news . geisse.org . 16 march 1992 . retrieved 2015 09 29 . texas proving ground for venture s evolving micro marketing strategy regional discounters in transition dead link venture sells 20 units to kmart for fast cash dead link external links edit television commercials at the museum of classic chicago television retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title venture stores & oldid 740142801 categories retail companies established in 1970companies based in st. louis county missouridefunct discount stores of the united statesdefunct retail companies of the united statesretail companies disestablished in 19971970 establishments in missouri1997 disestablishments in missourihidden categories all articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from september 2015all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from june 2011 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 19 september 2016 at 09 06 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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