Cd’A Bed Bath & Beyond stays open — for now

The local Bed Bath & Beyond along U.S. 95 is still open after surviving what the home goods retailer’s corporate office promised would be initial cuts of 40 stores within the first six months of 2020.

Now, customers are hoping the home goods retailer in Coeur d’Alene will continue to thrive, this after the company announced it was closing 200 more stores over the next two years.

While local management directed all questions to its corporate office, and the corporate office did not return requests for comment, a manager at the Coeur d’Alene store said the company was not yet out of the woods, and that the U.S. 95 shop could still very well be on the chopping block, as no complete list of the closures has been finalized.

A ‘Now Hiring’ banner hangs outside the entrance to the store. Marissa Tomas of Coeur d’Alene walked underneath it as she left, her new set of silverware hanging underneath in a plastic bag.

“This is my favorite store,” she said. “Every time I go shopping on the weekends, even if I’m just getting groceries, I keep finding myself coming back here.”

Tomas wasn’t alone.

“We have a Thursday routine,” Becca Harmon of Coeur d’Alene said, husband Ed by her side. “We go to Bed Bath & Beyond, then Petco for dog food, then Pier 1. And once a month, we go to Panda (Express).”

While no decision has been made on the Coeur d’Alene Bed Bath & Beyond — as the New Jersey-based retailer is closing more than one in five of its 955 stores — the Harmons’ routine has already been interrupted. Pier 1 announced it was closing all of its 540 brick-and-mortar stores, including the nearby Coeur d’Alene shop, back in May. The bankrupt retailer is switching to an online-only marketplace.

While Bed Bath & Beyond is not pushing for a digital-only market like Pier 1, CEO Mark Tritton said in a statement the company was encouraged by last month’s online sales.

“We are encouraged by early customer response,” Tritton said, “including continued strong demand, in excess of 80 percent across our digital channels during the month of June, bolstered by the expansion of our Buy-Online-Pick-Up-In-Store (BOPIS) and Curbside Pickup services. We believe Bed Bath & Beyond will emerge from this crisis even stronger, given the strength of our brand, our people and our balance sheet.”