It's closing time for Moosejaw, the Michigan-born outdoor apparel and gear retailer.
All three remaining Moosejaw stores are set to close their doors for good, possibly as early as Saturday.
The Birmingham store at 34288 Woodward Ave. has been the only Moosejaw left in Michigan since the outdoor apparel and gear retailer's corporate owner — Dick's Sporting Goods — decided to close 11 of the 14 Moosejaw stores at the start of this year.
The other two remaining stores are in Salt Lake City and Bentonville, Arkansas. Employees who answered the phone at each store on Friday said that Saturday will be their last day open.
While there were no conspicuous "closing soon" or clearance sale signs Friday morning at the Birmingham Moosejaw, a man who identified himself as the general manager told the Free Press that the store will be closing.
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The manager, however, declined to say when the Birmingham store would close, explaining that Moosejaw is too close to his heart to talk about it.
But according to an employee who answered the phone at the Moosejaw in Arkansas, all three remaining stores are closing Saturday, and "the Moosejaw brand as a whole is being dissolved."
The employee, who wasn't authorized to speak with the news media and did not give their name, said the Moosejaw website also would be taken down. Employees were told this news on Tuesday, the individual said. (A worker at the Salt Lake City Moosejaw also said their store is closing Saturday.)
Dick's representatives did not immediately respond to an inquiry for comment Friday.
The Moosejaw retail brand was started in Michigan in 1992 by a pair of 22-year-olds, Robert Wolfe and David Jaffe, and became known for its goofy, irreverent and boundary-pushing marketing, especially throughout the 2000s. The first Moosejaw store was in Keego Harbor.
Private-equity firms later took stakes in the company, and, in 2017, Moosejaw was sold to retail giant Walmart for a reported $51 million. In February 2023, Dick's announced that it was acquiring Moosejaw from Walmart.
A Dick's spokesperson last fall wouldn't comment on the reasons for the Moosejaw store closures beyond the company's official statement, which described a partial merging of Moosejaw with Dick's own outdoor retail brand, Public Lands, which it launched in 2021.
Michigan's Moosejaw had cult following, unique environment – then downfall started in 2017
Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or [email protected]. Follow him on X jcreindl.