A Newcomer To Canada Asked What Zellers Was Really Like & Not Everyone Has Fond Memories

With Zellers Canada having announced its return in 2023, there's a lot of excitement in the air.

That being said, it seems like not everyone is equally pumped for a Zellers comeback.

Recently, a newcomer to Canada — who has presumably been inundated with Zellers news lately — took to Reddit to ask about the iconic Canadian department store.

In the Reddit thread r/AskACanadian, they asked, "I am new to Canada and was wondering what Zellers was like?"

"What's the equivalent chain?" they wrote. "Is it like Walmart, Dollarama, Old Navy?"

Before long, many Canadians responded to answer the question.

"Zellers was just a mid-level department store with some specific branding, loyalty points and in-store restaurants with good deals on food. Kind of like K-Mart in the '80s," one Redditor explained.

Another agreed that it was like K-Mart, but with "better food."

"If you have been to a Giant Tiger, [imagine] it had an older sister that had a crush on Walmart," they added.

A couple of others said that Zellers wasn't actually anything out of the ordinary, despite all of the recent hype around the store's comeback.

"It was not a high-end store nor it was a low-end store either. It was just an OK store. They used to have food courts inside some stores but not all (like IKEA). Nothing special and honestly, it was kind of like Walmart at one point," one commenter said.

The thread revealed that not every Canadian has really great memories of Zellers.

"Like a low-end K-Mart," is how one Redditor described it. "Old, dimly lit stores, ultra-low end clothes. It was awful."

Given that a lot of the comments stated how generic the store used to be, a couple of Redditors attempted to explain the hype surrounding its current comeback.

"Zellers was like if a K-Mart was run by raccoons and had a fake '50s diner in it, but it was also an iconic part of suburban life in the '80s, '90s and '00s before a lot of American stores like Walmart took its place," one comment read.

"It was also pretty cheap, and I think right now people are nostalgic for how cheap things were...more than the store itself," they continued.

They went on to add that Zellers was "a mess all the time."

"There would be stuff on the floor, shelves wiped bare, piles of miscellaneous crap in baskets, and it seemed to be like this at every location for some reason. It was not shocking when it shut down."

One Redditor suggested that perhaps the hype was because, after Zellers closed down, it was taken over by Target — which was even worse and made people remember Zellers more fondly.

"My nostalgia for Zellers is mostly that, while it was just a generic store, it did strangely have a restaurant in it with decent food and as a child it was a treat to get a milkshake there."

"Then the store in my area closed and in its place was Target, which was badly done and closed after a year due to their entire failed expansion into Canada."

They added, "Zellers was a Canadian store that managed to exist for ages and then was replaced by some crappy American store that left after a year, so it makes you think more kindly on the Canadian thing before it."

Judging by these comments, it would seem like some of the current excitement surrounding the brand's comeback all boils down to one thing – nostalgia.

"I think all the people commenting that Zellers was a shit second-tier department store are forgetting they also had shit second-tier restaurants in them. If you don’t get nostalgic for a Zeller’s grilled cheese or mini Z burger, were you even a Canadian child?" one person asked.

"I wanted to return, just for a moment, to the days where happiness was eating a middling burger inside a department store where the lowest price was the law," another Redditor admitted.

"These days you’re lucky if the lowest price is even a polite suggestion... I doubt I’d have much use for Zellers as an adult, but I wouldn’t say no to hugging Zeddy again, just for old time’s sake," they added.

Whether you're ready for the Zellers comeback or not, it sounds like low prices — and a Zeddy hug — are always welcome!

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.