Joann fabrics, the beloved fabrics, arts and crafts retailer, is finally shutting its doors for good after a long, slow goodbye.
While many of its 800 of its stores have already been shuttered since the company filed for bankruptcy in January—yet, again—the last 444 Joann stores (yes, you read that right) will finally shut their doors on Friday, May 30, according to Joann’s website.
What happened?
As Fast Company previously reported, the popular fabrics and crafts supplier announced earlier this year that it would close all its U.S. locations after it filed for bankruptcy in January 2025 marking the second time Joann declared bankruptcy in less than a year. It also laid off all 19,000 workers, including more than 15,000 part-time store associates.
Like many brick-and-mortar retailers that have filed for bankruptcy including Party City and Forever 21, Joann faced declining sales and foot traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic, as more Americans shop online, and curb spending due to higher prices, the soaring cost of living, inflation, and President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff wars.
Customers take to social media to lament the store’s demise
From TikTok and Reddit, to Instagram and Facebook, customers have been taking to social media, posting tearfully and nostalgically about time they spent in the store; some even shared “last haul” videos of what they bought in the store’s final days, according to Fortune.
On Reddit, nostalgic customers and workers posted multiple threads saying “Goodbye” to individual stores, with photos of the shuttered front door, like this one, which read “RIP Joann 1943-2025: Died due to private equity and corporate greed,” lamenting the end of 80 years in business.
Meanwhile, on TikTok, one woman with tears in her eyes posted, “Y’all I really can’t believe but I just really had a moment, Joann is f—ing closing… It’s so unfortunate.”
Joann’s final years
By the 1990s, Joann became the largest fabric and crafts retail superstore in the U.S. and was taken private in 2011 by Leonard Green & Partners, a private equity firm, for around $1.6 billion; then a decade later, it went public again as the COVID-19 pandemic fueled an uptick in crafting, Fast Company previously reported. However, like many brick and mortar retailers, profits began to decline after the pandemic, leaving the company with $616 million in reported debt obligations when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.
Some critics and customers blame Joann’s demise on private equity which have increasingly been at the helm of large-scale business restructurings and closings and accused of stripping a company for parts, instead of bringing companies back to profitability. However, many experts have said it’s not that simple, and the company’s failure is based on the a mix of factors that go into the current economics of U.S. retail conditions.
A look at the numbers shows Joann fabrics’ last reported revenue of $539.80M for its third quarter of fiscal year 2024 ending October 28, 2023, a decrease of -4.09%; with brings revenue in the last twelve months of that date to $2.16B, down -4.20% year-over-year. In the fiscal year ending January 28, 2023, JOANN had annual revenue of $2.22B, down -8.30%. Its last reported market cap was 3.20 million.
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