Hills

[a.estok]

Other than the layout and design of the store, I don't recall any major changes during the conversion of the Hills store I frequented. The snack bar (mentioned in a previous post) was retained. They sold hot dogs, soft pretzels, popcorn, soda and various other small snacks/candy from what I can remember.

[TheFugitive]

One of the most popular promotions run by Hills was "Wiener Wednesdays", where
any customer 65 or older could get a free small drink and a hot dog from the snack bar with
any purchase.

In some stores literal busloads of seniors would arrive for this.  I used to get complaints
from girls at my service desk because a lot of these seniors would purchase one item, use
the receipt to get their hot dog, and then return the item (I had actually seen this done where
the item purchased was a single pack of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum!)  They said "can't we just
give them a hot dog and not do all of this paperwork?"

One year Christmas fell on a Wednesday and the store was closed.  An old man came in the
day after and yelled at me, accusing me of cheating him out of his hot dog.  My boss stood at
the snack bar (munching a hot dog, of course) and laughed his butt off at me!

[TRJ_22487]

One of the most popular promotions run by Hills was "Wiener Wednesdays", where
any customer 65 or older could get a free small drink and a hot dog from the snack bar with
any purchase.

In some stores literal busloads of seniors would arrive for this.  I used to get complaints
from girls at my service desk because a lot of these seniors would purchase one item, use
the receipt to get their hot dog, and then return the item (I had actually seen this done where
the item purchased was a single pack of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum!)  They said "can't we just
give them a hot dog and not do all of this paperwork?"

One year Christmas fell on a Wednesday and the store was closed.  An old man came in the
day after and yelled at me, accusing me of cheating him out of his hot dog.  My boss stood at
the snack bar (munching a hot dog, of course) and laughed his butt off at me!

So much for "The Greatest Generation", lol.

[JoeC2364]

Fans nostalgic for Hills Department Store are going gaga over a new candle designed to smell like the defunct retailer’s snack bar.

http://www.buffalonews.com/business/people-love-this-candle-that-smells-like-a-hills-snack-bar-20160414

Fans nostalgic for Hills Department Store are going gaga over a new candle designed to smell like the defunct retailer’s snack bar.

Pennsylvania-based Sugar Creek Candle Company, with its proprietary blend of scents, has created a candle that evokes notes of popcorn, hot pretzel and cherry ICEE.

It’s called Pittsburgh Dad’s Hills Snack Bar after local comedian and actor Curt Wootton, whose YouTube channel has 84,000 subscribers. In one of Wootton’s most popular videos, he fantasizes about traveling back to 1989 in a DeLorean time machine in order to shop at Hills. The label bears the Hills logo and a picture of Wootton clutching snack bar foods.

Pittsburgh Dad posted about the new product on Facebook Tuesday night. Within 15 minutes, the post had garned 1,000 likes. By Wednesday afternoon it had registered 11,000 likes and had been shared nearly 4,000 times.

In less than 24 hours, Sugar Creek said it had filled orders in 15 states and as far as Alaska, with callers ordering as many as five candles at a time.

“Everybody has a story about Hills. Everybody misses it,” said Anthony Barravecchio, a Sugar Creek partner with his wife Karen and Jennifer Esposto. “The whole Hills thing really hits home with everyone.”

The 16-ounce soy candle retails for $14.99 plus shipping and handling. It can only be ordered by phone right now, as the website is being overhauled until Friday.

[TheFugitive]

OMG, I am going to have to order a case of these!
I left Hills in 1998 and I can still smell that snack bar in my sleep!

[Pikapower]

^^I can smell the Hills snack bar from just reading this post about Pittsburgh Dad releasing a candle with the snack bar scent!

[MikeinBuffalo]

Stopped by my local thrift store to look around. Noticed a familiar cart.

[buzz86us]

if anybody wants to see an original Hills sign there is a company called Hills stationary in Troy NY they seem to use the hills logo on all their internal paperwork too

[BillyGr]

if anybody wants to see an original Hills sign there is a company called Hills stationary in Troy NY they seem to use the hills logo on all their internal paperwork too

Or was:

http://www.twcnews.com/nys/capital-region/news/2016/11/5/hill-stationary-in-troy-closed-after-96-years-in-business.html

So, since this opened in 1920, who copied off of who ;)

[retailfan]

Im wondering if maybe that store might have bought the trademark when Ames bought it out  the one sign they show twords the end looks as though it was removed from a Hills store .

[buzz86us]

it was removed from a hills store..wow i applied for a job there a long time ago..

[TheFugitive]

it was removed from a hills store..wow i applied for a job there a long time ago..

I hope at least you passed the drug test!  As a manager there I was amazed at
how many people would apply for a job and then fail the drug test.

[busman_49]

So I recently learned that there was a Hills in Dayton on Woodman Dr.  It didn't make it into the Ames days, I'm sure.  I'd love to find out more about it.  All I know is that it once was a Rinks.  How do I know?
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/board/board_topic/1550893/5470803.htm

Map of the location:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Goodwill+Outlet/@39.7293818,-84.12044,18.79z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88408341c41658a1:0xaaaa49757cd2eb39!8m2!3d39.729425!4d-84.12065

[JJBers]

So I recently learned that there was a Hills in Dayton on Woodman Dr.  It didn't make it into the Ames days, I'm sure.  I'd love to find out more about it.  All I know is that it once was a Rinks.  How do I know?
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/board/board_topic/1550893/5470803.htm

Map of the location:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Goodwill+Outlet/@39.7293818,-84.12044,18.79z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88408341c41658a1:0xaaaa49757cd2eb39!8m2!3d39.729425!4d-84.12065

Is it the building behind Goodwill?

[busman_49]

So I recently learned that there was a Hills in Dayton on Woodman Dr.  It didn't make it into the Ames days, I'm sure.  I'd love to find out more about it.  All I know is that it once was a Rinks.  How do I know?
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/board/board_topic/1550893/5470803.htm

Map of the location:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Goodwill+Outlet/@39.7293818,-84.12044,18.79z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88408341c41658a1:0xaaaa49757cd2eb39!8m2!3d39.729425!4d-84.12065

Is it the building behind Goodwill?

Yes, I believe it is.  It doesn't look like much anymore, and it's a real pain to try to get to for any decent shots.

[Ameskid]

So I recently learned that there was a Hills in Dayton on Woodman Dr.  It didn't make it into the Ames days, I'm sure.  I'd love to find out more about it.  All I know is that it once was a Rinks.  How do I know?
http://www.daytonhistorybooks.com/board/board_topic/1550893/5470803.htm

Map of the location:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Goodwill+Outlet/@39.7293818,-84.12044,18.79z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88408341c41658a1:0xaaaa49757cd2eb39!8m2!3d39.729425!4d-84.12065

I need to do some research on the Ontario chain - I keep hearing about all the different locations around the Cincinnati/Dayton area, but I don't know much about the chain itself.

[danfifepsu]

How similiar was Hills to Ames?

[TheFugitive]

I think you have asked this question before. 

I worked for both Hills and Ames.  They were quite similar aside from a few minor variances.
Hills stores tended to be slightly larger.  Hills had a larger toy department whereas Ames devoted
more floor space to domestics.  Hills had a snack bar, which Ames did not (until the merger when
many of the converted Hills locations opted to keep one).  Hills initially operated with a larger
in-store management team but it had been whittled down to Ames-size by the late 1990's.

[Ames303]

I think you have asked this question before. 

I worked for both Hills and Ames.  They were quite similar aside from a few minor variances.
Hills stores tended to be slightly larger.  Hills had a larger toy department whereas Ames devoted
more floor space to domestics.  Hills had a snack bar, which Ames did not (until the merger when
many of the converted Hills locations opted to keep one).  Hills initially operated with a larger
in-store management team but it had been whittled down to Ames-size by the late 1990's.

I agree about Ames and Hills being a lot more similar than Ames and Zayre. When Ames started converting Hills stores over to Ames they went with a new concept, lots of green and black. A couple of years before they had started converting Zayre stores to the green Ames concept, but the Hills conversion was a whole different look altogether. Before the conversion, many Hills stores looked like a larger version of Ames (lots of red and white), except with the aforementioned different balance in departments.  Hills was known at Christmas time with “Hills is where the toys are!” jingle.  I seem to remember Hills would have a lot of prices ending in “.97” as well.  All greeting cards at Hills were 10% off, department 11. There was a special key on the register for greeting cards.

When Ames converted Hills over they replaced Hills’ system with IBM registers, which were a newer version of what Hills was using at the time, and didn’t match what Ames was using at the time (Siemens Nixdorf). I can’t remember the name of the software package but it’s the same as what Barnes and Noble is running today.

Working at Hills as a cashier you had a different operator number every day, depending on what bag they handed you in the back office at the start of your shift. At Ames you used your social security number for everything.  Hills didn’t lease out jewelry or sound and video but I think Ames did (though Ames called it Sight ‘n Sound).

[TheFugitive]

I remember when Ames used your Social Security number as the login for everything.
I also worked for Service Merchandise where they did the same thing.  I once had to fire
an associate who had memorized my SSN (she racked up so many voids she had probably
watched me key it 300 times) and I caught her using it to do unauthorized returns.
Scary how oblivious we were to identity theft back then.

Ames did not lease out sound or video, at least when I worked for them (we did use Bertelsmann as a
jobber for cassettes).  When I joined the only leased department was shoes, which was J. Baker.
During my time there they "created" a company called JBA (Jewelry Boutique Associates) and leased
out the jewelry departments to them.  In hindsight this was merely a sleazy way to isolate all of the
gold and diamond inventory from the bankruptcy.

I was there during the Ames-Zayre merger and Ames' color scheme at the time was still red.
They switched to green in the 90's, not long after I had left the company.

[Kmart4life]

Traveled about an hour to Dave & Buster's for my son's birthday in Brandon Florida today and saw an old Hills semi trailer with a faded but still visual logo on it at a used tire shop, it looed as if it was being loaded with old used tires. Unfortunately I could not snap a pic because I was driving and we all know cell phones and driving don't mix. I will make it out that way again soon to see if it is there and snap a pic.

[TheFugitive]

With Halloween coming I am reminded of one of my favorite Hills stories.

Hills had a unique practice in that they used to pay their employees IN CASH.  We'd hold back a few bank deposits heading into pay day and make up pay envelopes for each of them with pay stubs and cash.  These would go into a lockbox and either a manager or one of the office associates would set-up at a table in the employee lounge.  Employees would then come in, sign for their pay, and be handed their envelope with the cash and the stub.

This practice was actually genius because after being paid the employees would have to go all the way back to the front of the store to exit, and few would without spending at least some of their pay.

Like many retail businesses Hills would allow employees to dress-up in costumes on Halloween.  This practice ended one year when pay day fell on Halloween. Employees were all lining-up to get their pay in costume. In one of the stores some guy who was NOT an employee got into the line wearing a Grim Reaper costume and a mask.  When he got to the front of the line he pulled a gun, took the box full of cash and fled out the door. 

From then on you weren't allowed to have your face covered when picking-up your pay.

[Retail_247]

People blame Ames as the main to reason why Hills went out of business (which it mostly is) but Hills filed for bankruptcy in 1991 while the Ames buyout didn't happen until 1998

If Ames never bought them out they probably would've went out of business and bankruptcy anyway

At most I can see them lasting about as long as Ames did until 2002

[TheFugitive]

I worked for Ames during their first bankruptcy and for Hills up until just before Ames acquired them.  In my opinion the things leading to the bankruptcies in each case were somewhat different.

In the case of Ames first bankruptcy it was hands-down the Zayre acquisition.  Zayre was headed to the ash heap until our president, Peter Hollis (himself a former Zayre CEO) threw his buddies over there a lifeline and took their crap off their hands for them.  Zayre Corp. is still around as TJX (Marshalls and T.J. Maxx) so things did work out for them in that regard.

Zayre had a bunch of dirty, broken down, high-shrink stores, most of them in urban areas.  A lot of those in bad areas.  Ames was mostly small-town and rural.  Overnight we went from being a 300 store chain with a well-defined market to an 800 store chain that was all over the board.  The logistics were not in place to manage a company that had more than doubled in size in one fell swoop.  You had stupid things happening such as country goose pattern bedding and kitchen accessories being shipped to stores in inner-city Chicago. Or aluminum can crushers being shipped to Michigan where every can had a ten cent deposit on it and got returned to the store anyway. When the merger was complete the sales did not justify the added debt service and down we went.  We had a lot of managers at Ames who had come from Zayre and were dead-set against the merger because they knew first-hand how bad things were over there.  Ames reaction was to aggressively tell them to shut-up so that none of these remarks would make it into the press and scuttle the deal.

In the case of Hills they had been in a slow state of decline throughout the 90's and were facing increasing pressure from Walmart.  As an Operations Manager I saw this first-hand as stores which had 7 or 8 managers at the start of the decade were cut to 3 (and most of the responsibilities of the ones who went away got rolled into my job description). Hills also had the reputation for catering to their associates, which is nice, but when facing a death match against Sam Walton this came back to bite them as it became impossible to motivate staff to do the sorts of tough things that were necessary to compete and survive.

For example, they brought in some high-end consultants to drastically revamp our freight unloading and restocking process.  It wasn't working.  The reason (and many associates would come up and tell me this to my face) was that if it worked and the store became more efficient their hours would be cut as a result.  And they did not want their hours to be cut.  So they actively undermined the program.

When Hills started talking merger with Ames my thoughts were "my knees hurt, my feet hurt, this neighborhood is full of thugs who may come and take a shot at me, and I'm not going back to work for those idiots who screwed me out of nearly seven grand in bonuses through their bankruptcy".  I got out of the business and never looked back.

[TheFugitive]

A Hills superfan in the Pittsburgh area is going to be bringing the Hills Snack Bar
back to life, as a food truck.

https://www.wtae.com/article/hills-snack-bar-pittsburgh-western-pennsylvania/42259311

[108CAM]

This image of a Hills road sign in Hermitage, Tennessee and I've been trying to find the location on Google Maps to see how it's changed but have had no luck.

Edit: I think I found the store. The front of the building which currently houses the Altitude Trampoline Park is shaped in a very similar way to what many Hills stores had.