During a conference meeting this past Friday, Woodcliff Lake-based Party City announced it is closing all its stores, including 25 stores in New Jersey, and laying off all corporate staff after 38 years in business.
The company, which had approximately 700 stores located in more than 70 countries, has been experiencing financial difficulties over the past few years. It had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2023 and was considering doing the same earlier this month.
A portion of a message posted on Party City’s website explained that “like many retailers, we’ve been operating in an immensely challenging environment with inflationary pressures on both costs and consumer spending, and while we did everything we could to navigate these headwinds, our very best efforts were ultimately not enough to overcome these challenges.”
Its stores are currently open, and are offering discounts on merchandise, according to the post.
Party City did close 22 underperforming stores nationwide in 2023 and another 35 stores by mid-May of this year. According to NJ.com, it had closed more than 60 locations ahead of last Friday’s announcement.
One store will remain open in New Jersey. It is an independently owned and operated franchise located at 7000 Hadley Road, South Plainfield.
According to Upen Shah, owner, “We are not directly impacted by the corporate restructuring. We remain committed to serving our loyal customers with the same wide variety of party supplies, seasonal decorations, and celebration essentials that they have come to expect from us.”
Originally founded in East Hanover in 1986, Party City was the largest retailer of party goods in the United States, Canada and Mexico. For many years, the company’s headquarter operations were spread across two offices in Rockaway and Elmsford, N.Y. It moved its global headquarters to Woodcliff Lake in 2022, after being the first company in the state to qualify for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s Emerge Job Creation Tax Credit Program. Party City was to receive a tax credit award of $9,996,000 over seven years, with a discounted value (September 2021) of $7,434,696. At that time, the move to Woodcliff Lake was supposed to create 357 new full-time jobs and retain 338 full-time jobs.
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