For more than two decades, furnishings retailer Weekends Only Furniture & Mattress drew customers in droves with its unusual business model—only opening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But now the St. Louis-based retailer will close its doors for good.
Weekends Only—which operates five stores in the St. Louis metro, along with two in Indianapolis and one in Springfield, Missouri—announced its plans to shut down following the planned retirement of owner Tom Phillips, as well as the recent departure of CEO Lane Hamm. Hamm now serves as CEO of Phoenix-based AZ MedQuip, a home medical equipment company.
Liquidation of all eight stores is estimated to begin in January, with liquidation sales firm Planned Furniture Promotions handling the closeout.
“After 25 years of serving the St. Louis area, Indianapolis and Springfield, Missouri, we are so grateful for the many team members who worked with us and the customers we have been fortunate to serve,” Phillips said in a statement.
The Phillips family has been an institution in the St. Louis furniture market, opening its first store, Phillips Mercantile, in 1937. In 1997, Tom and Dave Phillips launched the Weekends Only concept, selling only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot showrooms. They expanded that business to selling seven days a week online in 2013, and opened their newest brick-and-mortar location in Springfield in 2021. The e-commerce business accounts for about 14 percent of sales.
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Weekends Only employs around 400 people, who are expected to stay on through the closeout sales in January. The company said all current orders will be filled.
Phillips, 70, pointed to the difficult furnishings retail market as a determining factor in his decision to retire and shut down the business.
“We cherish the many friends we have made in the industry over the years. There has been so much change in our industry over the past few years and given the storm of challenges retailers face, now is a right time to retire and celebrate the success and good fortune we’ve had in the business,” he said.
Weekends Only is just the latest home furnishings business to hit some turbulence. Altmeyer Home Stores filed for bankruptcy over the summer with plans to liquidate while Bassett recently rebuffed a takeover attempt by one of its investors.