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Sport Chalet announced on Saturday in a company release that it will be closing all of its stores, including more than 40 throughout California, over the next “several weeks.”
The company has also suspended all online sales, and asks that anyone who has left equipment at any of the company’s stores for repairs pick it up by April 29th, according to KTLA.
Of course, Sport Chalet has local roots. An enterprising German Immigrant named Norbert Olberz founded the chain in 1959 in La Cañada Flintridge. With its location on Foothill Boulevard at the start of the Angeles Crest Highway, the store served as a place to stock up for adventurers making their way out to the San Gabriels.
Olberz opened a second location in Huntington Beach in 1981, followed by several more throughout Southern California throughout the next decade, according to the L.A. Times. Eventually, the chain grew more than 50 stores, chiefly throughout the Western United States.
In 2014, Sport Chalet was sold to Vestis Retail Group for $17 million in 2014, ending local ownership of the store. Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Vestis Retail, also the owner of a few other sporting chains around the country, was most likely headed for bankruptcy. Looks like it’s happening. 😞
