On Saturday, August 4, 1928, Zellers Ltd. was first established in
London, Ontario.
Walter P. Zeller, its founder, opened his new store and head office at 176 Dundas Street in London after working for years for
Metropolitan Stores,
F. W. Woolworth Company and
Kresge's. The plan at the start was to have stores opened in London,
St. Catharines,
Niagara Falls,
Fort William (part of modern-day
Thunder Bay) and
Saint John, New Brunswick as part of an effort to establish a Canada-wide chain of department stores. The London store had a street frontage of and a depth of . It had a total of of space on the ground floor with of counter space spread out around the store. Sixty women were hired for the opening day working in 21 different departments. Within months, Zellers was doing such good business that they were bought out by the American firm
Schulte-United Ltd, but within two years, the rebranded stores went bankrupt.
1930s–1960s: Early years, partnership with W.T. Grant '' for its 1931 grand opening in Toronto. The announced location later became part of the
Toronto Eaton Centre in 1977. Zeller promptly bought fourteen Canadian locations of the failed Schulte-United chain, all in Southern Ontario, and relaunched Zellers in late 1931 as a store for thrifty Canadians. One of the locations was the original Zellers at 176 Dundas Street in London, which would remain operating until the late 1980s. In June 1978, Zellers presented a bid to acquire 100 percent ownership of the
Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). HBC management, recognizing Zellers profitability and the potential to enter a new retail segment, decided to purchase Zellers instead. Zellers and Fields, operating in very different retail segments from HBC, were kept intact and established as separate divisions of the company. HBC acquired full ownership of Zellers and Fields in 1981 and Marshall Wells in 1982. By 1985, HBC had sold Marshall Wells for $20 million because it was not relevant to its department store business. Counterfeit video games for the
Atari 2600 console were manufactured in Taiwan and sold by Zellers in the early 1980s, usually under new names and artwork and occasionally with
modified graphics. All games were
pirated copies of titles created either by
Atari itself or by third-party developers, such as
Activision. Zellers was eventually forced by Atari to stop selling these games as Zellers infringed on Atari's copyright. Zellers released 18 games for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s.
1990s: Further acquisitions In 1990, Hudson's Bay Company acquired the 51 stores of the
Towers/Bonimart chain from the
Oshawa Group, and converted most of them to Zellers outlets, including its flagship location in the
Scarborough district of
Toronto. Zellers advertisements at the time featured both the Towers
mascot, Sparky, and the Zellers mascot, Zeddy, walking arm in arm, to show the acquisition to the public. During this period, Zellers used the slogan "Where the lowest price is the law." In 1993, Hudson's Bay Company purchased the assets of the bankrupt
Woodward's chain, including 21 store locations. Kmart Canada president George Heller remained with HBC, eventually becoming HBC's president and CEO in the mid-2000s. In 1996, Hudson's Bay Company closed its Zellers head office in
Montreal, Quebec and merged it with the Hudson's Bay Company headquarters in downtown Toronto. By 1998, Hudson's Bay Company reestablished its Zellers head office at the former Kmart Canada head office in
Brampton, Ontario. Following Zucker's death in 2008, Hudson's Bay Company and its subsidiaries including Zellers came under the ownership of a New York-based
private equity firm,
NRDC Equity Partners, which was headed by
Richard Baker. NRDC also owned the
Lord & Taylor upscale specialty retail department store chain in the United States. Mark Foote was appointed President and CEO of Zellers in 2008, having recently served as president and chief merchandising officer at
Loblaw Companies and prior to that was president of
Canadian Tire Corp.'s retail division. Foote was credited with stabilizing the chain, though it still continued losing ground against
Walmart Canada. Subsequently, NRDC invested heavily in The Bay and managed a turnaround by repositioning it as an upscale, fashion-forward retailer. However, the Zellers chain was still struggling and was seen as a drag on the parent company and its American owner.
2011–2013: Lease acquisitions by Target, liquidation and closures , Quebec On January 13, 2011, it was announced that American retail chain
Target Corporation would purchase the lease agreements of up to 220 Zellers stores for $1.825 billion. Under the agreement, Zellers would sublease the properties and continue to operate them as Zellers locations until January 2012 at the earliest, and at the latest the end of March 2013. At the time of this announcement, Zellers operated 273 stores, well below the 350 stores it had in 1999. Upon the announcement, it was reported that once the Zellers stores at these locations were closed, Target would renovate 100 to 150 of them to reopen the stores under the Target banner during 2013 and 2014. The remaining acquired sites would be transferred to other retailers. HBC had said that it would continue to operate the remaining Zellers stores as a smaller chain in specific communities. Of the maximum 220 locations, 105 to be transferred to Target were identified in late May 2011, and another lot of 84 locations in late September 2011, bringing the total number of Zellers stores acquired by Target to 189. Of these 189 stores, 39 were resold to
Walmart Canada.
RioCan REIT was significantly affected, as many of its mall properties include Zellers locations. In addition, the
United Food and Commercial Workers Union planned to hold demonstrations as many Zellers staffers were to be laid off instead of being retained by Target or Walmart. This was in marked contrast to the takeover of
Woolco by Walmart in 1994, where all employees of the acquired stores were retained. The President and CEO of Zellers, Mark Foote, had a mandate to liquidate the 273 Zellers stores in preparing it for Target's takeover by October 2011. Foote's strategy was to use a blueprint of a retail liquidation, but without the typical insolvency and desperation that plagued failing chains. Foote focused on raising profits, even if that meant losing market share and reducing store traffic, by ramping up inventory levels of higher margin goods over loss leaders such as apparel over deeply discounted paper towels and detergent, and by slashing costs. Foote also replaced the expensive fall television advertising campaign with a social media blitz on
Facebook. Reportedly, the strategy was paying off as Zellers operating profit was "well ahead of expectations and the retailer had performed very well in 2011. The Hudson's Bay Company announced on July 26, 2012, that it would close most of the 64 remaining stores that were supposed to continue operating as Zellers outlets. A company spokesperson stated that these stores employ 6,400 people, or approximately 100 per location, range in size from 48,000 to 128,000 square feet and are mostly in small towns. The closings of these stores were to happen at the latest on March 31, 2013 which coincided with the deadline date the HBC had to vacate the sites acquired by Target. The HBC's main reason for closing the 64 remaining stores was due to Zellers lack of profitability. The HBC also remarked that it would not be viable to keep Zellers as an ongoing chain due to the geographical locations of the remaining 64 stores. The HBC did not exclude the possibility of keeping some stores open and converting them as
The Bay or
Home Outfitters outlets. After the deal with Target Corporation, HBC still had a burden in half of the $226.4 million of Zellers lease obligations remaining through 2016, with the rent for 2012 alone being almost half of HBC's adjusted profit. With HBC preparing an initial public offering in late 2012, it either terminated these liabilities with landlords at steep discounts or found new tenants to sublet the space. HBC communications manager Tiffany Bourré described these locations as featuring fashion apparel and a refined home product offering with more from other HBC banners. Originally, these included the store at
Place Bourassa in
Montreal North, Quebec, but it closed in early 2014. Replacing it was a previously closed Zellers in the Ottawa community of
Nepean, which reopened on April 3, 2014, keeping the number of stores at three. In September 2014, the last Zellers in Western Canada, at
Semiahmoo Shopping Centre in
Surrey, British Columbia, was closed, leaving only two stores remaining nationwide: at Kipling Queensway Mall in
Etobicoke, Ontario, and Bells Corners in Nepean, Ontario. Both locations were closed by January 26, 2020.
2021–2025: Hudson's Bay store-within-a-store relaunch department store at
Erin Mills Town Centre,
Mississauga In September 2021, as a pilot project, HBC relaunched the Zellers brand as a
pop-up shop within a
Hudson's Bay department store at the
Burlington Centre mall in
Ontario. Essentially a
store-within-a-store concept, it sported hanging Zellers logo banners, the classic red-and-white painted walls colour scheme, and red floor lines to mark off one small section within the Hudson's Bay store. While offering a limited selection of goods, including Canada-branded apparel, bedding, housewares and toys, it mainly was intended to invoke a "fun and nostalgic experience" according to HBC. At the time, HBC stated more Hudson's Bay locations may use the concept in the future. Subsequent reporting by trade publication
Retail Insider indicated the pop-up location may have been prompted by
trademark filings by an unrelated group that had opened two stores under the Zellers (as well as
Kmart Canada) brands after HBC allowed a trademark on the Zellers logo to expire in 2020; HBC sued the group to prevent what it alleged to be unauthorized use of a brand that it still controlled. Some retail analysts believed the re-introduction of Zellers was primarily due to HBC's lawsuit over protection of its trademark, using it as a demonstration of ownership of the brand, and doubted any successful expansion or revitalization of the former chain. In March 2023, HBC formally brought back the Zellers brand as an e-commerce website and physical space within 12 select Hudson's Bay stores in Ontario and Alberta. By April 2023, there were 25 Hudson's Bay stores across Canada with a Zellers-themed section. After another wave of openings in August, it was announced in September 2023 that the totality of Hudson's Bay locations would have Zellers spaces by the end of the month. The Zellers shops ranged in size from , with the first 25 locations being typically larger than the ones that opened later in the year. In March 2025, HBC filed for bankruptcy and began a liquidation and closure of most of its stores. On June 1, 2025, all HBC stores ceased retail operations and permanently closed. Most of HBC's intellectual properties were acquired by
Canadian Tire. However, that deal did not include Zellers.
2025: Relaunch under Les Ailes de la Mode On August 28, 2025, a relaunch of the Zellers brand was announced under new ownership,
Les Ailes de la Mode. Although initially set to open on August 29 and then September 1, it ultimately opened on October 30, 2025. The first location, since that date, is run by the parent company of Fairweather and International Clothiers, in an anchor space formerly held by a
Hudson's Bay at
Londonderry Mall in
Edmonton. In January 2026, Zellers announced it was planning to expand across Canada. ==Stores==