Rand's Hallmark Stores Closing Monday, Being Auctioned Tuesday

By Karen Sorensen, Joliet Patch Editor 

All six Rand's Hallmark stores, including the Tinley Park location at Brookside Marketplace, will close by day's end, employees confirmed Monday.

It's possible the stores will be assumed into the corporate Hallmark chain, purchased by another Hallmark franchise owner or independent buyer, or closed completely, said Joliet resident Val Rand, who no longer manages the business that bears his name but remains 80 percent invested. 

The stores are to be auctioned Tuesday.

"In this depression—I call it a depression—retail got hurt worse than anything," Rand said. "We lost 40 percent of our business in 2008."

The business, with stores at 7344 W. 191st St., and in Orland Hills, Frankfort, Joliet, Oswego and Lockport, went into receivership and is now facing bankruptcy, he said. 

In the last five years, Rand and partner Gary Watland shut down several stores, including those in Romeoville and Naperville, and Rand was forced out of management of the chain two years ago when it was decided that there was not enough income to support both partner owners, he said.  

"I've lost my entire life savings," Rand said. "Everything I had is going to be claimed in this bankruptcy."

Rand, a Barrington native, came to Joliet in 1967 when he was employed by the Hallmark Co. and worked in the printing division, he said. He decided to open a Hallmark store as a franchise, and expanded from there, he said.

That they would be dealt such a devastating blow in the 2008 economic recession could not have been foreseen, Rand said. But the high-end card and gift industry is a luxury business when people need to cut back on their spending, he said.

Still, he is hopeful the stores will remain in business, either purchased by the Hallmark Co. and run as a corporate business or by another Hallmark franchise owner.

At the Crest Hill location, an employee said the stores would be auctioned Tuesday, at which time workers will learn if they're completely out of a job or if someone else will step in and keep one or more of the stores going.

An employee at the Tinley Park location said she didn't know if that store would be picked up by the parent company or another business interest. The Tinley Park manager wouldn't be in until later Monday night to close the store, she said.