Kmart

I’m old enough to remember the glory days of Kmart. Did Kmart ever really have glory days? They sure as hell did! When I went to college in upstate New York the Kmart in Victor was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It was country club Kmart and it was divine. The store was white and glittery. Pristine. It was more on the level of Target with competitive pricing to Walmart. I bought a decent, black silk blouse there that I still wear to this very day. I used to love their home décor selection. They had cute bath and kitchen accessories that weren’t nearly as kitschy as the shit Walmart had to offer. However, Kmart in Gonzales, LA … A disgrace. A travesty. A fucking travesty, even. What the hell happened?
I know Kmart Corp. has been in dire straits for a while now, so when I stopped in the other day to seek out Halloween decorations I wasn’t expecting Bergdorf Goodman’s, but not only is this place dank, dingy, and dated, but it’s literally falling apart. Seriously! The floor is uneven. Water stains tinged a charming shade of sewage brown adorn the ceiling.
There’s this stench throughout the entire premise that greets you upon entering. It’s that Dollar Shop funk smell of cheap rotting plastic, vulgar scented candles, and sheer cheapness. This is acceptable if I’m at Dollar General or Family Dollar where I’m getting my shit dirt fucking cheap, but this particular Kmart seemed pricier than any Walmart. On a Friday afternoon the place was desolate. Since nobody goes here I guess they have to charge more in order to stay alive.
The shelves are either bare (like a store preparing to permanently shut down for all eternity) or a hot mess of ramshackle grossness. Nasty Frozen dolls from a Chinese sweatshop are thrown haphazardly in with a Chicago Bears bean bag pillow. That’s another thing about this hovel … It seems to be having a major geography crisis. Strewn in with the various Saints and LSU paraphernalia there were Penn State sweatshirts. Yes, fucking Penn State in Louisiana! They also had a bunch of Pittsburgh Steelers, Greenbay Packers, and Denver Broncos shit. Why? Why?
For the one Greenbay Packers fan who may be gallivanting around bumfuck Gonzales is it really worth it to stock such an odd ball sports team?
As for my Halloween shopping plans? Completely thwarted. These guys don’t have shit. One bedraggled aisle of strewn about, mangy, kiddie costumes and a couple shelves of lame-​ass and horrendously overpriced decorations. They had this small, plastic mummy dog that was $ 25. Target and Walmart’s Halloween selection puts this place to utter shame. Hell, even Albertson’s, a fucking grocery store, has more Halloween finery for sale.
I can’t comment on the employees or customer service because I didn’t buy anything at this dump. I didn’t want an overpriced, totally not scary mummy dog, or a musty Penn State sweatshirt.
On a nostalgia note, I did see an Arctic Blast machine just like the ones they used to have at the movie theaters back in the day. I hadn’t had an Arctic Blast in ages. It’s been at least 15 years. I would have treated myself to one, but I figured since the rest of the place is overflowing with gnarliness, do I really want to actually put something from this hell hole into the shrine known as my body? To actually drink and swallow it? Hell’s no! The very thought makes my skin crawl.
The past few years have not been kind to olé Kmart. I wonder how my posh country club Kmart up in Victor, NY is doing lately? Probably better than this one. Sure as hell wouldn’t take much.

Worst store ever!!! Worst customer service ever! Stood in checkout line for 10 minutes. Could have just walked out of the store with all my stuff. They need to just shut the store down!

Can’t get thru check out lines. Hardly any lines open and don’t try to ask a question. No clue how they stay open.

Went there today after many months and had probably the best experience ever and I have to thank Shondrea my cashier for that

Ok, it’s K-​Mart. I’m pretty sure I’ve never once in my life heard anybody say that K-​Mart is their favorite store. Believe it or not, when I lived in Covington I really did enjoy going to the one in Mandeville. It was kept reasonably clean and well stocked and organized. That is not the case with the one here in Gonzales. Shit is just kind of strewn everywhere, and if you’re looking for a specific item be prepared to spend a couple hours walking the store. The employees are no more likely to know where something is to be found than you are. Many shelves are empty or largely understocked. Prices can be difficult to locate on items and even if you do find a price on the shelf, you’ll want to double check it at a scanner as they often are different from what the tag says. And the filth. I’m pretty much just echoing the previous reviews here, but I don’t think this place has been dusted or mopped in years. The employees are not friendly, and if you are lucky enough to get ones attention away from chatting with their fellow employees, they will act as if helping you with a small task is equivalent to performing one of the Labors of Hercules. Bitch please, I’m not asking you to slay the Nemean lion, I just need help finding a jacket in my size. After the hassle of shopping here, you get to the checkout and get a little optimistic that your time in this dungeonesque market is nearly at an end. Unfortunately, the cashiers they have at the registers appear to be hybrids of people and 3-​toed sloths, because they move ssssssoooooo ssssssllllllllloooooowwwww. Scanning 10 items will, on average, take them the better part of 5 minutes. I’m not even sure how. There must be some sort of temporal rift underneath the registers that distorts the very fabric of time itself. With these myriad problems, it’s no wonder that K-​Mart has become a thing of the past, and you see fewer and fewer of them with each passing year. The ONLY reason I can suggest going here, and that they deserve slightly more than one star, is that the severe lack of people willing to risk rummaging this ramshackle retailer means that they often have to mark things down to extremely low clearance prices. However, it can often take a few hours searching to pay off with just a few really cheap items, so it’s up to you to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.

Kmart is most definitely not what it used to be. This store is dirty and overpriced. Only thing going for this store is that it still does layaway. The cashiers hair was still in a wrap, didn’t even bother to comb it down and there were several employees outside singing. I won’t be back

I was reminded why I never go to Kmart when I went in here. Its dirty and the employees were not friendly at all.