99 Cents Only

99 Cents Only Stores is a value-focused retailer that historically specialized in closeouts and everyday consumables at sharp discounts across the western United States. The company was founded in 1982 by Dave Gold in Los Angeles, where it built a loyal following around a simple promise: every item in the store could be purchased for 99 cents or less. Over time, as costs changed and the assortment broadened, the chain moved from a strict single-price approach to a multi-price format while keeping its focus on low-price everyday goods.

From its Los Angeles roots, 99 Cents Only grew steadily across California and into Arizona, Nevada, and Texas, becoming a familiar discount anchor in neighborhood centers and big-box environments. A major milestone came in 1996 when the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange, which helped fund a faster pace of openings and investment in distribution infrastructure. By around 2013, 99 Cents Only operated more than 300 locations and had evolved into a regional draw for frequent trips covering food, household supplies, seasonal merchandise, and basic general goods.

Over the last decade, the chain gradually shifted away from its original fixed-price positioning and leaned more heavily on multiple price points and clear value-per-unit messaging. This change brought it into more direct competition with grocers, mass merchants, and other dollar-store operators. The stores typically occupied small to mid-size box footprints suited to discount grocery and variety retail, often in grocery-anchored centers, power centers, and older urban corridors in dense, value-oriented trade areas.

In the five years leading up to 2024, 99 Cents Only continued to rework its pricing, merchandising, and store base as it faced mounting operational and financial pressure. That period culminated in an April 2024 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and a decision to liquidate the operating business. At that time, the company announced that all 371 remaining stores, along with its distribution centers and corporate facilities, would be closed and wound down.

A significant turning point followed in May 2024, when Dollar Tree, Inc. acquired the intellectual property associated with The 99 Store/99 Cents Only Stores and the leases for 170 former store locations. As of May 2024, Dollar Tree indicated that many of these sites are expected to be converted to its own Dollar Tree or Family Dollar banners, keeping a substantial portion of the real estate in active discount retail use even as the original operating company is liquidated. The precise number of locations still trading under the 99 Cents Only name as of May 2024 is not known, but the legacy business is no longer pursuing new store growth.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, 99 Cents Only represents a long-established value retailer whose former boxes sit in proven, traffic-generating trade areas across California, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. The combination of a recognizable brand history, a large pool of vacated but well-located sites, and Dollar Tree’s lease acquisition and planned conversions has turned the chain’s former footprint into an active source of backfill, re-tenanting, and repositioning opportunities in discount-anchored retail space.