Roses Express (Former Fred's), Byhalia, MS

Today's post highlights Marshall County, MS, retail.

Five years ago this month, Fred's declared bankruptcy and closed the last of its remaining 80 stores.

Instead of starting with a cliche, I'll tell you the truth: it's actually pretty easy to believe it was that long ago; I just don't necessarily want to believe it. From the beginning, I covered the Fred's story here on the blog, as various store closure lists were released throughout 2019. Even though Fred's was nonexistent by the end of October, I had photographed enough stores to keep the posts going on a quarterly basis for the next couple of years. This series was not immune to my overall slowdown in posting, so by the time I got to the final posts, they were published a year apart. Ultimately, last year I shared with you guys the last of my photos of an operational Fred's store, but I promised the posts weren't over yet. I've gotten plenty of pictures of former Fred's stores enjoying new life as other retailers, and today we finally get to begin that series. The timing works out pretty nicely to mark the occasion of the somber anniversary, and this particular location is perhaps the most fitting, given I photographed it twice: once with the new retailer, of course, but also once beforehand, after Fred's closed but before anything had been done to the building.

The store in question is the Fred's in Byhalia, MS, the eastern neighbor to my longtime former home of DeSoto County. Before I-269 came along, we used to travel through Byhalia to catch Highway 78, so I actually remember seeing this store under construction way back in 2011. By 2013, it was fully open and packing a pretty big crowd, as can be shown in the Google Earth screenshots below (ignore the taskbars that I'm too lazy to crop out).

The store was built in the newest architectural style for the chain, quite the departure from its past: a big gray box with a striking blue entryway area, accented by a light green canopy. The similarly-new Fred's logo helped inform the design choices here; I dove a lot deeper into the prototype's origins (as Fred's Smallmart!) back at this post of the Church Road store in Southaven, which to date is the only other store of this build era that I've posted to the blog. 

That Church Road store, however, bore a later, all-brick iteration of this design, so Byhalia actually got the honor of being the first (and, I suppose, only) store I'd visited of this particular "gray box" prototype while still wearing its Fred's livery. As such, I went a bit overboard photographing the place.

The fact that it was April 2020 also explains my overload of photographs. As I've mentioned before, during the lockdown period my family did a decent amount of random driving around, just to be able to get out of the house. Visiting a vacant Fred's parking lot in the neighboring county sounded as good a plan as any for this day.

I'm not exactly sure what caused that darker gray patch there on the bottom left of the image above. Is that fresher paint? A water stain of some sort? You can definitely see water stains next to the main logo.

The pharmacy closed before the store itself did, but you could still see the labelscar on the corner of the building clear as day. While the pharmacy lettering was removed, nothing was done to disguise the former drive-thru, and the smaller Fred's logos over on this side of the building were not removed, making them more than a bit redundant.

This Fred's seemed like a popular place while it was open, not only due to its placement at the intersection with Hwy 78 (now I-22), but also just because it brought another shopping option along to Byhalia, a place which doesn't seem to have too many of those. Aside from a Reed's Market (former Piggly Wiggly) in town, the nearest Walmarts to Byhalia residents are about 20-30 minutes away in either direction (Hernando and Holly Springs, respectively). There's your usual Dollar General (now remodeled into a DG Market) and all, but not a whole lot else.

Green tape was used to cover up the "pharmacy" lettering on the roadside sign, but not enough to extend over to the ampersand. So I guess this was a "Fred's & Super Dollar" for its last months in operation.

This store, at 15 East Stonewall Road, was included in the July 12, 2019, closure list, which was the final listing before the store's ultimate bankruptcy filing on September 9 (okay, so the filing was actually the month prior, whatever). Given that only 80 stores survived into October (down from over 550 to start the year), and there were several other closing lists before this one, the fact that it made it that far was probably a good indication of its level of business. 

A few shots of a cart return at the edge of the parking lot. Since no one bothered to remove all the Fred's signage from the property, I probably could've taken this cart corral sign if I had wanted to, but it looked more than a little dingy, so I passed.

While that cart corral at the edge of the lot was a separate piece, something I found probably way more interesting than a normal person is the inclusion of a built-in cart return in that landscaping island you see there in the center of the lot. Zoom in to the first photo of the set of three above to see it closer, or pay attention to any of the other shots in this set where it is present. It's not like a store this size really needed more than one cart return, so building it into the landscaping island was a pretty neat move, and not one that I've seen often in person (although I am aware that other chains have used that tactic elsewhere).

You'd think I'd have wrapped up my photography at the edge of the parking lot there, but nope, I circled back for some more. Definitely running out of things to say at this point, lol.

One thing I will say about this building design is that I like its inclusion of windows on the storefront. That definitely helps keep it from being too ugly or boxy (even though it probably still meets both of those criteria). Plus, it lets natural light into the salesfloor, of which I am a huge fan. Curious to hear y'all's thoughts on the architecture. Does the brick version make it any better, even though it is still fundamentally the same design?

Finally, here are my last photos of the closed Byhalia Fred's from April 2020, including one more shot of that landscaping island cart corral. Following this visit, the store continued to sit vacant for several more months, until September 17, 2020, when I received in my inbox from friend of the blog publisher73 the following newspaper article from Holly Springs's The South Reporter:

Courtesy publisher73

Courtesy publisher73

Roses Express was confirmed to be moving into the former Byhalia Fred's, with a soft opening scheduled for later that month. The quote from Byhalia's mayor says it all: "We're happy to be able to fill that building. That building is very visible, and this new business means a lot to our town."

That article also includes a nice, succinct summary of the history of both Roses and its parent company, Variety Wholesalers, Inc. Feel free to enlarge the images to read that bit. Variety Wholesalers is owned by Art Pope, and a good article about him and the company from 2017 can be found here. That article details part of what keeps the company going: "What’s noticeable about Roses, though, is how little it is changing. There is no e-commerce. No acquisitions since 2003. No newly constructed stores, only rehabs. No customer-loyalty program. Same CEO and same chief operating officer since 2006. The company headquarters is in the same downtown Henderson space where P.H. Rose opened his third store."

Even in more recent times, there has been little change to that strategy. While other retailers took a hit during the pandemic, Variety's stores actually saw an uptick in business, "as we were one of the few retailers that were open" and owing to the stores' positioning as a "one-stop shop," "bigger than a Dollar Store and smaller than a Walmart, offering a safe option for customers to get all their shopping done at once." Moreover, all those store closings before and during COVID led to "increasing opportunities for us to find new locations," according to Art Pope, something that serves as "confirmation for our proven concept, that we have been able to be fine in this environment." About the only change is that after that 2017 article was written, a new CEO was welcomed: Bruce Efird, who you may recognize as none other than a former CEO of Fred's. The CEO at the helm during the time period in which Fred's reached its peak, as a matter of fact.

Efird noted in 2017 that part of what lured him to Variety Wholesalers was "the consistent growth that the company has demonstrated over the past several years, with exceptional plans to continue," and indeed, that growth has continued, and he is still CEO today. I would imagine that his past experience with Fred's has in no small part contributed to the major growth of the Roses Express concept in recent years, as well. While a typical Roses store is much larger, somewhere in the realm of 30-50,000 square feet, Roses Express occupies a footprint closer to half that, around 15,000 square feet or so. And, unsurprisingly, Roses Express has opened up in more than a few former Fred's locations. The collage I compiled below is just a small presentation of some of the earliest Fred's-to-Roses conversions to take place; there have been more in the years since. Locations shown range from Kentucky to the Carolinas, Louisiana to Georgia, Alabama and even to two of the formerly franchised Fred's locations, in Vicksburg and Grenada, MS. (Roses also took over the franchise location in Greenville, AL.) Some opened prior to Fred's bankruptcy, some after, but all seem to be very good proof of the resilience of the Roses Express concept and the business acumen of Variety Wholesalers, under the leadership of a former Fred's CEO, to seize a good opportunity to return a vital, similar business to where the later-years mismanagement of Fred's left towns abandoned.

At the Cadiz, KY, store, the Fred's "Low Prices!" sign even got to be reused!

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I'm glad to see all these former Fred's stores find new life, and even though there are many other suitors out there than just Roses Express (as you'll see in the future when this series continues!), I find that there is a nice bit of irony involved in these particular conversions, almost as if these locations are flocking back to their preferred CEO. Again, I have no doubt that Bruce Efird's former Fred's experience is helping drive these locations' success as new additions to the Roses portfolio. In fact, as I wrote five years ago: "Clearly, since he spearheaded much of Fred's growth as the company approached its peak, Efird must have a strong knowledge of, and connection to, the towns where Fred's once operated and has now departed, and I'm certain he and the rest of the team at Variety/Roses must be looking closely at the various opportunities arising from Fred's downfall and liquidation."

The Byhalia Roses Express was my first experience at a Variety Wholesalers-owned store, and I visited not terribly long after it had opened, on Halloween Day of 2020. Aside from that pic of the roadside sign, we begin with the interior of the store... I want to save the exterior for the end.

Clothing lines the left side of the store's interior. Shoes are at the back left corner, with housewares beyond that. A health and beauty section is straight ahead in the aisles when you enter. My pictures kind of jump around a little bit, so I apologize if any of the orientation is somewhat unclear.

As we look toward the front in the first pic above, notice how much of a difference those windows make! The other two pics take us along the back wall. All of the shelving in here is left over from Fred's; notice the signature blue lines where the price tags used to go.

The green stripe along the walls is also a Fred's leftover; in the first interior pic back at the top, you can also see the old Fred's "Restrooms" sign still hanging on. Not a whole lot that feels terribly different in here, but I imagine that was exactly the point! Even merchandise-wise, Roses Express carries much of the same categories, and with quite the variety, too (if you're paying close attention to these images).

A couple of rear actionway shots looking back over towards men's apparel, joined in the middle by a phone stand/side table. I took that picture for a couple of reasons: one, it's not often these days you see a corded phone like that! But two, notice the price tag: I don't think that's a sticker, I think that is printed straight onto the box. In other words, this was manufactured specifically for Variety Wholesalers. This isn't anything unusual, of course, I just found it interesting.

The decor package here may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done. It also gets major points from me on using the correct "e" in "decor"! (You'll notice that even I myself am not using it in my blog posts these days... it used to autocorrect for me, but now it doesn't, and I'm too lazy to go copy and paste the correct version...) Nice shopping baskets, too. Notice these just say Roses, as opposed to Roses Express. Also worth mentioning is how the exterior Roses Express signage carefully elaborates "Discount Store," for anyone unfamiliar with the brand.

Cleaning supplies along the right-hand wall bring us into the grocery and health and beauty aisles in the center of the salesfloor. Such high-profile positioning for those departments is not uncommon; other dollar store chains on up to even Big Lots are known to do this. I know that at least where I am concerned, food is definitely the department I flock to the most when visiting a new place like this!

A center cut-through aisle was maintained in the center-store area, and the wood floor area in the front right corner that used to be home to apparel (and presumably, later on in Fred's life, groceries) is now home to toys and seasonal merchandise as Roses Express. The register queue setup is also likely original to Fred's, although those checkout lights look a bit too dated to remain from the Fred's days. (That of course must mean they were actually freshly installed by Roses, but given Roses' lack of propensity for change, I'm not surprised the design is old-looking in that case!)

A couple more jumping-around shots (but both looking towards the left-hand wall) before taking us to a fun sight: some old Fred's-branded pencil sharpeners for sale!! If you couldn't tell, Roses employs a bit of a closeout model with its stores, so I wasn't surprised to see something like this show up here, but I sure was excited. A neat little cherry on top...

Two last interior pics to close us out, before finally we get to head outside and see the exterior. This last pic takes us straight across one more time to the clothing department, which occupies the space of the former pharmacy. It looks like Roses built out a small fitting room over there, too -- not unlike the type Fred's had been known to use in the past!

Obviously the interior didn't change that drastically, and outside, here's some more fun for you: neither did the exterior! It was a long shot to expect any change to the architecture, of course, but I thought they might spring for a bucket or two of paint, at the very least. Instead, nope: the good old Fred's blue and green colors get to live another day here in Byhalia, just joined by a new red Roses sign, haha!

Even better -- the Fred's Pharmacy labelscars are visible plain as day on the corner!! How neat. In a way, this almost could symbolize to the customer part of Roses' business mantra: change only what's necessary, and don't fix what's not broken. Granted, that's just me overanalyzing, as surely this decision was just a cost-saver rather than anything with actual thought put into it... but still.

Last but not least, a trio of views from afar of the store up on the hill, followed below by my receipt and shopping bag. I've gotta say, comical though it is to see the old Fred's colors still intact, they don't look bad at all newly adopted by this Roses Express! Really the only unfortunate part is the two (still present) distinct water runoff stains to either side of the logo on the building -- which I have to imagine won't be going anywhere anytime soon, unless Roses breaks out a can of Fred's blue...

That'll do it for this post, the first in our series of "life after Fred's." I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Roses Express (either this store in particular, or the concept in general) in the comments! Right now I've got about six or so additional posts up my sleeve, with the option to always add more as I come across additional reinhabited Fred's stores. So even though we are now five years out from Fred's demise, this certainly isn't the last you'll be hearing of them on the blog. Stick around for more posts in the future, and until then and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell