Cracker Barrel was the latest company to announce it is leaving the Portland, Oregon area shortly after Walmart announced its departure after comments from the CEO that crime and theft were taking their toll.
Cracker Barrel, which has over 600 locations nationwide, blamed the COVID 19 pandemic for closing its last eateries in the Portland metro area.
As a standard course of business, we constantly evaluate the performance of our stores using various criteria to make sure we are meeting the needs of our guests and our business, the company said in a statement.
We are saddened that we have not been able to overcome the impact the pandemic has had on our business and have made the difficult decision to close the Beaverton, Tualatin and Bend locations on March 20. The decision to close a store is never lightly taken lightly and our focus is right now on assisting our impacted employees during this transition. All of its Portland stores were closed due to financial reasons, according to Cracker Barrel.
Walmart said in its announcement that it has nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and unfortunately some don't meet our financial expectations. While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven't performed as well as we hoped. Walmart s CEO had warned that stores would close if retail crime in the country did not subside, just a few months earlier.
Theft is an issue. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in December on CNBC that it is higher than what it has historically been. He said that prices will be higher and stores will close if authorities don't crack down on shoplifting crimes.
Over the last couple of years, crime and homelessness in Portland have been a problem, and the Daily Mail reported that over 2,600 downtown businesses have filed a change of address with the U.S. Last November, a Nike store closed in northeast Portland after a string of brazen shoplifting incidents.
It's time to stop, according to real estate developer and lifelong Portland native Dustin Michael Miller, who spoke to Fox Friends earlier this month, after walking into his office to find bullet holes in the windows.
Our city is out of control. It is unrecognizable. I've lived here my whole life, and it's just deteriorating over the last five years.