Amid COVID pandemic, these Des Moines metro retailers closed in 2021

As the pandemic stretches into its second year, the Register is reminiscing about some of the businesses that closed in the Des Moines metro in 2021. 

Some of the non-essential businesses that shuttered their doors in March 2020 reopened to customers with extra stimulus checks to spend, while others remained permanently closed. Nationally, around 85% of businesses that initially closed have since reopened

This year retail outlets from an 80-year-old barber to a haberdashery started by a survivor of the Holocaust permanently closed their doors. 

Here are retailers that have closed in the metro in 2021: 

Badowers

The men's clothing store Badowers announced closed after a final sale in June 2021.

After surviving four years at the Dachau Concentration Camp, Polish immigrant Fred Badower opened his menswear haberdashery in 1950, first in his west-side Des Moines home and later in the Shops at Roosevelt.

After a fire destroyed the shop in 1953, Badower swore to reopen in all its glory.

“Once Hitler took away all I had, but after the war I started with my 10 fingers and built a business,” he told the Des Moines Register after the first fire. “I still have my 10 fingers and I’ll start again, little by little, and some day I’ll have a shop again.”


https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/retail/2021/12/30/amid-covid-pandemic-des-moines-metro-retailers-stores-closed-2021/6420259001/