It’s ‘party on’ for local Party City stores despite nationwide closures

The Party City location at 9130 W. Broad St. remains open for business under local franchised ownership.

December turned out to be no time to party for Steve Fram.

As the long-time owner of the two Richmond-area Party City stores, the final month of the year would typically be a good one, with folks gearing up for holiday parties and in need of supplies from his locations at 9130 W. Broad St. and 12741 Stone Village Way.

But 2024 ended in an atypical fashion for Fram.

“On Thursday morning, December 19, I got a call from a friend in Florida who said he had heard from a Party City store manager there that all stores would be closing,” Fram recalled. “This came out of nowhere. It was a shocking development.”

What he was hearing was true – mostly. It was true that Party City, the long-running retailer that earlier this year had emerged from bankruptcy, had announced suddenly that it would be going out of business and closing its nearly 900 locations, including nearly 700 in the U.S.

That was all news to Fram for more than one reason.

First, he hadn’t heard a peep from the New Jersey-based corporation. He had received no notice that the mass closure announcement would be coming. Second, the Party City corporation didn’t own Fram’s two local stores. He did. And he still does, as one of the few remaining Party City franchisees dating back decades.

It turns out that among those nearly 900 stores, there remain nine franchisees like Fram who own 29 stores between them. And the corporation, according to their franchise agreements, doesn’t have the power to close those franchised locations. Nor does Fram have any intention of closing his stores. They remain open for business.

One of the signs posted on the West Broad Street store trying to explain the situation.

Still, the confusion was real. Most national headlines from last month and even in the days since make no mention of the existence of the 29 franchised stores.

“I was getting phone calls, texts, emails… I had relatives and friends out of state calling, figuring I’m out of business. On the news it says all stores are closing. The website says, ‘Clearance sales, all stores are closing.’ I said, ‘No, no,’” Fram said.

He had 40 employees between his two stores to try to reassure that their jobs were safe despite what they had seen in the news. And he had customers looking for clarity. He posted messages on the doors of his stores explaining to shoppers that they remained open under local ownership and declaring, “The Parties Won’t Stop Here!”

Fram’s Party City story began in the early 1990s, when he owned his own office supply store in New York. At the time, big chains like Staples, Office Max and Office Depot were starting to gain power and making it hard for smaller players like him to survive. So, he started looking for his next play in the industry and found an ad for an up-and-coming retailer called Party City. It was selling franchises.

“I came across this franchise, applied for it and got it, but I did not have my choice of locations,” said Fram, who at the time was still living in the Northeast. “They said we’ll give you Louisville, Kentucky, or Richmond, Virginia.”

He made his choice and the West Broad Street store opened in 1994, followed two years later by a Chesterfield store located about two miles east of its current Chesterfield spot. Fram expanded further, adding a third local store near Virginia Center Commons before it closed in 2011 after about a decade in business.

Upon starting out in the mid-’80s, Party City had grown to more than 250 franchisees like Fram. But over time, the chain changed its model and started opening mostly corporate-owned stores while taking over control of many of the franchised locations.

Steve Fram

Fram was one of the few that didn’t sell out and all these years later that independence turned out to be a blessing and curse last month.

On the positive side, his franchised status does in fact allow him to keep his stores open despite the broader closures. And he said his franchise agreement allows him and the other eight franchisees to continue to use the Party City name as independent operators.

The downside has been the continued mass confusion due to a lack of communication from corporate. Making it even more precarious, Fram said, is that Party City corporate owns and runs the point-of-sale and inventory management system used by all the chain’s stores, including his. The company also owns Amscan, the world’s largest manufacturer of party goods. It supplies not only Party City stores but other huge retailers like Walmart. That side of the business is also shutting down.

“Eighty percent of what we sell we purchase from them,” Fram said of Amscan. “It cut our lifeline of products.”

Fram said his stores have also been hit by the shutdown of the Party City online sales system, which his customers mainly used for buying inflated balloons.

“The thing that hurt us the most was we did a good bit of business online through the Party City website,” he said. “That was all turned off when the closure was announced.”

But despite all that, and despite receiving no clear communication from Party City corporate since the closure announcements were made, Fram said he and the other eight franchisees aren’t giving up.

“The nine franchisees are sticking together and talking to each other each day and sharing resources,” he said. “We’ll continue to keep the name at this point.”

They’ve managed to keep the product pipeline flowing by joining a co-op for independent party stores, and they are able to use the Party City point-of-sale system at least until Feb. 28 while searching for a new system.

Fram said, for now, there’s been enough foot traffic into his stores and he has enough inventory on-hand to keep the business going and keep his 40 workers employed.

“No one is losing their jobs,” he said.

And while a name change may be necessary down the road, Fram said he’s hopeful the Party City brand still has value and that the reputation of his stewardship of his local operations can sustain it in Richmond.

“Hopefully we’ll go on and maybe business will be better,” he said.