Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We turn the page from the New York State budget and talk about what, a call in to say goodbye to a store that you may associate with important moments in your life. The question is, what milestones from your life do you associate with Bed Bath & Beyond? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Did you hear that Bed Bath & Beyond is closing? After 52 years of supplying the American family with towels, beddings, small kitchen appliances and more, the era of Bed Bath & Beyond is coming to an end. On Sunday, the company announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plans to close its remaining 360 stores.

Now, this comes after a steady decline in sales due to heavy competition from Amazon, Target and Walmart. In particular, low inventory levels spurred low foot traffic and increasing inflation over the years served as the final nail in Bed Bath & Beyond's coffin. Buybuy BABY, owned by Bed Bath & Beyond, is also expected to shut all 120 of its stores, although the Washington Post predicts a buyer for that chain is more likely to materialize.

For the question everyone is asking, what's going to happen to my collection of Bed Bath & Beyond coupons? Unless you intend on making a purchase today, that's right, today, as I understand it, your coupons are as good as gone, Bed Bath and Be Gone. Let's say goodbye to Bed Bath & Beyond with a call in now. Listeners, what milestones from your life do you associate, at least a little bit, with Bed Bath & Beyond? 212-433-WNYC.

Wow, our lines were already full, so I barely have to explain that I ask this because, chances are, if you went off to college or got your first apartment in the last 50 years, you pretty likely went to Bed Bath & Beyond to purchase your essential home goods. Does Bed Bath & Beyond remind you of, I don't know, your first taste of freedom and independence or anything like that? 212-433-WNYC. Or when you first got married, did you create your wedding registry at Bed Bath & Beyond, maybe walking down the BB&B aisles with your significant other? Picking out things for your shared life is just as memorable as walking down that other aisle around the time you said yes.

Similarly, if you had a baby sometime in the last three decades, not to leave out buybuy BABY, maybe that's where you purchased some of your early gear. Perhaps it was picking out a crib in the Chelsea buybuy BABY that made you realize, "Oh, no, I'm actually about to be a parent." Whatever the memory, you have space to share it here. Call in with your Bed Bath & Beyond eulogies and buybuy BABY too at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 and we'll take those calls in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls with memories, milestones in your life that you will always associate at least a little bit with Bed Bath & Beyond or buybuy BABY as they get ready to close their stores. I talked about weddings, I talked about going away to college, talked about first babies. There's at least one category I apparently left out. Nicky in Brooklyn is here to tell us what it is. Nicky, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Nicky: Hey. Hi. I'm losing my voice. Sorry about that. You didn't mention divorce. How many people had to get their own place after I don't know how many years and went to Bed Bath & Beyond and got, I don't know, sheets and towels and whatever you get but I remember doing it 20 years ago.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Nicky, thanks for putting it out there. I'm sure you're not the only one. Julia in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Julia.

Julia: Hi, Brian. I was just talking about my memories of when I got to college and you made friends with people because they also had coupons and even expired coupons to Bed Bath & Beyond. It was such a special place for us. Then after we graduated, we got to see it celebrated on Broad City and that was like, "Yes, this is us. This is our friendship." It defines so much of our move-ins and move-outs over the years.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I have heard that the expired coupons are good forever as long as you bring them to the store in person. Do you know if that's true?

Julia: It is true.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, yes.

Julia: You can stack them. You can use more than one at a time. You can use your 20% off plus your $5 off more-- They put them all together. You just have to have a cashier with patience.

Brian Lehrer: Julia, thank you very much. Julia will miss Bed Bath & Beyond and stacking the coupons. Yes, I guess the fact that you could keep using them as long as you go in person to the store, so that was not good for the height of the pandemic era, but that's why people kept stacks, because you could keep them and use them and they didn't expire in person.

All right. How about-- Oh, David in Carle Place has a Bed Bath & Beyond story. Hi, David. You're on WNYC.

David: Hi, Brian. How are you? I was an executive with the company in 1992 when we opened up the flagship store on 6th Avenue. I was in the old Siegel-Cooper Building and there were three things about that building that were amazing. One, it had the largest bronze columns in the world. Two, when we went to the sub-basement, we found a totally intact subway station that was no longer being used, and that was the first building in the city to have elevators, and the original elevators were still in the building.

Brian Lehrer: The building was memorable. Was there something about establishing Bed Bath & Beyond as a brand? Well, I guess the ‘90s, it would have already been there for a decade or more. Was there something about trying to establish it that that fancy building helped with or was that just where you happened to get space?

David: Nope, there was nothing like it in the city. There was no place where you could literally get everything and it was just amazing through the whole process.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you for sharing that. Mary in Atlanta has a Bed Bath & Beyond memory. Hi, Mary, you’re on WNYC.

Mary: Hi, Brian. How are you? Yes, I grew up in New Jersey, and my mom worked in a small law firm right next to the original Bed Bath, well, Bed & Bath, it was just Bed & Bath at the time back in the '70s and '80s and yes, she got everything for me when I went off to college. I've moved I can't even tell you how many times in my life, so I was always shopping at Bed & Bath.

I also worked as-- the gentleman right before me, I worked right around the corner from the 6th Avenue store for a few years, and I would just go there on my lunch hour because it was a good way to kill time. I agree, that was a fantastic building and that location, I've lived in a lot of cities, there was no location like that one. That was easily the best I've ever shopped in.

Brian Lehrer: Where do you get that kind of stuff now?

Mary: I hate to say it, Amazon.

Brian Lehrer: See, you're the reason, you and millions of other Americans.

Mary: Well, I shopped there all the time, but in the last few years and the articles I've read, because I was trying to figure out, why did they go out of business, the decisions that they made where they started getting rid of the brands that I would shop there for, because I always loved to go there because of the coupons. I've got a stack. I've got a throne recycling. Once they started getting rid of the stuff we wanted to buy and I couldn't get the stuff, where else was I going to go? Maybe Target but yes, they made it more difficult. I would have much rather have gone in person.

Brian Lehrer: Mary, thank you. Yes. They say Target, Walmart and Amazon. I don't know if that's mostly because of shipping or also just price competition, that for some reason Target and Walmart were able to win on on a lot of items, but there you go. Thank you for your call. Denise in Patchogue, you're on WNYC. Hi, Denise.

Denise: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, Denise.

Denise: Can you hear me? Hi. I have a funny Bed Bath & Beyond story. Many years ago, going on 15 years, my neighbor had gotten into a car accident. She was fine, but she did total her car and it had to be towed to a garage. She knocked on my door one day and she said, "I need a ride to the garage because I have to clean out the glove compartment and I have to get my personal items out of the car." I said, "Sure, fine."

We drove to the garage and the mechanic led us to the car, which was totaled. During the collision apparently, the Bed Bath & Beyond coupons exploded all over the car.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Denise: They were just- -inside the car everywhere. We looked at each other and we went, "Those Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, we have to get them out of the car." The guy just looked at us, the mechanic just looked at us and he's like, "Are you kidding me? That’s your priority?" Look at this car. Look at the condition of this car." We were like, "Open the door. Open the door. We got to get these coupons out of the car." I just thought that was kind of amusing.

Brian Lehrer: That is hilarious and that's a unique memory that you will always have regarding Bed Bath & Beyond. All right, now I think every caller so far has mentioned coupons in one way or another. I think sadly, I have to issue a correction here because we had been told that today was the last day that the coupons would be accepted at Bed Bath & Beyond, but maybe not. Lynn in Clifton is calling about that. Lynn, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Lynn: Hi, nice to speak to you. I just left Bed Bath & Beyond on Route 3 in Clifton and the manager said that the coupons are no longer being accepted and that the entire store is 10% off.

Brian Lehrer: All right, well, that's half a coupon but Lynn, thank you very much. Thank you for filling us in on that. Yes, now my producer is saying there may have been some confusion about that. I'm not exactly sure, but we take Lynn's experience as probably definitive since she was just there, so no more coupons today. Maybe it's not the last day that they will accept coupons. Maybe that day was yesterday, but she said 10% off. All right, we're taking your memories of Bed Bath & Beyond, and the role that it played in any milestone in your life as the chain gets ready to go out of business.

Oh, okay, we're blaming the Washington Post, huh? Yes, all right. The Washington Post said today, so who knows? Maybe Lynn in Clifton, you have to go back to that Bed Bath & Beyond on Route 3, show them the newspaper, and say, "Hey, your last act is trying to cheat me out of another 10% off." Liz in Newton, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Liz.

Liz: Hi, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. My Bed Bath & Beyond story is my house totally burned down in 2010 in June. We rebuilt and moved back into a new home in 2011, and through my community, I got a lot of donations of gift cards. I went straight to Bed Bath & Beyond. At the time, I was a single parent, two toddlers, for whatever reason, my oldest son was very terrified of the toilet.

When I went to the Bed Bath & Beyond, I'd heard about Squatty Potty, never really knew what it was. Went to the Bed Bath & Beyond, and lo and behold, they had a wall of Squatty Potties, and they were like 50% off for whatever reason. I don't know, a lot of people I guess, don't like it. I got that thing from Bed Bath & Beyond and after that, my son was not terrified of the toilet because he could put his feet on something and not fall in.

Brian Lehrer: The soothing memory of Bed Bath & Beyond, giving you that-

Liz: Yes, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: -potty training glide path. Liz, thank you very much. All right, we could do at least one more here. Jenny in Norwalk, you're on WNYC. Hi Jenny.

Jenny: Hi. Yes, my strong memory of Bed Bath & Beyond was when it was the newcomer versus Linens 'n Things. I had been a Linens 'n Things fan and a friend of mine, much more savvy had said, "Well, Bed Bath & Beyond, they do merchandising. You don't want to go to Linens 'n Things because Bed Bath & Beyond does this," and I said, “What’s merchandising?" Of course, everybody today knows what merchandising is, it's really showcasing products in a pretty way. Really, what Bed Bath & Beyond did was transform the experience of being in one of those home stores to kind of making it destinationy and pretty. It’s just so interesting to see that whole chapter ending now. I will never forget. I always think of merchandising when I think of them.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, for better or worse, right, for better or worse. You learned about merchandising that way. Oh, I'm going to sneak in Nicole in Bloomfield because she's calling with something serious I think, and really important that we say out loud. Nicole, we have 20 seconds for you. Go.

Nicole: Hi. Really quick, I used to recruit for the corporate office in Union, New Jersey. The people who work at corporate and in all the stores are incredible, just really some of the best people I've ever worked with. If you see somebody who has corporate experience or even just retail experience who’s worked at Bed Bath & Beyond, know that they're really a quality candidate and they should be hired immediately.

Brian Lehrer: A, it's a New Jersey-based company, and B, besides all the shopping memories, so many people are losing their jobs over this bankruptcy, so we honor them. Nicole, we hear your recommendation for the people who work for the company. That's The Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Stay tuned for Alison Stewart. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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