Babcock Home Furniture & More in Eustis is officially going out of business. Employees were made aware of the situation this week as the parent company, Conns Furniture, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This means that 160 Conns Furniture stores and over 500 Badcock Home Furniture & More locations will be shutting down in the coming weeks.

We talked with Dolph Burgrabe, one of the managers at the Eustis location, who says, “We are already in the liquidation process. We have a 30-50% sale on items currently in the store and new items as well. All of it has to go. We estimate 12 weeks until the closure of this location.”

We did receive some good news: the owner of the Eustis location, Jason Pate, wants to keep the location as a furniture store. “Mr. Pate indicated that he intends to keep the business open in the future as either another chain or a private furniture company,” says Burgrabe. We are unsure at this time if these plans will affect the employees, but this is a big development that we will continue to monitor.

It is devastating news to hear that Badcock Home Furniture & More will be closing most, if not all, locations in the coming weeks. They have been a staple in Central Florida for many years. In fact, it’s where I got most of my furniture, so to hear this news was sad and a bit shocking. Unfortunately, these are challenging times for retail stores. “Badcock got sold to Conns Furniture a year ago. Unfortunately, the debts continued to pile up, and it didn’t work out as they had hoped. That has led to this situation of a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. I do expect the sales to increase in percentage in the coming weeks as the end of Badcock Home Furniture & More draws closer,” says Burgrabe.

Our thoughts are with all the employees affected. We hope those employees can find jobs in the coming weeks and months ahead. This is a developing situation, and we will update with more info as we know more.

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