Burdines

Beginning

In 1897, Henry Payne and William M. Burdine opened a dry goods store in the central Florida city of Bartow.^[1] A year later, Payne left the company, and Burdine brought in his son, John, as a partner, resulting in the company's name change to W.M. Burdine and Son. In 1898, Burdine bought a block on South Miami Avenue, one block south of Flagler Street,^[1] in the then-fledgling community of Miami. That year he opened the first W.M. Burdine & Son store at the location, just two years after the first people had arrived in the area from the newly completed Florida East Coast Railway to incorporate the city. His tiny store held only a few shelves of clothing, which were primarily sold to construction workers, soldiers from the Spanish–American War, and the local Miccosukee and Seminole Native Americans. Burdine was amazed with the business that he did in Miami and decided to close his store in Bartow and move his operations base to Miami, changing the business name to Burdines and Sons.^[1]

By 1912, under the leadership of Roddy Burdine,^[3] Burdines had grown into a full-fledged department store and continued expanding. The land-boom of the 1920s helped the store launch its first branch in Miami Beach. As Florida's population soared, so did the growth of Burdines. Over the next thirty years, four other branches opened across the state of Florida.

In the late 1940s, Burdines opened an international mail order program that served Latin America. This resulted in a rise of popularity for the company, and military personnel stationed in Cuba would send a supply ship to Miami every 6 months with orders for Burdines.

Burdine family mausoleum in the Miami City Cemetery

1956–1996

In 1956, Burdines merged with Federated Department Stores, Inc. The financial support given by Federated allowed Burdines to push north and westward in the 1970s and 1980s. They opened stores in Orlando (at Orlando Fashion Square), Tampa (at Tampa Bay Center and University Square), Fort Myers (at Edison Mall), Sarasota (at Southgate Mall), and St. Petersburg (in a freestanding location). In 1971, the Burdines store in Dadeland Mall became the largest suburban department store south of New York.

In 1991, following the 1988 merger of Federated with the Allied Stores Corporation and subsequent bankruptcy reorganization, Burdines absorbed Allied's Tampa-based Maas Brothers/Jordan Marsh Florida division, converting many of the stores to Burdines and closing the rest. The conversion resulted in there being fifty-eight Burdines stores in the state of Florida.

During the 1990s, stores opened at Pembroke Lakes Mall in Pembroke Pines in the Miami Metropolitan Area, Brandon Town Center in Brandon in the Tampa Bay Area, and Seminole Towne Center in Sanford in the Orlando Metropolitan Area.

Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 1996, Burdines sold custom-made FIESTAWARE pitchers by The Homer Laughlin China Company. The pitchers held 67.5 ounces of liquid and stood seven inches tall.

1999–2001

From 1999 to 2001, Burdines experienced major growth, expanding into seven new locations and significantly renovating their existing stores with a lighter color palette and an upgraded decor. The most publicly anticipated stores that opened during this period were those located in expansions of The Florida Mall in Orlando and Aventura Mall in Aventura, while other stores at Citrus Park Town Center in Citrus Park and The Mall at Wellington Green in Wellington were opened with these malls.

During this period, Burdines also tried another new layout at their store in St. Petersburg's Tyrone Square Mall, in an attempt to improve convenience for shoppers. The store upgraded to use a central checkout system and was expected to be more popular among shoppers since they would only need to see a cashier once before leaving. However, the design failed as an employee had to manually apply a coded sticker (identifying who made the sale) to the price tag of each item before customers left the store. Thus, this convenience plan was quickly abandoned by Burdines, and the company resumed using traditional cashier layouts.